"The Role of Marius’s Military Reforms in the Decline of the" Topic

…Roman Republic

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Armand

All Marius did was allow the capite censi to be permitted to enrol in the legions. That is all the ancient sources say on the matter. Therefore, the reform of the Roman legion had occurred earlier.

The principal cause of death of the Roman Republic was the gradual development of professional standing armies whose loyalty was to their general, not to the state. Removing property qualifications for recruits and equipping them entirely at state expense (apparently done by Marius) could only create a soldier entirely dependent on hence devoted to his commander. That shifted political power to the generals. It took a while but eventually they realised the fact and took over the government.

Respectfully disagree, B. IMHO the principal cause of the death of the Republic was the greed of the patrician class who seized the large majority of the wealth of the 2nd and 1st C. BCE conquests, flooded Rome and the Italian lands with masses of slaves that depressed wages and the price of cereal crops (as opposed to cash crops like wine), and reacted with violent repression against any constitutional attempts to redress the grievances of the plebians (e.g. the murder of the Gracchi). Under these circumstances, the rise of a demagogue was virtually inevitable. Of course under the Caesars the rich didn't get any less rich or the poor any better off – the only permanent casualty was the rule of law.

Marius' reforms, or something like them, were likewise inevitable once the borders of the Roman hegemony had expanded so far that they required armies that could no longer return home for the harvest – farewell citizen soldiers.

Thanks

Armand

@Eumelus: The Plebs and Patricians had had bust ups before and worked them out. But by the Late Republic neither really mattered anymore. Formerly, the Plebs had been the backbone of the army and the Patricians feared them for that reason. The Patricians themselves represented the social fabric of Rome and were indispensable for the stability of the state.

The Republic now controlled vast swathes of conquered territory that became the source of her wealth and hence stability. Those territories were kept docile by military occupation hence the army became the source of stability. The army itself was no longer composed of self-respecting citizen soldiers. They were recruits from any background and didn't even need to be Roman. Their loyalty was to their legion and their general. The army became a state unto itself. It just took a little time for the generals to become aware of the fact and create a political system where the ruler was the general, the "Imperator", Emperor.

B, again we must agree to disagree. I believe you are conflating developments that occurred during the Empire with conditions of Republican Rome:

(1) It is not at all true that the patrician/plebian distinction did not matter in the late Republic – the patricians were richer and more jealous of their monopoly of power than ever before. As for being the "social fabric" of Rome, that's certainly what the patricians _claimed_, but their mostly passive acquiescence of Imperial rule suggests they were really only ever concerned with their own classes' wealth and privilege and not with any real loyalty to the Roman ideal.

(2) It is not really accurate to describe Roman generals as a separate class. All legion commanders and army leaders were patricians – it would not be until much later that equites or even municipal aristocrats would have a chance at higher rank – and likewise all able-bodied male patricians served occasionally in the army but only in one of the reserved-for-the-class positions. Caesar wasn't dangerous because he was a general, he was dangerous because he was _popular_ (i.e. the de facto head of the Populares "party"). Had the Senate condescended to distribute public lands to army veterans (rather than pointedly ignoring the squatting of patricians transforming them into latifundia), provide relief for plebian families who had been forced to sell their small farms, and in general governing the Republic in the interest of all Roman citizens rather than exclusively for the rich, there wouldn't have been such a ready opening for Caesar to exploit.

Interesting … thanks.

Armand

@Eumelus:

(1) I didn't say the Patrician/Plebian distinction didn't matter; I said that they didn't matter any more, full stop. Power in Rome had necessarily shifted to the army since most of the territory Rome controlled was not Roman and hence by implication was held by force or the threat of force. The army preserved the new empire, not the political equilibrium between Plebs and Patricians.

Sure the Patricians wanted to preserve their money and position, but they no longer had the means to do so without a placet from the army and their passive acquiescence to imperial rule proves it.

(2) I didn't describe the generals as a separate class. I made the point that their power rested on the army and that that power was enough to seize control of the state. Sure they were Patricians, but their power didn't depend on being Patricians once they'd secured command; it depended on their ability to defeat rival generals and establish uncontested military control. Marius did it, followed by Sulla and so on until Augustus finally cemented his power sufficiently to be able to pass it on peacefully to a successor.

This became the big problem of the Empire: political control had been built on military might, not on any traditional or legal institution, so succession would also depend on military might which led to the perpetual inability of emperors to set up stable dynasties.

Bollinger, enjoying this discussion.

(1) Your denial of the importance of class distinctions in Republican society is a bit mystifying to me. NOTHING mattered in Rome more than class membership. Only patricians could become Senators and therefore consuls, and the large majority of other public offices were therefore likewise restricted to them. State contracts, governorship of lucrative provinces, favorable judgements in court all depended more than anything on class membership and the patronage and connections it provided.

Military power derives from political/social power just as much as the converse – who raises armies? who pays for them? You seem to be postulating the existence of a long-term unified military caste, which is not an accurate description of Roman Republican armies.

(2) The mention of Sulla strengthens my point – as an optimate who was willing to use bloody force and civil war to suppress the populares and put down the tribunes, he's a perfect example of how far down the unconstitutional path the patricians were willing to go to maintain their preeminence. But his military power was only necessary because he was opposed by the populare _patricians_; the patricians didn't need soldiers to murder the Gracchi and their followers, only their own clients and a callous disregard for the law.

(3) Arguably there was no stability problem with the Empire per se. Lots of problems for each particular Emperor of course, who could not depend on respect for the holiness of their bloodline (no "divine right", at least not after the Claudio-Julians self-destructed) and whose reign therefore was as you point out dependent entirely on military might. But the lack of any serious attempt to restore the Republic argues that the Imperial system answered pressing social, political, and economic needs and (unlike the individual Emperors) was become indispensable.

@Eumelus: it is an interesting topic.

To everything you say, yes, yes and yes. But all rather off the point. The OP asks to what extent the Marian reforms finished the Republic and my take is to a very considerable extent. Patricians were callous, ruthless, murderous, everything you like, but until the establishment of a professional standing army they had to work within an oligarchical system that took each other and the Plebs into account, which means a form of limited republicanism.

Once Patricians had standing armies that all changed. One man could now dictate terms to the entire populus since his power didn't depend on them. The army became the most stable institution in the Empire, autonomous virtually to the extent of being a state within a state. In fact there's enough evidence that legionary formations survived the official fall of the Western Empire by up to a century (they continued to man forts along the Loire defensive line well into the 6th century). The Roman Empire was really an army with an empire attached.

Of course the emperors had to pay some attention to the rest of the population in that civil order and a functioning economy was necessary. Wreck the economy and it became impossible to pay the army; fail to pay the army and one quickly ceased to be emperor.

An emperor always faced potential rivals in his generals, so civil order was also important as disorder affected his reputation, but this was much less of an issue than keeping a viable tax base in existence. Emperors could deal with insurrection savagely and effectively and if the army got some booty out of it so much the better.

Ultimately, while I agree with your description of the Imperial army and its role in the Empire, I still disagree that the Marian reforms were a major cause of the fall of the Republic. Rather, I believe it fell due to social, political, and economic challenges which it was unable to meet, leading to cyclical civil strife from which the only escape was totalitarianism. It would have fallen anyway had the armies of Rome been raised and administered as they had been previously; and conversely had the Senate been more broadly representative of the interests of the Roman people the mere existence of a professionalized army need not have spelled the end of the Republic.

So we wish each other adieu and continue on our ways. Like ships passing in the night, alas!

But it was fun.