The Marian Reforms

The so-called Marian Reforms are political programs instituted in 107BC by Gaius Marius, which claimed to have wide-ranging impacts that set the form of the Roman army to and into the Imperial period. However, many modern scholars have raised doubts over these reforms' validity and outright existence due to their lack of historical proof and argue that they do not reflect what is known about the Roman Army and how it changed from 133 BC to 14AD.

 

The alleged Marian Reforms were supposed to combine tactical, organizational, and equipment reforms associated with Gaius Marius. These 'Reforms' can be divided into three distinct categories:

1. Reforms that actually occurred with historical proof;
2. Reforms that have been assumed to originate from Gaius Marius without in-depth proof or with contradictory evidence; and
3. Reforms that have no proof of originating from Marius and lots of contradictory evidence.

The Marian Reforms that are backed by historical proof are:

The Eagle Aquila Standard: Marius took charge of the army set to fight the Cimbri during his second consulship. At the time, there were five legionary standards: eagle, boar, horse, minotaur, and wolf. According to both Plutarch and Pliny the Elder, Marius had all but the eagle removed from the Legions. 

The Pilum: While ancient sources claim that Marius modified the tanged pilum, the armor-piercing heavy javelin used by the Romans, the nature of the changes remains unclear. Archeological evidence recovered from the Late Republic Period shows that the changes made to the Pila contradict those attributed to Marius. It is possible, however, that these changes were made under Marius’s consulship.

The use of Capite Censi: The capite censi, the lowest Roman class, was recruited by Marius as he called for volunteers for his army in the war against a rebelling king of Numidia. While he primarily recruited propertied individuals, his call for volunteers included members across all strata of Roman society. Evidence suggests that this was a singular event, not a rule to remove all property requirements from the army, nor did this so-called reform get copied by his peers.

The “Marius Mules”: Marius is credited with reforms of the mobility of the infantry by dismissing their personal servants and personal mules. Instead, they were put into groups of 6-10 per mule and one camp servant to carry communal equipment, with each man carrying his own. However, some ancient sources attribute this reform to Caecillius Metellus in 109 BC. Marius was one of Metellus’s legates and so may still have had some influence on this. Furthermore, similar changes had been undertaken previously by Scipio Aemilianus and Scipio Africanus. 

The Reforms that have been assumed to originate from Marius are:

Cohorts: There are different historical accounts of the Late Republic, which are limited in scope and contradictory. Polybius and Caesar wrote detailed commentaries about the Roman army, with many authors in between, each writing at a different time. Some talk about the Roman military using Cohorts, some mention maniples, and some mention both being used in the same battle. Past modern historians resorted to simply attributing the Cohortal reform to Marius. However, Roman citizen cohorts were noted during the Second Punic War and earlier battles. As such, it is unclear when this formation was first used, but nothing directly would link it to Gaius Marius.

Lastly, there are so-called Reforms attributed to Gaius Marius that are historically incorrect, the biggest being the creation of a professional standing army. From the surviving sources, Marius did not create this reform at all. During his career as a consul, he commanded the 3 consular armies, each eventually discharged. The first long-standing legions faced punishment during the Second Punic War after the battle of Cannae in 216 BC; even Caesar only kept his legions for 16 years, and this was after bribing them to stay with him for longer. It was not until Augustus, at the end of the Civil Wars, that the creation of a long-standing and professionalized army would be seen.