This led to the nickname of ‘Marius’s Mules’ for legionaries, but the result was a highly disciplined force of long-service professionals.Ī system of providing for veterans by holding back some of their pay until they left service and granting land in new provinces enabled a poor man to improve his lot and perhaps buy a better life for his family at the price of years in the legion. Soldiers were issued only what they needed and forced to carry most of it themselves on the march.

Instead of having to provide their own war gear, soldiers were issued arms and equipment by the state, opening military service to the poorest classes who at the time desperately needed a source of employment.Ī new class of professional soldier began to emerge, whilst at the same time, Marius improved training and did away with much of the army’s baggage train. Marius implemented many changes in the Roman army, which would create the formidable fighting machine deployed by Caesar and later commanders.

Marius was placed in command of a Roman force defending against invasion by tribes from Gaul and given multiple extensions of his term until the threat was finally eliminated. Strict rules about the rotation of consulships forbade him from being assigned, but as the Roman army faced a string of defeats the regulations were amended. Marius was highly successful as governor and commander but was unavailable in 102BC at a time when Rome faced a severe crisis. The most important changes in the Roman military system were implemented by Gaius Marius, a plebeian who had clawed his way into the political arena on the back of honourable military service. The governorship was a route to higher office in Rome itself, and could also be a means for an ambitious man to enrich himself using resources provided by the republic.

Relatively peaceable areas were governed by a proprietor, with more troubled areas or important border regions instead assigned a proconsul who had the power to command legions where a proprietor did not. Provincial governors were expected to lead their forces and deal with whatever troubles arose. Military and political leadership were intertwined in the late Roman republic. With the Carthaginian threat to the Mediterranean maritime network dealt with, it was now possible to look further inland. Sea transport and trade were essential, and to a great extent, the limits of the empire were defined by the distance from the nearest port rather than the distance from Rome. By 50BC, Rome was well established as the centre of an empire in all but name.

Ancient warfare 2 factions