Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Marian Reforms

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/EverythingEverywhere - Enter promo code EverythingEverywhere for 83% off and 3 extra months free! When you hear about ancient battles and wars, the stories are often dominated by famous generals whose names have come down to us through history.  However, military success often relied on more mundane things. In the year 107 BC, a Roman general and statesman by the name of Gaius Marius did exactly such a thing when he overhauled the Roman military.  Learn more about the Marian Reforms and how they set the stage for the Roman Empire, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. -------------------------------- Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EEDailyPodcast/ Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you hear about ancient battles and wars, the stories are often dominated by famous generals whose names have come down to us through history. However, military success often relied on more mundane things. In the year 107 BC, a Roman general and statesman by the name of Gaius Marius did exactly such a thing when he overhauled the Roman military. Learn more about the Marian reforms and how they set the stage for the Roman Empire on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day, or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens.

No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally follow. asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. This episode is sponsored by Surf Shark VPN. For those of you who don't know, VPN stands for a virtual private network. It allows you to surf the web through

an encrypted connection through another computer, and that computer can be anywhere. If you don't use a VPN, you should consider doing so for a host of reasons. It can protect you if you're using a public Wi-Fi connection. It can help you get around firewalls in countries that block internet traffic, and it can allow you to access streaming content from countries where it might not be available, like certain movies on Netflix. Surfshark works on your desktop, laptop, or on your smartphone. To start securing your internet connection,

visit surfshark.deals slash everything everywhere. Enter promo code Everything Everywhere, all one word, to get 83% off and three extra months. for free. Once again, that's surfshark.deals slash everything everywhere, promo code everything everywhere, or just click on the link in the show notes. Before we get into the details about what the Marian reforms were, we first need to understand why they were necessary. When Rome started out, it was just a city, and it controlled a small territory. As with every ancient culture, the economy was dependent on agriculture. When wars or battles were fought, they were fought mostly with land-owning farmers. There would often

literally be a season for fighting, usually in the summer after the crops were planted and before they had to be harvested. Moreover, the weapons and armor that a soldier would use had to be purchased by the soldier himself. The more wealthy a soldier was, the better the equipment they could afford to buy. Roman soldiers at this time were either paid poorly or weren't paid at all. The only compensation they received was a share of the spoils of war. In Rome, you weren't allowed to serve in the military unless you had money. One of the several social divisions in Rome was based on wealth and property. How much money you had determined your position in the army. The lowest class were the welletes. They had enough property to qualify for the military,

but not enough to buy weapons or armor. They were skirmishers who would run ahead, throw spears or toss rocks with a sling, and then retreat behind the infantry. The next lowest class, and the front row of the infantry, were the Hastati. They could afford a basic shield and a sword, and were usually the youngest, most inexperienced soldiers. They would often also have a javelin with them that they would throw before they engaged with the enemy. Above them were the Principais. They had even better armor, usually with a helmet, and they stood behind the Hestadi. Behind them were the Terrarii.

They weren't so much an economic group as they were just the most experienced soldiers. In a battle, the Hestadi and the Principais would often switch place in the front line. The Terrarii would often never be used in a battle. They were the elite units, and they were the fighters of last resort. There was actually a Roman saying which said, Rez ad triarios win it, which means it comes down to the triarii, which would be like saying a race was one in the last lap or a game was won at the last second. The top group with the most money was the equestrian class.

They got their name from the fact that they could afford a horse. They were the cavalry in the Roman army and usually served on the flanks of the infantry. The lowest class of Roman society was called the Kapiti-Kensi, which literally means head count. They didn't have property, so in a census they were counted by the head, not by what they owed. They were ineligible for military service. When an army needed to be raised, there would be a lottery to determine who would serve. This was called a delectus, and it was an elaborate ceremony to determine who would serve and who would be the officers. This system of part-time armies and military service based on wealth worked fine when Rome was fighting its neighbors in Italy.

They didn't have to go far and it was easy to come back for the harvest. However, as Rome continued to grow and conquered territories outside of Italy, the system didn't work very well. With provinces in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, soldiers could potentially be gone for years. Moreover, Roman society was becoming significantly more economically stratified with an ever-growing number of people who didn't own property. Small landowners were being pushed out by owners of large estates. You had fewer people who had to make bigger and bigger sacrifices, yet they had a need for more and more soldiers. Gaius Marius was not born in Rome. He came from a family of well-off farmers and rose up in the Roman hierarchy based on his

performance as one of Rome's greatest generals. He held the consulship a record seven times and was called the third founder of Rome. He also led one of the factions in the First Roman Civil War, which is a topic for a future episode. His reforms solved most of the problems that Rome was facing and created some new ones which would be important decades later. His first major reform of the military was completely removing the property requirement for military service. This opened up the army to a huge pool of talent that was prevented from serving, and it would solve their problems of not having enough soldiers. Because this group didn't have to worry about going home to tend to the fields, the army was able to become a permanent standing army.

