The Ancients - The Rise of Marius: Third Founder of Rome

Episode Date: April 10, 2022

Gaius Marius (157 BC – 86 BC) was one of the first warlords of the late Roman Republic, a general and statesman who held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times during his life.In this episode Tristan is joined by Dr Federico Santangelo, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Newcastle, to find out more about the man whose career changed the course of Rome's future.Federico's book Marius is available here.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download, go to Android or Apple store.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, we're talking all about the rise of one of the first warlords really of the late Roman Republic, the rise of Marius. Now this is quite an old podcast episode. Actually, it was recorded over a year ago with Dr. Federico Sant'Angelo from the University of Newcastle. I'm glad we are finally releasing it. Federico was a wonderful guest. I do hope you enjoy. And without further

ado, to talk all about the rise of Marius, here's Federico. Federico, it is great to have you on the show. My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. Now, Marius and Sulla, this is an amazing topic. And can we say that these are the first two prominent warlords of the late Roman Republic? Oh, yes. That's one of the few certain things we can say about them, yes. And the notion of warlord, you know, it's a controversial one because it's one drawn from contemporary history and as ever modern concepts do work only up to a point when it comes to ancient history, but it is a productive notion because it really brings us to the interplay between the military dimension and the political one.

Fantastic. We're starting with a certainty in an ancient history podcast. This is great. So downhill from now. Indeed. I'm presuming our sources on both of these figures, they are quite extensive. By the standards of ancient history, yes. But there's an important caveat. They're mostly late. They're mostly, with one or two exceptions, from the imperial period, from the late 1st, early 2nd centuries AD. And whilst those authors, who, by the way, are Greek, actually, Plutarch and Appian, are clearly well-informed authors who read very widely, they do produce inevitably derivative accounts. they do produce inevitably derivative accounts. Highly intelligent, highly informed, but nonetheless derivative. And therefore we have to try and think about the sort of material they might have had at their disposal and about the various concerns and preoccupations that informed it.

Of course. Well, if we go on to Marius first of all, because I believe he's a bit older than Sulla, or he emerges on the scene before Sulla. Indeed. What do we know about Marius' background, first of all, because I believe he's a bit older than Sulla, or he emerges on the scene before Sulla. What do we know about Marius's background, first of all? We know that he came from a smallish town southeast of Rome called Arpinum, modern Arpino, which had been a community of Roman citizens since 188 BC. Marius is born in 158-57 BC. So he's born a Roman citizen. Now he comes from a small town, and there's actually quite a bit of disagreement among the surviving ancient sources as to whether he was really a, in modernizing terms, a country squire, a member of an affluent local family, or whether he was actually really of a comprehensively undistinguished background. All the sources do agree that he was from Arpino and that at some point in his youth,

he moved to Rome. Now, the sort of connections he managed to establish in Rome relatively shortly after his arrival as a young man, connections with prominent senatorial families, especially the Caicchilli Martelli, suggest that he probably was really the member of a distinguished family from Arpino. But nonetheless, he's clearly an outsider. And that tension, I suppose, between his rustic rural origins and really the central role that he came to play in Roman politics is a very real one and endures down to the end of his long and, well, busy life. Busy indeed. And do these connections in the capital, do they help him when he goes into his military career?

Well, they are probably. We know precious little, actually, about the details of Marius's early life, but actually those connections are probably the outcome of some extraordinary military records that Marius managed to build as a young man. We're talking about his mid-20s really, when he was certainly active at Numantia, in the campaign at Numantia in the Iberian Peninsula, under the leadership of probably the greatest military talent of his generation, Scipio Aemilianus, the conqueror of Carthage. And, well, there's a lovely anecdote in Plutarch and various other bits of the ancient tradition that do point to a close personal relationship between Marius and Scipio Aemilianus. And indeed, the impression is that Aemilianus did spot Marius' outstanding

military talent. The connections with the Cajillimetelli, according to some sources, actually weren't forged by Manos himself, but might have already been forged by people in his family from previous generations. And they suddenly become, anyway, apparent after his return from his stint in Spain. And it is certainly thanks to the support of the Cajillimetelli that he manages to make his way onto the so-called cursus honorum, the pathway of public offices that young ambitious Romans were supposed, were expected, were required indeed at that point, to follow, starting with a junior magistrate season, moving upwards all the way to the consulship, if you were lucky and determined

