57 Facts About Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was noted for his important reforms of Roman armies.

Gaius Marius set the precedent for the shift from the militia levies of the middle Republic to the professional soldiery of the late Republic; he improved the pilum, a javelin, and made large-scale changes to the logistical structure of the Roman army.

Gaius Marius won election as tribune of the plebs in 119 BC and passed a law limiting aristocratic interference in elections.

Gaius Marius was elected on the basis of his accomplishments, even though he was not known by sight to the electors, as one of the twenty-four special military tribunes.

Gaius Marius won with the support of the Metelli, specifically Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus.

The wealthy continued to try to influence the voting by inspecting ballots, and Gaius Marius passed a law narrowing the passages down which voters passed to cast their votes in order to prevent outsiders from harassing the electors or seeing who was voted for.

Plutarch reports that he then alienated the plebs by vetoing a bill expanding the grain dole, but it is more likely that Plutarch misinterpreted Gaius Marius as vetoing attempts to interfere in the existing grain provisions.

Gaius Marius was able to win acquittal on this charge, and spent an uneventful year as praetor in Rome, likely as either or as president of the corruption court.

Gaius Marius received no triumph on his return, but he did marry Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar.

The match was advantageous to both sides: Gaius Marius gained respectability by marrying into a patrician family and the Julii received a great injection of energy and money.

Sources are unclear on whether Gaius Marius joined the annual race of former praetors for the consulship, but it is likely that he failed to be elected at least once.

In Sallust's long account of Metellus's campaign, no other legates are mentioned, so Gaius Marius was probably Metellus's senior subordinate and right-hand man.

At this point Gaius Marius re-organized a few detachments and led a column of 2,000 men through the Numidians to link up with Metellus.

Gaius Marius soon earned the respect of the troops by his conduct towards them, eating his meals with them and proving he was not afraid to share in any of their labours.

Gaius Marius won over the Italian traders by claiming that he could capture Jugurtha in a few days with half of Metellus's troops.

Gaius Marius allegedly urged Metellus to sentence Silanus to death on charges of cowardice, but then turned on Metellus, arguing that the sentence was disproportionate and overly harsh.

Gaius Marius sent letters back to Rome claiming that Metellus had become enamoured with the unlimited powers associated with his imperium.

The senate prorogued Metellus's command in Numidia, thereby preventing Gaius Marius from assuming command.

Gaius Marius got around this by inducing an ally of his, then-tribune Titus Manlius Mancinus, to have the concilium plebis override the Senate's decision and give him the command.

Metellus refused to personally hand over command to Gaius Marius and returned to Rome.

Gaius Marius found that ending the war was more difficult than he had previously boasted.

Gaius Marius had been supposedly unhappy at receiving the dissolute and libertine Lucius Cornelius Sulla as his quaestor, but Sulla proved a highly competent officer and was well liked by the men.

Unfortunately, this advance brought him near the dominions of Bocchus, finally provoking the Mauretanian into action; in the deserts just west of Serif, Gaius Marius was taken by surprise by a combined army of Numidians and Mauretanians under the command of the two enemy kings.

For once, Gaius Marius was unprepared for action and in the melee all he could do was form defensive circles.

The African kings harried the retreat with light cavalry, but were beaten back by Sulla, whom Gaius Marius had put in command of the cavalry.

Therefore, Gaius Marius resumed negotiations with Bocchus, who, though he had joined in the fighting, had not yet declared war.

Ultimately, Gaius Marius reached a deal with Bocchus whereby Sulla, who was friendly with members of Bocchus's court, would enter Bocchus's camp to receive Jugurtha as a hostage.

News of this defeat reached Rome just shortly after Gaius Marius completed the campaign against Jugurtha successfully.

At the start of his consulship, Gaius Marius returned from Africa in spectacular triumph, bringing Jugurtha and the riches of North Africa to awe the citizenry.

Gaius Marius was assigned the province of Gaul to deal with the Cimbric threat.

Gaius Marius was tasked with rebuilding, effectively from scratch, the Gallic legions.

Gaius Marius trained his troops, built his intelligence network, and conducted diplomacy with the Gallic tribes on the provincial frontiers.

Gaius Marius executed significant and wide-ranging reforms to the legions.

Gaius Marius improved the pilum, a javelin which when thrown and impacting the enemy, would bend so as to be unusable.

Gaius Marius shadowed them, waiting for an opportune moment to attack.

Gaius Marius sent Manius Aquillius with a report to Rome that said 37,000 superbly trained Romans had succeeded in defeating over 100,000 Germans in two engagements.

Gaius Marius suffered some casualties in a minor engagement up in one of the mountain valleys near Tridentum.

Saturninus, after assassinating one of his political opponents to the tribunate, pushed for bills that would drive Gaius Marius's former commanding officer Metellus Numidicus into exile, lower the price of wheat distributed by the state, and give colonial lands to the veterans of Gaius Marius's recent war.

Gaius Marius worked with Saturninus and Saturninus's ally Glaucia to pass the land bill and banish Metellus Numidicus, but then distanced himself from them and their more radical policies.

Around the start of the annual campaign season for the consulship, Gaius Marius attempted to disqualify Glaucia from standing for consul.

Gaius Marius cut the water supply to the Capitoline hill and put Saturninus under a short and decisive siege.

Possibly with Gaius Marius's implied consent, an angry mob broke into the building and, by dislodging the roof tiles and throwing them at the prisoners below, lynched those inside.

Sherwin-White, Gaius Marius "wanted to end his days as vir censorius, like the other great worthies among the novi homines of the second century".

Plutarch states that Gaius Marius's had alienated both senators and the people.

However, scholars have pointed out that Gaius Marius's supposed "humiliation" cannot have been too long-lasting.

Gaius Marius seemed not to have an opinion on Drusus's Italian question.

The next year saw Gaius Marius relieved by Lucius Porcius Cato, one of the consuls, and him excluded from command.

Gaius Marius then sent two of his legates to take the command from Sulla.

The ancient sources say that Sulla's soldiers pledged their loyalty because they were worried that they would be kept in Italy while Gaius Marius raised troops from his own veterans who would then proceed to plunder great riches.

Gaius Marius's faction sent two tribunes to Sulla's legions in eastern Italy, but the tribunes were promptly murdered by Sulla's troops.

Once it became obvious that Sulla was going to defy the law and seize Rome by force, Gaius Marius attempted to organize a defence of the city with gladiators.

Gaius Marius narrowly escaped capture and death on several occasions and eventually found safety with his veterans in Africa.

Gaius Marius demanded the tribunes lift his banishment by passage of law.

Plutarch relates several opinions on the end of Marius: one, from Posidonius, holds that Marius contracted pleurisy; Gaius Piso has it that Marius walked with his friends and discussed all of his accomplishments with them, adding that no intelligent man ought leave himself to fortune.

Plutarch then anonymously relates that Gaius Marius, having gone into a fit of passion in which he announced in a delusionary manner that he was in command of the Mithridatic War, began to act as he would have on the field of battle; finally, Plutarch relates that, ever an ambitious man, Gaius Marius lamented on his deathbed that he had not achieved all of which he was capable, despite his having acquired great wealth and having been chosen consul more times than any man before him.

Gaius Marius's legacy is heavily defined by his example: his five successive consulships, while seen contemporaneously as necessary for the survival of Roman civilisation, gave unprecedented power into the hands of a single man over a never-before-seen length of time.

Gaius Marius's repeated use of the Assemblies to overturn the Senatorial commands had significant negative effects on the stability of the state.