Lucius Cornelius Merula (consul 87 BC)

Lucius Cornelius Merula was a Roman politician of the late Roman Republic who served as suffect consul in 87 BC. He was appointed to replace the deposed and exiled Gnaeus Octavius during the civil war between Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Merula belonged to the Cornelia gens, a prominent patrician family, but not one of its more politically powerful branches. His consulship was overshadowed by the ongoing civil war and the return of Marius to Italy.

Finding himself in a perilous position after Marius’s return to Rome and the subsequent massacre of his political opponents, Merula voluntarily resigned the consulship. Despite this, he was targeted by Marius's faction. To avoid capture and almost certain execution, Merula committed suicide by opening his veins. He took refuge in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus before taking his own life, thus defiling the sacred space. This act added a dimension of religious pollution to the political violence of the time. His death marked a particularly brutal episode in the conflict between the populares and optimates factions within the Roman Republic.