and ruthless enough to make it there. That's a remarkable story about Marius in Spain, as you say, under the leadership of one of the greatest Romans of his generation. And you're saying he may have been singled out for praise by this famous general. Oh, yes. There's the little story I was briefly referring to earlier in Plutarch, whether it's historical or not, frankly, is immaterial. But it's a very powerful story, right? It's a story of a dinner or after-dinner conversation that Scipio Milenius has with a number

of men that are clearly part of his staff, of his inner circle. And at some point, he's not an old man, but he's certainly by that point already an elder statesman and a very distinguished commander is asked by one of those psychophants that people in that position tend to have around that dinner table, whether a military talent comparable to his will at any

point be found or be seen in the Republic. And the story goes that Scipio Emiliano turns towards Mario, who's sitting next to him, and taps on his shoulder and says, well, maybe you've got one of those here. Now, it's like it's been made up, exposed, as they say, but it is a powerful story. And it takes us really does not belong to a family that has produced senators, but he is regarded as a very impressive individual and as someone who can credibly uphold and champion the traditional values and indeed the set of practices that come with those values of the Roman nobility. What really seems to be the

common ground between Marius and Scipio Emiliano is their commitment to military discipline and to the principle that when you force tight discipline on your camp among your men, but you do that first and foremost by sharing into their toys and labor, and you really lead by example. And of course, the whole notion of example is central to Roman culture, not just in the republican period. No, of course. And you mentioned, though, of course, he goes back to Rome after this, but we do remember Marius, first of all, for his military career. How long before he goes from Rome to, is it North Africa, the next military area that he's active in?

Well, yes, there's a possibility that he might have had other military assignments before then, but certainly the first campaign that he gets to play a central role in is the Jugothain War. And that actually is over 20 years after the Nomantia campaign. We're talking about 109, 108 BC, when he first goes to Africa, serving on the staff of a serving consul, Quintus Cahilius Metellus, who would later be known as Metellus Numidicus, in recognition of his distinguished achievements in the campaign against King Jugurta. That's a very remarkable war, the war against Jugurta. It's actually a regional conflict. It's about Rome getting reluctantly involved in a political and military crisis involving some small,

relatively small, potentates in North Africa. It is about a very active, very capable regional ruler, the king of Numidia, Jugurtha, who is in principle an ally or a friend, as the Romans would have put it, of the Roman people, because he's inherited that bond of alliance and friendship from his ancestors, but who's clearly very determined to play his own cards in his own way, to pursue his own hegemonic agenda in North Africa, and who's prepared to do that both by violating the prerogatives of his co-rulers, indeed of his adoptive brothers,

and also more generally disregarding any instructions that might be coming from Rome in that respect. And after a rather complex process of rather botched negotiations with Jugurtha and rather unsuccessful small-scale military operations in North Africa, Rome becomes heavily involved on that front. And Quintus Cancidius, Metellus, leads an army in the province, choosing Marius, who by that point is a former praetor, someone who can perhaps look forward to the prospect of a candidacy to the consulship, but he's not quite there yet. Well, he picks Marius anyway as his legatus, as one of his legati. Now, the legatus can mean

all sorts of things in Latin. It can mean ambassador, for example, but what we're looking at here is, in modern terms, a chief of staff, a senior aide who's put in charge, really, of the cavalry, or at least a sizable chunk of the cavalry in the development of the campaign. And again, the fact that we have a

Cicillus Metellus picking this chap from Arpinum for that sort of role points to a close personal relationship and one of personal confidence, as well as clearly, to me, by this point, I suppose, a rather familiar fact that Marius is widely recognised as a top-class military talent. And how long does Marius serve in this role as Metellus' Liget? And how long does Marius serve in this role as Metellus' Liget? Well, that's for about 18 months. The details of the chronology are somewhat unclear, but we're looking basically at over a year of intense campaigning in North Africa as a very capable, very efficient, and very loyal cavalry commander fully committed to the principle of a chain of command that has Metellus at its top. Problems start to arise when Marius puts his mind to the prospect of standing for the consulship. And that happens at some point in 108 BC.

