Rome: from Marius to Caesar

This video is sponsored by SimpliSafe. Learn more about this easy-to-use security system at the end of the video. In our previous video, we discussed the reforms implemented and institutionalized into Rome's military by Gaius Marius to adapt to the changing situation it found itself in. However, these reforms ended up being more than just a tactical advantage. They had profound effects that would not only weaken, but would eventually destroy the Roman Republic, which had existed since 509 BC, and replaced it with the Roman Empire. Welcome to our second video on the Marian reforms and how they impacted and shook the res publica to its core. The individual reforms instituted and codified by Marius do not, at first glance, seem so significant as to transform the whole army. However, the sum of their impact was greater than their component parts put together. These reforms brought a permanent standard of quality to the legions, and therefore, generated a greater camaraderie and loyalty to a soldier's unit than ever before. Legionaries now had a very strong feeling of pride in the history and collective accomplishment of their unit, and even had a positive series of rivalries with other units in the same army. In addition, Marius reversed the declining and less efficient trends of the previous decades, and laid the foundation for the professional army by doing so. However, all was not well in the Republic. As addressed in our last video on the Marian reforms, the demographics of the Roman legions changed as a result of them. The discarding of a property requirement fundamentally shifted the army from a limited militia army drawn from those in society with material bonds to the state, to a mass peasant army with little property of their own. The militia legionaries saw their participation in the defence of the state as their civil duty, responsibility, and as a privilege. To these patriotic legionaries, the idea of marching on Rome to conquer it would have been equivalent to sacrilege. Subsequently, the legionaries after the Marian reforms usually had more material goals, even if that meant attacking their own capital. It is this shift, combined with the granting of land to retired veteran soldiers, which would eventually exacerbate the severe issues which would destroy the Republic. Marius himself seemed blissfully unaware of the problems his reforms would cause for the state, and initially of the opportunities such conditions would present for an ambitious Roman general such as himself. He never took advantage of the state of affairs he had brought about, but others would, including a former subordinate of Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. His actions in using the legions as a political weapon would create a ripple effect, leading directly to the fall of the Republic. From the very first days of Rome's existence, their society admired and held up the citizen farmer as a character to be emulated. The great general Cincinnatus was found by the Senate ploughing his humble seven-acre farm when they came to implore him to become dictator and save Rome from the Gallic invasion. In this vein, many of the earlier Roman legionaries were propertied citizen farmers who would harvest and tend their crops and then go off on campaign. Campaigning seasons were relatively short and usually took place entirely within the Italian peninsula, but this was soon to change. After the Punic Wars, Rome gradually began shipping forces overseas to campaigns which were multiple years long, and many of the legionaries found that their small family farms would be destitute upon their return, their families having been unable to maintain the work required to sustain it. In this post-Hannibalic period, a great many slaves and a significant amount of wealth flooded into Rome from Carthage and the Greek world. This wealth was largely monopolised by a few select families, who began to purchase vast tracts of land from the small citizen farmers, replacing the scattered small farms of Italy with massive slave-run plantations run for profit, rather than for the benefit of the state. This economic shift towards large slave farms prompted those small families to now enter the Capitae Kensii class and migrate to Rome for greater opportunities. An attempt to reverse this trend occurred around three decades before Marius with the rise and fall of the Gracchi brothers, Gaius and Tiberius. Tribune of the Plebs Tiberius was the elder and was concerned with land reform which was designed to increase the amount of Roman land-owning citizens in an attempt to reverse the homogenisation of Italy's land by massive slave farms. His proposal was moderate and yet met bitter opposition from the senatorial-propertied classes. To bypass the Senate, Tiberius attempted to use the People's Assembly to pass the law, but the Senate arranged for another tribune, Marcus Octavius, to use his veto to halt the entire thing in its tracks. This obvious and unprecedented corruption worsened the situation even more, and eventually Tiberius and his followers were killed after he was accused of seeking kingship. His brother Gaius continued on in his brother's footsteps and once again attempted to solve Rome's burgeoning problems. However, the Senate viciously opposed these reforms, as well as another tribune named Marcus Livius Drusus the Elder, who undermined Gaius' attempted reforms at every step. When the Senate essentially offered a bounty for the head of Gaius, he was killed. These were the first occurrences of the political violence which would become more common in the decades to come, as the Senate, which was putting