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Gaius Marius is credited with introducing the professional army to Rome. Before his reforms the army consisted of part time volunteers with most of the officers from the wealthier classes because they were the only ones who could afford to equip themselves. These officers also brought their clients into the army as a duty to their patrons. Marius did away with this and opened up the army to all citizens, paid them, equipped them and changed their fighting divisions.

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14y ago
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12y ago

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

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8y ago

The development of the Roman professional army was a gradual process which resulted from the actions of Roman military commanders from the Second Punic War onward, the reforms of the military introduced by Gaius Marius and the actions of Augustus.

Originally the Roman army was a seasonal militia of landholding peasants. In essence it was a part time citizen militia. The soldiers were landholding peasant farmers who were levied during the military campaigning season and then returned to their farms. There was also a property threshold for the draft because soldiers had to provide and pay for their equipment themselves. The landless people were exempt because they could not afford these expenses. This system worked in the early days of Rome when she was a power only in Italy and she fought other peoples who had similar military systems.

The Roman military system started becoming inadequate form the Second Punic War (when Italy was invaded by Hannibal; 218-201 BC) and in the subsequent years, when Roman troops were deployed at In Hispania (Spain and Portugal) and in Greece for prolonged periods. Service at fronts far from home for prolonged periods was the beginning of professional legions. However, this created a contradiction between being a soldier and being a farmer at the same time. It meant that demobilised soldiers found themselves with nowhere to go when they returned home due to prolonged neglect of their farms. The problem intensified after 168 BC when, at the end of the Third Macedonian War, 150,000 slaves were sent to Rome and in 146 BC, when two wars ended at the same time. The relevance of the slaves was that most of them were bought by the owners of large landed estates who, with this slave labour, could expand their estates. They often did so at the expense of landholding peasants in economic distress (often due to prolonged military service), taking advantage of this to buy land on the cheap. These dispossessed farmers migrated to Rome, swelling the masses of the poor. This reduced the pool of eligible soldiers. Moreover, harsh wars in Spain made the peasants reluctant to serve there. In the 133 BC the Gracchi brothers effected a land reform which gave land to the landless poor in Rome. However, this only gave a temporary relief to the shortage recruitable landholding peasants and the Romans suffered heavy losses in battles against invading Germanic peoples in in Noricum (Austria) and Gaul.

Faced with a recruitment crisis and having to fight a war in Africa, Gaius Marius introduced changes to the Roman military which have been called the Marian Reforms. He simply recruited anyone who volunteered to enlist regardless of property status. This did away with the property threshold and the draft and introduced a voluntary recruitment system which was often to all, including the landless poor. He also provided that the soldiers were to be given their military equipment for free. This made military service not only open to, but also affordable for the masses of lands poor, who, not having received any help for the state, flocked to the army, which became a community where they were taken care of. Marius offered their disenfranchisement, employment for pay (Romans soldiers had been receiving a pay for nearly 300 hundred years), and a share of the spoils of war. Marius also established a military service of 16 years and a grant of a lump sum of money or a plot of land to farm on discharge. This was like a pension.

The Marian reforms are often seen as constituting the introduction of a professional army. However, Marius essentially formalised some changes which and already taken place. As we already seen, soldiers had been recruited for prolonged period for some time. Military commanders had also already started giving land to demobilised soldiers before. Thus, the main change was the recruitment of the landless poor.

Contrary to what is often said, it is unlikely that Marius's changes led to a the creation of a standing army, even though he set the length of military serve at sixteen years. This is because it had become common practice for military commanders to levy armies and pay them. Marius did not establish a centralised state recruitment system. Therefore, soldiers continued to be recruited and paid by the commanders and discharged once their campaigns were over. This also made it possible for military commanders of opposing political factions to raise troops to fight the civil wars which tore the Roman Republic apart. It is most likely that the standing army emerged under the reign of Augustus, the final victor of the mentioned civil wars and the first Roman emperor. Augustus became an absolute ruler and was in charge of most of the legions. He instituted a centralised system of recruitment and a military treasury which ensured that the soldiers were paid by the emperor and were loyal to him. He stationed the legions in the frontier provinces of the empire on a permanent basis. This must have been the moment when a true professional and standing army emerged.

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12y ago

It was the consul Gaius Marius in this reform of 107 BC. It has been named Marian reform after him.

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12y ago

Gaius Marius turned the Roman army professional.

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16y ago

Marius

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