Now, here you actually have conflicting accounts between our two key ancient sources, that are Sallust, a great Roman historian, and Plutarch, a Greek biographer of Marius, there are actually conflicting accounts on when Marius came up with the plan and on what sort of circumstances led him to take that decision. But anyway, at some point, Marius does make the decision to put himself forward. And of course, in order to put himself forward, he has to sail back to Italy and put his candidacy in person. And he therefore has to seek

Metellus' permission. And Metellus' reaction to that is, at first, and also not just at first, really, not exactly encouraging. So Metellus actually doesn't really have Marius' back when he wants to sail back to Rome to possibly take the consulship. No, he does not. And of course, there's a powerful story that we're told about Metellus' reaction. Even an author like Sallust, a great Roman historian to whom we owe a detailed account

of this important, but certainly not crucial war that was the war against Jugurtha. Sallust has lots of positive things to say about Metellus, about his integrity, about his intellect, and indeed about his record in the Chugotan campaign. But when Metellus is presented with the real possibility of Marius standing for the consulship and possibly getting it, he's absolutely dismissive of that possibility.

He gives Marius a sarcastic reply, that's for the future, you know, maybe you'll get there someday. But the reaction is one, as Salos puts it, of almost stereotypical, embarrassingly stereotypical, haughtiness, nobilia, aristocratic, patrician haughtiness. And that, of course, has the effect of a powerful catalyst for someone like Marius, who is by that point determined to put himself forward, and who, and in this respect, I think all the sources do agree, once he makes it back to Rome, stands on a platform that puts his own personal and first and foremost military credentials right to the forefront. And he really does make a great deal of his status of new man,

of homo novus, a man that comes from a family that has never produced a senator, let alone a consul or a great magistrate. But who nonetheless, and this is a crucial point of the discourse that Marius developed during his campaign, who nonetheless knows everything that one needs to know about traditional Roman values, and indeed about the values that were upheld by the distinguished and high-achieving ancestors of people like Metellus. And of course, the point that most notably, perhaps, a speech containing Salus Bellum Iugurtinum, which is attributed to

Marius, makes, is that all these noblemen of the time pride themselves on their distinguished backgrounds, on the achievements of their ancestors, but have actually failed to live up to those standards of behavior and moral conduct, and would actually be an embarrassment for their ancestors if their ancestors came back to life. Whereas someone like Marius has precisely the sort of moral compass, and indeed, technical, practical skill that is needed to uphold those traditional values, and indeed, more tangibly to bring the campaign to successful completion. And, well, we actually know precious little about the dynamics of that election campaign. But what is quite clear is that Marius is a very effective campaigner,

and that he capitalizes on a climate that, by that point, seems rather comprehensively hostile to the families of the traditional nobility. And no doubt the rather egregious record of mismanagement and indeed corruption that the senatorial nobility had accrued over the recent years, especially in its dealings with Jugurtha, that played a very important part in creating that hostile climate.

At any rate, Marius is elected for the consulship of 107 BC and he can then look forward to taking charge of the war himself, on his own terms. I find that amazing. You say he was motivated by Metellus' putting him down, as it were, and he said this campaign, which we don't know too much about, but it's as if he uses his new man background, the fact that he isn't, as it were, hindered by these great ancestors, and the population perhaps wanting change, as it were, heered by these great ancestors and the population perhaps wanting change,

as it were, he uses this to his advantage. Yes, he does. And as ever, in certainly Roman Republican history, but I think the point can be applied more widely, you have a complex interplay between change, between newness, as you could put it in Latin, the novitas, right? There's a certain ideology that comes with the claims that a new man like Marius makes, and tradition, and the weight of the past, which never really goes away, and which, in fact, even someone like Marius feels the urge to claim for himself. And here, really, you can look backwards and you can look forward, because you can look backwards toward the Gracchi, great champions of the agrarian reform,

