Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius (Latin: [ˈɡaːiʊs ˈmariʊs]; c. 157 BC – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Marius held the office of consul seven times, more than any other Roman in the Republican period. Rising from a family of smallholders in a village called Ceraetae in the district of Arpinum, Marius acquired his initial military experience serving under Scipio Aemilianus at the Siege of Numantia in 134 BC. He won election as tribune of the plebs in 119 BC and passed a law limiting aristocratic interference in elections. Barely elected praetor in 115 BC, he next became the governor of Further Spain where he campaigned against bandits.

Marius attained his first consulship in 107 BC and became the commander of Roman forces in Numidia, where he brought an end to the Jugurthine War. By 105 BC Rome faced an invasion by the Cimbri and Teutones, and the comitia centuriata elected Marius consul for a second time to face this new threat. Marius was consul every year from 104 to 100 BC, defeating the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae and the Cimbri at Vercellae. Marius suffered political setbacks during his sixth consulship in 100 BC and subsequently withdrew from active public life.

The Roman Republic entered a period of crisis with the outbreak of the Social War in 91 BC, in which Marius held a command with limited success. He became embroiled in a conflict with the Roman general Sulla which resulted in his exile to Africa in 88 BC. Marius returned to Italy from Carthage during the War of Octavius, seized Rome, and conducted a purge of political opponents, after which he was elected consul for the seventh time. He died within weeks of assuming this seventh consulship in 86 BC.

In the nineteenth century, Marius was credited with the Marian reforms, including the transition from militia levies to a professional soldiery, modifications to the pilum (a kind of javelin), and changes to the logistical structure of the Roman army. Twenty-first-century historians generally characterise this attribution as "a construct of modern scholarship".