Gaius44

Whilst not disagreeing with what you are saying, it is a bit like saying Newton shouldn't really be given so much credit for his work on gravity and the laws of motion as there were plenty of other people around at that time who would (and did) have arrived at the same theories. My point was that Marius did those things, not that he was the only one able to do them, and as a conseqence we had Sulla, Caesar, Augustus, the Roman Empire and the current shape of western civilisation. We may well have ended up in a similar situation had he not existed but he did and despite his role in shaping the future he is not well known.

I'm in no way comparing Marius and his achievements (great though they may have been) to what Caesar accomplished. However, remember Marius had the money to fund his own army of those citizens too poor to have been conscripted in the normal way. The Julii didn't have access to that amount of wealth so Caesar would not have been able to hold onto his army for as long as he did. The self-funded citizen soldier would have needed to get back to his farm, Marius changed all that and in doing so paved the way for a Caesar.

I have often thought that Gaius Marius must be one of the most influential people of Western Civilisation that so few people have ever heard of. Having run successfully for Consul on consecutive occasions and rewriting the rule book on how to recruit manage and train an army his ‘disagreements’ with Sulla must have had a profound effect on the young Gaius Julius Caesar. Caesar then rose to power on the back of an army fiercely loyal to him (as opposed to the State as it was before Marius) and clung on to it by effectively holding back to back Consulships (under the guise of Dictator) – without Marius’ influence and the very significant military and political changes of the early 1st Century BCE would Caesar have gone as far as he did? If not then there would have been no Augustus and no Empire, there may have still been a collapse of the Republic but would it have led to an expansionist, dynastic State under the rule of a single individual? No Empire and the whole of the European map (physical and political) would be vastly different – even more, with no expansionist policy would there have been a significant Roman influence in the Middle-East; no Rome in Jerusalem with no crucifixions as punishment how would Christianity look without the Roman Empire to first oppose then embrace and export it? I’d be interested to hear others’ views on Marius’ influence and also to hear of any other lesser-known historical figures that seem to have had such a significant impact on who we all are today.

Augustus, Caesar and Seneca (didn't say which one, assuming the younger!). I wonder how much having a knowledge of the individuals influenced the answers. If I'm honest, whilst I'm happy with those results I suspect it is because my bookshelves are over represented in biographies of Caesar and Augustus. If I were honest I'm more naturally suited to a position 'behind the throne' so Seneca may be the more realistic of the three.