who actually claimed that agrarian reform is needed if traditional Roman virtues, especially the virtues of the Roman farmer, the link between looking after the land and serving in the army is to be restored. That's clearly, it's a crucial set of traditional values that they claim to be wanting to restore through their agrarian reform. But if you look forward, of course, well,

we'll get to Sala perhaps in a bit. And there as well, you have a very powerful, or depending how you look at it, toxic mix of tradition and innovation. But then, of course, in many ways, the most fascinating example of this never fully resolved and yet very productive tension is example of this never fully resolved and yet very productive tension is Octavian, or indeed Augustus. But of course, what might have actually led Marius to put his candidacy forward at that particular point must remain a matter for debate, because we hardly ever get to hear from the man himself. You know, we have that long speech in Sallust, where I'm sure Sallust does bring back into the fold a number of things that Marius was known to have said. But to a large extent, Sallust is developing his own literary and ideological agenda, and rightly so, by the standards of ancient history.

There is, of course, a tradition which Sallust does voice that actually places the light bulb moment, the moment when Marius really decides to put himself forward. As Marius is performing a sacrifice in Utica in North Africa, and there is this Etruscan diviner, a Haruspex, that's assisting him in the performance of that sacrifice, as is customarily the case by that point. He's basically a priest, if you wish, sort of a religious specialist that's actually serving on the staff of the commander. And at some point, as both Marius and the Harusbeks are looking at the entrails of the sacrificed animal,

the Harusbeks sees that those entrails foretell a story of unparalleled success for Marius and really are a call to action. You know, go off and put yourself forward, young man. Well, by that point, he's actually no longer a young man. He's early 50s or thereabouts. But nonetheless, put yourself forward. You clearly have success written in the future for you. Go off and get it. Now, that in itself is actually a story that on the one hand points to a scenario of divine favor, but at the same time is actually not so quietly subversive, because what you have here really is a prophecy

that is produced in the context of an official, of a public ritual, if you wish, but is not a prophecy about the Respublica, oriented about the relationship between the community and the gods. It is about an individual being singled out for great things in the future. And that in itself is, I think, a further symptom of this complexity of Marius, and indeed of his time more generally, this clash between old and new themes that you play all the time.

In April 1982, armed forces from the United Kingdom and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands. This month, 40 years later, we are dedicating a special series of episodes to finding out what this conflict was all about and what it was like to fight on either side. The Sea Harriers were flying over and they attacked us. They trusted us and we felt we had let them down. I really don't know whom I would be now if I had not gone through that experience when I was 19 years old. You can't take a submarine prisoner. You have to find it and you have to destroy it.

And if it goes wrong, it goes catastrophically wrong. To follow along, tune in every Fridayiday to the warfare podcast from history hit after marius is elected to the consulship this first time he returns to north africa he returns from north africa but he does something crucial, which was actually part of his job description, which he does in a way that, if you believe Sallust, and indeed a number of Northern scholars, was highly innovative and arguably revolutionary.

What does he do? But he does, of course, enlist an army. That was a crucial part of the task of any military commander in Rome. You don't really have a permanent army in the republican period, people that sign up for life or even for a long time. You have people that might sign up on many occasions during their lifetime, but who do sign up to serve under a commander for a specific amount of time for a specific campaign. And it will be the magistrate's job to recruit his army.

Marius does that very quickly, very efficiently. He can rely by that point on his own reputation, again, as an outstanding commander. He has made a big deal of the fact that he will get an immediate done. He will win that war and he will generate substantial amounts of booty or material rewards for those that will serve in his army, and he doesn't really struggle to find willing men in Rome and indeed across Italy. What is remarkable, and what Sallust does single out as a very important aspect of his work there,

is that he opened up the army to men that were willing to serve regardless of their economic background, or to put it in more technical terms, regardless of their property qualifications. So even the propertyless are allowed to serve in Marius' army. That is singled out by Sallust as a new development, and indeed a number of modern interpreters of this period from, I suppose, from the 1500s at least, Machiavelli already makes that point in his discourses on Livy. Well, a number of modern students of this period have said, well, actually, this is really a turning point because we get the poor, indeed, even the poppers possibly, into the army. They get to serve and they serve largely because, A, they see the