Soldiers were recruited for a term of 16 years, which was later increased to 20 years under Augustus. They got paid during their service, and at the end of their service, they would be awarded a plot of land in one of the Roman colonies, as well as a pension by their general. This also solved the problem of controlling the provinces. By filling them with veterans, they ensured they had a population of people who could fight, and that held Roman customs. They could defend the territory and romanize it all at the same time. What about weapons? The reason why only landowners could previously serve is that they could afford to have weapons and armor. The onus of equipping an army now fell upon the general instead of the soldiers.

This ensured that everyone would basically have the same equipment rather than having soldiers with radically different equipment. This also had a massive downside, which I will get to in a bit. A standing army was also just a higher quality army. Instead of a group of soldiers who fought occasionally, you now had a group that did nothing but fight and train for years. Roman armies were also now trained to be engineers and builders, building a new camp sometimes every night, as well as bridges, walls, and siege equipment. Changing the property requirements was by far the biggest change, but it wasn't close to being the only one. Roman legions were notoriously slow because they had long baggage trains for carrying all their supplies. Marius made the army much more mobile by requiring the army.

every soldier to carry his own gear. His weapons, armor, tent, and a few days rations of food had to be carried on their back. This allowed the army to move quickly from location to location without so many pack animals. It also led to soldiers being called Marius's Mules, which is sort of the ancient equivalent of calling a soldier a grunt. Under this system, a Roman Legion could be expected to march 20 miles in a day with a full load of gear. Another huge reform was a change in the fundamental Roman tactical units. The different units that I described previously, the Hestadi, the Principais, and the Terrarii, were all part of what was called a manipole.

The manniple system was the successor to the phalanx, which the Romans originally copied from the Greeks. The manipole simply was too inflexible and couldn't be deployed in large numbers. It was also built around the system where everyone had different levels of armor and weapons. Now everyone would have the same weapons in armor, so the manniple wasn't necessary. The manniple was replaced by the cohort. The cohort was a much more flexible and homogenized unit consisting of about 480 soldiers. A legion consisted of 10 cohorts. Each cohort was made up of 6 centuries.

A century was made up of 10 contuburnia, and a contuburnia consisted of 8 men. So each legion consisted of about 4,800 soldiers. Unlike a mannipal, everyone in a cohort would have the same weapons and armor. So instead of Hastati or Terrarii, everyone was now just a plain old legionaire. Because every cohort was pretty much the same, it allowed the ability to mix and match them and point them in any direction. They could fight along or with larger groups of cohorts. In theory, a cohort in one legion could fight with or alongside another legion they had never met before, and everybody would know what they were doing.

Marius also made modifications to one of the most basic weapons a Roman soldier had, the Pelham. A Pelham was a javelin with a metal point that would be thrown at the beginning of combat. that. Previously, only the front line of Hestati would have a Pelham. Now everybody had one. Moreover, Marius changed the design such that they would easily break and bend once they hit an enemy shield. This was designed so that they couldn't be thrown back at the Romans. And also, if they did hit a shield, it would render the shield more difficult to use because you now had a bent piece of metal sticking out of it. Another reform of Marius was changing the standards for each Legion. The standard was the equivalent of a legion's flag. It was a pennant on a long pole,

with a golden animal at the top. The standard was a source of honor and pride for any legion, and losing a standard in battle was a huge embarrassment for all of Rome. Prior to Marius, there were different animals used on a legion standard, an eagle, a boar, a wolf, a horse, or a minotaur. Marius changed it so that every legion used an eagle. It was a minor reform, but another step towards homogenizing how legions operated. The final reform was that any Italian who fought in a Roman legion was given Roman citizenship.

Allied armies from Italy would often fight alongside Romans, and Marius found it far too confusing. By extending citizenship, it expanded the number of people who had an incentive in the success of Rome. For the most part, these reforms were a remarkable success, at least militarily speaking. The creation of a well-trained, well-equipped, permanent standing army made Rome's military one of the most powerful in the world. However, the move from personally acquiring weapons and armor to putting that responsibility on the general, ensued that legions would soon become the playthings of the ultra-rich. It led to an inexorable shift from part-time soldiers whose loyalty lied to the Republic, to a professional class of soldiers whose loyalty lay with their general, and later emperor.

Over the centuries, payment and support of the legions would determine who would sit on the imperial throne. This would come to a head just a few decades later, when armies loyal to Gaius Marius' nephew, a man we know as Julius Caesar, led to the collapse of the Roman Republic. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. If you'd like to support the show, you can do so over at patreon.com. And remember, if you leave a review or send in a question, you two can have it read on the show.