Marius and the soldiers' general

Gaius Marius came from Arpinum, a country town southeast of Rome, and no one in his family had ever held high office. Romans called a man like that a novus homo, a new man. The old families never let him forget it.

The war that made him

In the 110s BC Rome was fighting Jugurtha, a North African king who kept bribing his way out of trouble. Sallust, who wrote the main account seventy years later and disliked the old nobility, says Jugurtha called Rome "a city for sale." Marius served there as an officer, then went home and won the consulship for 107 against his commander's wishes. The people's assembly gave him the African command, overriding the Senate's choice. Handing out commands had been the Senate's job. Now voters could take one away.

Volunteers with nothing

Marius needed soldiers fast. Instead of drafting men with property, he took volunteers from the capite censi, the "head count," citizens too poor to be listed by property at all. They had no farm to go back to. Their pay and a plot of land at the end of service depended on their general, because the Senate kept refusing to provide for veterans.

Over the next decades, Roman soldiers learned the lesson. The man who led them was the man who would feed them.

Five years in a row

In 105 BC two migrating peoples from the north, the Cimbri and the Teutones, wiped out two Roman armies at Arausio in southern Gaul. Ancient writers claimed 80,000 Roman dead. That number is probably too high, but the panic was genuine. Italy looked open.

Rome's answer was Marius. He was elected consul for 104, then 103, 102, 101, and 100, five years running, when the rule said ten years between terms. He crushed the Teutones in 102 and the Cimbri in 101, and was hailed as the third founder of Rome. The emergency was real. Most of these breaks happened that way, with a good reason attached.

The year 100

Peace brought a new problem: thousands of veterans wanting land. Marius teamed up with a tribune, Saturninus, who pushed land laws through with help from street gangs. When Saturninus's allies murdered a rival candidate for consul, the Senate passed the final decree again, and Marius, as consul, had to put down his own partner. Saturninus and his followers surrendered and were locked in the Senate house for safety. A mob climbed onto the roof, tore off the tiles, and stoned them to death.

How much was really Marius?

Older textbooks credit him with a whole package called the Marian reforms: volunteers, the cohort as the main fighting unit, an eagle standard for every legion, soldiers carrying their own gear. Many historians now think the package is too tidy. The property bar for service had already been lowered several times during the second century. Cohorts show up in earlier campaigns. Rome had armed the poor in crises before. Later writers liked one hero with one plan.

What does look solid is that in 107 Marius openly recruited the landless, and that the armies after him behaved more and more like private followings.

Switch between the two recruiting patterns. Follow the route from a soldier's livelihood to the person he depends on.