prospect of very real material rewards at the end of the campaign. B, because they've got a personal connection, a personal relationship with the command. And before you know it, that army, much more diverse, with a large component of poor soldiers, will no longer be the army of the Republica. It will be the army of whoever is in charge of it. And so the so-called Marian reform of the army has for a long time been regarded as a turning point in the history of the republic. Now, over the last few decades, a number of scholars have considerably qualified this picture. First of all, it's become apparent that for the best part of the second century BC, you have plenty

of instances in which property qualifications hardly matter at all in the way part of the second century BC, you have plenty of instances in which property qualifications hardly matter at all in the way in which the army is recruited. And it's clear evidence that people with minimal property qualifications were let into the army. But quite apart from that, the radical extent of Marius' recruitment practices has been significantly downplayed on a number of factual and also rather technical grounds that several modern studies have effectively brought out. And to the extent that now, that the fairly recent book came out a couple of years ago by a French scholar, François Cadieux, that's called L'Armée Imaginaire, The Imaginary Army. And it's actually

a rather successful debunking of the idea that there is such thing as a Marian reform, and that Marius really introduced a wholesale rethink of how recruitment practices were supposed to work. I rather happily subscribe to that picture. I do think that what Marius does is far less innovative than many scholars have argued. And actually, I think that a close reading of Salas' And many scholars have argued, and actually I think that a close reading of Sallust's text also suggests that. But there are nonetheless a couple of important themes to pick up on here. It is quite clear that Marius's own personal standing plays a very important role in getting the army ready to set off to the media in the space of a few weeks, maybe months, possibly even weeks. And it is quite clear that there is a very important role

of volunteers in Marius' army. So the connection between Marius and his soldiers is a very real factor in this story and will remain a very important factor throughout Marius' career. So Marius has got this army, this new army, as it were, that is lured and attracted by the promises of plunder, but also Marius' reputation is loyal to him. And with this army, he sets sail to North Africa again. but by no means crucially undermined by the substantial progress that Metellus has made, and who is prepared to fight on, not least because he can rely upon a far superior knowledge of the terrain,

as you would expect being the local ruler. Rather early on in the campaign, Marius' leadership is, say, complemented by the leadership in a junior but very significant capacity of a senior aide of his, a choir store, a junior magistrate, 20 years or so younger than him, who's come over to North Africa from Italy, and who, like Marius a couple of years before, is put in charge of the cavalry. He's actually also taken part in recruiting. There's a chap called Lucius Cornelius Sulla. He's a patrician. He comes from a patrician family. He's a member of the Gens Cornelia, one of the most distinguished ones, of course, in Rome.

But he actually comes from a branch of the Gens Cornelia that really has gone out of favor with the establishment and also with the voters, so it seems, for several generations. Again, there's quite a complex tradition on Salah's youth and some sources even depict him as a rather impecunious aristocrat who built his initial capital that enabled him to fund his early election campaigns in not entirely reputable fashion. But whatever the case might be, Salah is a patrician, but certainly a patrician that

cannot claim recent ancestors of significant senatorial standing. And who gets involved, again, in a very senior role, very significant role, with Mariusz's campaign, according to Salah, who produces a memorable portrait of Salah. When Sulla comes to Africa, he is largely unacquainted with military matters. He doesn't have any military experience. Very clever, very accomplished, very well read, also in Greek literature, unlike his boss, unlike Marius, who was made a point of not bothering to learn any Greek or having hardly any Greek. Sulla is a much more polished fellow in that respect, but we are told that he has no military experience. Now, some modern scholars have found that very implausible,

and I also find it rather incredible that this quaestor, man in his early 30s, would have been entrusted with such an important brief with hardly any military experience. But what is really striking here, and what we actually know absolutely nothing about, is the previous history of the two men. Why did Marius decide to entrust Sulla with that crucial role? What did he see in him? And what sort of prior connection did they have? We don't know. But what is quite clear is that Sulla, very early on, starts playing a very significant role in the military operations. And he then also plays a significant diplomatic role in bringing closer to the Roman cause, the Roman camp, an ally of Jugurta, a dynast of a neighboring territory, Mauritania, a

