The influence of Gaius Marius

[Gaius44]

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 1^st 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.

[caldrail]

Remember that Caesar was brought up to be a success from childhood, and whilst I don't doubt Marius was influential to some degree, he does not stand out in the same way as Caesar would later in life. As power hungry as Marius was, he still played by the rules, unlike Caesar who would later throw the rulebook into the Rubicon and go for total control albeit in polite style, and his influence was rather more dangerous to Rome than he was personally, in that by creating a persistent legion answerable to him rather than the state, it set in motion precedents that led to the unstable politicisation of the military as legions were no longer part of a national army but instead packets of military force allocated to politicians.

Would Rome have been so very different? No, not really. Specific events and details would be different of course but the same charismatic and ambitious individuals would have nonetheless behaved similarly. Marius made changes that sped up the process that led to the Principate - but those changes were waiting to develop. Roman society was not going to much the better in the circumstances prevailing.

[Gaius44]

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. 

[caldrail]

Marius was only using and adapting changes already in progress within Roman society. His reforms of the legions made official many changes and experiments that had already been used in the Punic Wars. So whilst he is guilty of divorcing Rome's military from the state and making military organisation a much more feudal-esque idea, that was the direction things were going in anyway. One can speculate that characters like Caesar would have made the changes that Marius already had - they certainly seized the opportunities provided.

[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. 

[indianasmith]

I will admit that my view of Marius was largely shaped by Colleen McCullough's depiction of him in FIRST MAN IN ROME and THE GRASS CROWN, however, I think as a writer she definitely used all the available primary sources.  Marius was no doubt a mover and a shaker, and Caesar built on the foundation that Marius laid.  That being said, Marius in his last consulship was not the same man he had been before, and his bloody reign of terror during those frantic two weeks were very much out of character with his previous leadership.  I think that Caesar did his best to avoid the reputation for executions and purges that clouded the reputations of both Marius and Sulla.

 

[caldrail]

There was a notable change for the worse. However, Marius had always been prone to personal rivalries, particularly Metellus and Sulla, thus in a sense one wonders if he wasn't his own worse enemy. In fact, in order to secure consular command on one occaision he attempted to spark a war with Pontus by insulting their king, who was a little wiser than Marius hoped for.