off problems rather than solving them, had increased the legitimacy of populist politicians. This would have key consequences in the events to come and would prove to be one of the first episodes leading to the fall of the Republic. Thirty years after his father's opposition to the reforms of Gaius Gracchus, Marcus Livius Drusus the Younger would also attempt his own series of reforms, which this time had the support of some leading Senators. He proposed a grain law, agrarian legislation overhauls and the transfer of jury courts to the Senators. However, when he, seeing that the Italics were not happy with Rome, proposed the extension of citizen rights to all inhabitants of Italy he was viciously opposed. He launched this attempt with the cooperation of multiple allied leaders, such as the Marseille leader Quintus Pompadius Sillo, who would become a Roman enemy in the upcoming Social War. However, Drusus was mysteriously assassinated and that made the Social War inevitable. Rome managed to eventually secure victory in the struggle. We are going to talk about this conflict down the line, but in summary, this short war prompted the Senate to give the Italics citizenship rights. With the destruction and replacement of Italy's rural smallholdings, a vast amount of Capita Kentese legionaries now had nothing to go back to when their military term was over. The landless needed help from the state in the form of retirement benefits, which usually came as a plot of land to farm. The question became who would take up the role of soldier's champion, the Senate or their commander? Unfortunately, the conservative Senate was set in its ways and did not want to change the law to give land to the veterans, possibly because the land could otherwise be used as part of their profitable plantations. This unwillingness of the Roman Senate to function as the benefactors of their own veterans and their citizens as a whole prompted the legionaries to instead look to their commanders for compensation. This lethal mixture of policies was exploited by Sulla in the midst of the Mithridatic Wars. Marius and Sulla, who had at first been comrades, were now bitter enemies. In 88 BC Marius attempted to take his erstwhile friend's command of the war against Pontus, and Sulla, who was not going to stand for this, escaped from Rome and appealed to the veterans who had been settled in the region. Eventually, perhaps afraid that Sulla's loss of command would mean a loss of the Pontic warloot for them, six Sullan legions marched on Rome for the first time in centuries. Interestingly, it was the rank-and-file soldiers who came to the capital with Sulla, whereas the officers, who were wealthier and more invested in the Republic, would not do it, which highlighted the key role of Marius' enlistment of the Capitae Censi in the crisis. Unlike Marius, it seems that after his actions, Sulla noticed the damage he had caused to the Republic, which explains why he worked so hard afterwards to strengthen it. He attempted to create a constitution designed to prevent a reoccurrence of his own behaviour of marching on Rome, making it treason if a governor did not step down within thirty days of their successors' arrival, if a governor led an army outside of their province, entered an allied kingdom, or started a war without the Senate's consent. Sulla may have believed he was the only one who could prevent Rome from going into further decline. This would also explain why he became dictator, strengthened the power of the Republican Senate by doubling its size, and why he gave up his dictatorship after his strengthening reforms were in effect. However, instead of fixing Rome's problems, Sulla's reign instead showed other ambitious commanders how to use their army for their own gain. Again, he attempted to stop this. Realising he might be imitated, he settled his own veterans in Italy as a safeguard force to defend the Senate against new usurpers of power. Unfortunately, this would later backfire and further cripple the Republic. Despite his various attempts to reform the Roman Republic, Sulla's dictatorship had ended the days of loyalty to the state. Rome, with the Senate at its head, could no longer command the allegiance of the Romans. Granting veterans land might also not have been the best possible pension plan, both for the individual soldiers and the Roman state. Many of the veterans who were granted land for farming would have had no experience of agriculture, Sulla's veterans who were settled in Etruria went into debt due to this inexperience. Moreover, the simple presence of these individuals in Italy became a danger in itself. Due to their days fighting against Pontus in Asia, many of the Sullan veterans had gained a taste for extravagance and luxury, and now could not sustain that lifestyle as mere citizen farmers. They functioned as a ticking time bomb. During the next political danger in the year 63 BC, the Catiline Conspiracy, disaffected Sullan veterans joined the attempt to usurpation of the Roman state, hoping to regain their lost wealth. Though the attempt failed due to the intervention of Cicero, it showed just how vulnerable Rome had become to instability. This was the situation in the Roman Republic by the time Gaius Julius Caesar gained the governorship of Gaul, using his triumvirate with Gnaeus Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus. We would like to express our gratitude to our Patreon supporters and channel members, who make the creation of our videos possible. Now, you can also support us by buying our merchandise via the link in the description. This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.