chap called Boccus, who's a key ally of Jugurta and who, at some point, engages in talks with the Romans through Salla. The development of the campaign is rather complex, rather messy. As Sallas at least presents it, the outcome, the denouement of the campaign is really down to Salla's ability to persuade Boccus, Jugurta's key ally, to connive with the Romans in organising an ambush in which Jugurta is to be captured. And after quite a lot of wrangling about and in a turmoil, Boccus does decide to betray Jugurta for experience's sake, out of his own self-interest, and indeed an ambush is organised in which Giugurta is captured by Sulla and his men, not by Marius. Sulla Giulia surrenders, delivers, hands over Giugurta to Marius,

and it will be for Marius to display the prisoner in the triumphal procession in Rome sometime later. But the capture of Giugurtha is Sulla's own doing. So it sounds as if, first of all, Sulla and Marius, they work well together, as said, with the campaign. But is this capture, the fact that Sulla captures Jugurtha and not Marius, is that significant in causing a rift between them? With hindsight, yes. Especially when, at some point, a few years later,

Boccus, who's still in charge in Moretenia, he got to keep his territory, funds the dedication of a statue in Rome depicting the surrender of Giugorta to Sulla. And that donation, the tribute to Sulla by a foreign ruler, by a foreign king, is regarded by Marius and those close to him as a slight, and indeed as a gesture that fundamentally undermined Marius' claim to having secured the victory against Jugurtha. But that rift is not immediate.

It intervenes only at some point in the 90s. It intervenes at a time when Marius has held a number of consulships in the immediate aftermath of the Jugurthine War. And actually, in the years immediately following that campaign, the operation between Marius and Sulla continues. It goes on, and it goes on notably in the face of a major military threat, much more significant one actually, than the one presented by Giugurtha coming from the north. You have these Germanic and Celtic populations, the Cimbrians and the Teutons, that are trying to make their way into southern Gaul and indeed into northern Italy, and seem to be about to revive an existential threat to Rome, comparable to the legendary mythical,

but perhaps also very real threat that the Gauls had presented in the early 4th century BC. And then it really is the task that Mario must face in the immediate aftermath of the Jugurthine War. He's actually elected to his second consulship as he's busy wrapping up the Jugurthine conflict. And that's actually the start of the series of consulships for Marius until the end of the second century BC, or what we call the second century BC, because it's not an ancient consulate, as you know. He gets to hold six consulships in this period until 100 BC, first in order to face the threats presented by the Cimbrians and the Teutons in southern

Gaul and in northern Italy, and then also to oversee the aftermath of that major military effort. For several years, Marius is not simply the most powerful, the most influential individual in Rome. He is someone who achieves a record of distinction that pretty much no one else had achieved. Certainly in the last four or five generations, we really have to go back to the days of the Hannibalic War to regard someone that had a comparably significant record of achievement. That really has to do with the emergency that he gets to face, that he's put in charge of, intermediate aftermath of

the Remedian campaign. And that's the emergency of the campaigns against the Kildrens and the Teutons. Of course. And let's focus on that now. Of course, one of the last things towards him reaching the peak of his power is this threat from the north. So at the time that Marius has finished the Jugurthine War with Salia, the situation in the north of the Mediterranean, in North Italy, in southern France, it's not looking good for the Romans, is it? Oh, not at all.

There have been significant, especially in southern Gaul, there have been significant setbacks for Rome and then major defeat. Marius manages to revive the Roman war effort, again, by restoring, at least so we are told by the sources, high standards of discipline, by working very hard on the logistics of the campaign, especially in southern Gaul, and also by getting a couple of battles crucially right, especially the Battle of Vercella in northern Italy. But again, if you look at the accounts of that battle, it's in many ways the battle that brings that campaign to successful completion from Rome's point of view, you will actually see that there are conflicting accounts on the extent of Marius' contribution to the

strategy that led to a Roman victory. What is so crucial, really, to the appreciation of Marius, as far as the ancient tradition is concerned, is really the extent to which he's to be credited with exceptional military achievements. If you look at the Jugurtine War, you see that, yes, clearly his intervention is decisive. Sulla's deal with Boccus is perhaps the clincher, is perhaps what actually enables Rome to win the war. And something comparable applies to his achievements in the campaign against the Cypriots and the Teutons, to what extent he is to be credited with the correct strategy in the Battle of Erkela, for example. Why is this the case?

Why is there such a strong focus on his military achievement? Because Marius' own spectacular rights would have been unthinkable without those two military crises, and especially without the Northern Emergency. Marius gets a hold of that extraordinary set of consulships, right? But actually, he spends most of the time as a consul away from Rome. And he's never really fully in control of the political scene in Rome. He never plays a hegemonic, a dominant role in Roman politics, let alone in the debates within the Senate. And actually, when it comes to managing the aftermath of the Cimbrian campaign,

and, for example, devising a program of land assignments for his veterans, Marius struggles. Marius begins to struggle when it comes to finding allies. It's the transition from what you do away from home, militia, and what you do dormi, what you do at home, what you do in the city. So he owes his rise to some significant military victories, such as the one at Verkelei in, is it 101 BC? Yeah.

Amazing. So in that regard then, Marius has made this rise and this Cimbri threat, the fact that it's in Versailles sounds like they were in Italy itself, so definitely a really big threat. And he's able to extinguish it, as it were. How is he rewarded when he comes back to Rome as this military hero?

Well, of course he gets to celebrate the triumph. He is elected to the consulship for the year 100. There is a tradition related by Plutarch, whereby he was hailed as a third founder of Rome, the first being Ramblus and the second one being Camillus. It's a tradition that a number of modern scholars have looked at with a degree of scepticism, but there is certainly, in some quarters, the sense that Marius really has saved Rome from a fatal threat. And it is, for example, a strand of thought that you find in Cicero, a generation or two later. Now, of course, Cicero is from Arpinum. He admires Marius in a number of respects, in spite of the many differences, but he certainly does single him out as the saviour of Rome, and he then, Cicero, plays quite

a lot on the fact that he himself, Cicero, had saved Rome in 63 BCE from the threat of Catiline. He establishes that correlation between himself and Marius. Now, what no doubt a number of people will have praised Marius for is his ability to have eradicated the threat, the northern threat, and to have done so impressively in an impressively quick period of time. But the range of rewards that he receives, of course, is perhaps not forget, in a context in which political distinction and the distinction within the political establishment has been very tightly, very strictly policed for centuries. The idea that you, of course, you should be duly rewarded or recognized for your achievements, for your gloria is ingrained in the system. is ingrained in the system, but there are, to use a modern expression, a set of checks and balances, right? The check of restraints that are placed upon you and upon the extent to which your distinction can be celebrated and rewarded. And in the normal scheme of things, it would have been entirely reasonable for someone like Marius to really step back into the domain of distinguished statementship,

you know, sort of elder statesman territory, at the end of such a remarkable set of military achievements. Now, of course, here we've got a major complicating factor, which is Marius' army, or indeed Marius' armies, we should really think of Marius' armies in the plural. He's been recruiting armies for several years, he's been replenishing his armies with new men for several years, and a number of those individuals will be awaiting their reward. And, you know, part of those rewards would come from donations, from Marius, from the war booty. But clearly there is also appetite for land, at least in part of the crowd of his veterans. And really that becomes the fundamental issue, a set of land assignments for his veterans, that becomes a controversial issue and an issue on which Marius struggles to find allies within

the senatorial establishment. And this is where his connection with two very capable political operators at the time, Saturninus and Glosia, becomes crucial. And this is really the moment when you have, on the one hand, Marius' agenda, and on the other hand, the agenda of these two tribunes, Saturninus and Glosia, who have their own set of social and economic reforms to push. Until the ways of Saturninus and Glotia, their methods, their willingness to resort to political violence become a front of controversy, especially in the senatorial establishment, and eventually Marius is compelled really to side with the Senate. When the clash between the majority of the Senate on one side and Saturninus and Glotia on the other becomes irresolvable, the Senate instructs the consuls to take action against Saturninus and Glaucia, just as the consuls have been instructed to take action against Gaius Gracchus in 121 BC.

And at that point, Marius decides to follow the authoritative advice of the Senate against those that, until a few weeks before, arguably, had been close allies of his. The plan of an agrarian reform benefiting his veterans is, to a large extent, an abortive one. And Marius finds himself alienated from a significant chunk of his support base from about 99 BC onwards. And that marks, the Sartanianos and Glossia incident, marks a very substantial, very significant break in Miles's own political trajectory, from which he comes back only about a decade later. So is this really the pinnacle of his career, would you argue? I'm not so sure about that. I think to some extent, if one regards just the brutal realities

of power, I think one could regard his comeback in 87 BC as another pinnacle in his career. In terms of the methods that he followed, of course, in 87, the brutal massacres that he carried out, he and his associates, there's plenty to object to, as it were. But if you just look at Machiavellian terms, at the power that he achieved, he certainly does manage to make a very successful comeback. If you look actually at Mariusz's political career, it's not a very successful comeback. If you look actually at Mariusz's political career, it's not a very happy one. That's a fundamental problem. He's not really associated with any substantial political reform, except for an electoral reform, a ballot reform early on during his tribunate in 119.

But during his consulship, and then later on towards the end of his life, he's really associated with great military achievements, not so much with substantial political ones. It's very interesting. And I must ask, maybe just to wrap it up, regarding his military capability, but maybe less so his political ability, as this is going on, particularly at the turn of the 1st century BC, around 100 BC, do you think, or do we know, whether Sulla

is, as it were, taking notes on the sideline? He is looking at Marius and he is learning from Marius. I think we've got to safely assume that, much as the story that Sulla himself got to write about his own political and military education. He wrote an extensive autobiography that is lost, but which has clearly influenced the tradition that does survive. Now, that story is a story in which, no doubt, Salla underplayed the extent and the quality of his connection with Marius. But certainly, if we look at the ways in which Salla managed to mobilize

the loyalty of his men in 88 BC, for example, but also later on, by appealing on the one hand to rather fundamental values or other fundamental principles, but also by getting them to rally around his own person, whilst at the same time, making them, if there was any need for that, aware of the material rewards that sticking with him would entail for them. Well, this is all very Marian. And yes, I think that, to a large extent, must have something to do with Sulla's early dealings with Marius.

But then quite more broadly, both men are very smart readers of their own time and of the sort of political method and political rhetoric that you were supposed to use if you wanted to go places. It's remarkable. As you say, Mariusz, a man who doesn't have the backing, as it were, hasn't got the family background of all these prestigious figures. Salah, on the other hand, a man whose family has been basically out of the limelight for a long period of time. But as you say, these become, in the next 20 or so years, prominent figures in deciding the course of the late Roman Republic. Yes, they do. And of course, Salah does actually manage to enact a number of reforms during his

dictatorship that do fundamentally change the way the Senate operates, the way the courts operate, the way provincial administration functions. He's also someone that manages to get the balance between the role of the army, of his army, and the role of politics, of political debate, of political conversation, right, so far as the pursuing of his own agenda was concerned. He does manage to terrify people rather mightily with a number of absolutely callous acts, but he also manages to bring forward a set of very bold reforms. I don't think we should think of Salah as a conservative or indeed as a reactionary. He's a rather bold and visionary reformer who is certainly committed to curtailing the role of the popular assemblies as a major focus of power

and authority in the Republic. But he's a very bold reformer. We should not lose sight of that. He's also someone that, because of his background, I suppose, does have an ability to interact with the great families of the nobility that arguably Marius did not have to the same extent. Very interesting. And we definitely need to have a look at Sulla in more detail in a future podcast. Federico, thank you for coming on the show. And you've written a book all about Marius? I did write a book on Marius, yes. Imaginatively titled.

Marius, published by Bloomsbury in the Ancient Sin Action series in 2015. Thank you very much, Federico. It's been a pleasure to have you on the show. My pleasure. Well, there you go there was Dr Federico Sant'Angelo explaining all about the rise of Marius in the late second and early first centuries BC I hope you enjoyed the episode now if you want more ancients content in the meantime where you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter via a link in the description below if you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts,

wherever you get your podcasts from, I would greatly appreciate it. And that's enough from me. I will see you in the next episode.