1a. Marius vs. Sulla

All humans have strengths and weaknesses, from the high and mighty to the more humble of us—things we excel at and things we struggle with. For example, you might be brilliant at math but a horrible writer. You might have very high emotional intelligence and be very adept in social situations but maybe you lack book smarts. Or the other way around, you may be a genius when it comes to book smarts and clueless when it comes to people skills. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Some with more strengths than others but still, we all have weaknesses.
I always have an image in my head of a video game character with different stats: speed, strength, intelligence, agility—and there are only so many points you can divide between these different categories. Not that we get any choice in the matter. And the fact that just about every person in history follows this model is why I find Julius Caesar so endlessly fascinating. Because he doesn't follow this model.
Julius Caesar is like the video game character you entered a cheat code on and maxed out all of his stats. The man was near flawless. Not just good at everything he ever turned his hand to, but the best. The best writer, orator, general, statesman, politician, lawyer and yes, lover. He was said to have excellent skills in the use of weapons and was an expert horseman and a war hero to boot. He thought faster than those around him and he acted faster, more efficiently and more relentlessly. His energy was legendary. As was his charisma and his charm. He was the most fashionable man in Rome, always the talk of everyone's gossip. He was loved by the poor masses of Rome and never allowed himself to be bullied, even when facing incredible pressure, including the threat of death. He was personally brave on the battlefield and his soldiers worshipped him. If this isn't a man born with the stats maxed out I don't know who is. He's easily the single most talented person I have ever read about in history and he doesn't seem to have any weaknesses. Everything's a strength for him. He was even famed in his day for his luck.
And that's the thrill of learning about Julius Caesar's life. You get to watch as this astoundingly capable individual pits himself against ever greater and more perilous odds and you wait with breathless anticipation to see if his abilities, and his luck, are good enough for him to come out the victor. And he almost never disappoints.
But before we can talk any more about Julius Caesar we need to talk about the world he was born into. Gaius or Caius Julius Caesar was born in the year 100 BC in Rome, of course. Now, we've all heard of the famous Caesars of the Roman Empire. Those emperors who ruled an empire extending from Britain to Egypt and from modern Morocco to what is today Georgia. And of course those boundaries constantly fluctuated over the course of centuries. Well, though those emperors take their name from Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar himself lives before that time. He lives in the time of the late Roman Republic.
In fact, as I'm sure you know, he will be instrumental in changing that Republic into an empire. I think often in the popular consciousness it's generally taken for granted that Julius Caesar was the destroyer of the Roman Republic. That he single-handedly marched on Rome, snuffed out the Republic, and made himself Emperor. Well, this isn't quite true. And the more details you learn about this story, the more your opinion on Caesar and on who is to blame for the fall of the Republic may change. It's typically taken for granted that the fall of the Republic was a bad thing. Many of us after all live in republics or democracies today. How can a military takeover and conversion into an autocracy be anything other than bad? Well I suppose that depends on just how democratic the Roman Republic was and how much it was doing to help its citizens. As you might come to see in time, the Republic was, in many ways, a Republican name only. In reality, it was more of an oligarchy, run by an elite sect of ruling families who jealously guarded their power and only looked out for their own interests.
This podcast is not just the story of Julius Caesar; it is also the story of the fall of the Roman Republic through the eyes of Julius Caesar, the man many see as the architect of its destruction. And in telling these intertwined stories, the life of Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic, we are incredibly lucky when it comes to the number and the quality of ancient sources available. In fact, historian Lily Ross Taylor writes in her book, “Party Politics in the Age of Caesar”, that we have more detailed first-hand evidence of the period Julius Caesar lived in than we possess for any other period of antiquity. That sort of first-hand evidence brings the people and the world of the late Roman Republic to life in a way that is unusual for much of antiquity.
Now, I said the destruction of the Roman Republic is intertwined with the life of Julius Caesar. But its fall does not begin with Caesar. Its death throes go back long before Caesar's day. Caesar was not born into a healthy and stable Republic. In fact, early in Caesar's life, the Republic will be torn apart by civil war. A civil war that members of his family will be the driving force of.
In the ancient Rome of Caesar's day, everything is personal. There are really no ideologies or political parties as we know them today. Instead, there are complex webs of personal and familial ties, and everyone is looking out for themselves and their families. And so, not surprisingly, when civil war breaks out, it isn't ideologically based or even based on region; it’s personal. The personal feud between two men, Gaius Marius, who is the uncle of Julius Caesar, and a man named Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
These two men, Marius and Sulla, have two of the most fascinating personalities you can imagine. In some ways, they couldn't be more different. Marius comes from an unknown family and he's a Populare, a man who draws his power from the support of the common people by championing their causes. Sulla is a patrician, the oldest nobility in Rome. Sulla will champion the Optimates or the Boni, the sort of elite within the elite of the Roman Senate. I'll explain more about that later.
In many other ways, these two men are very similar. Both of them are hard-headed and have massive egos. Both of them are willing to put their own interests above the interests of the entire Republic. And in the end, both of them will learn of themselves, that they are willing to resort to horrific violence to get what they want.
Each of them has their likable qualities and you may find yourself rooting for one or the other or both throughout much of the story. But in the end, both men will shock you, the Roman world, and perhaps even themselves with what they are capable of.
And the reason we are talking about two men not named Julius Caesar is because we need to understand the feud between Marius and Sulla to understand the world Julius Caesar was born into and the events which shaped his early years. So don't worry, Julius Caesar will come back onto the scene in episode 1b and we will cover his life in depth. But for now, sit back, relax, and get ready for the thrilling ride that is the story of the rivalry between Marius and Sulla.
To get started with our tale, let me introduce you to Gaius Marius. Marius, the older of the two men by a large degree, was born in 157 BC in the village of Cereatae near the town of Arpinum, a few days outside of Rome. This made Marius technically an outsider to Rome, even though he was a Roman citizen.
The ancient sources like to paint Marius as a man who came from nothing to rise to the pinnacles of power. Ancient biographer Plutarch calls Marius's parents poor people who live by the labor of their own hands. And while there is some truth to this, it's not quite that clear-cut. Marius's family may have worked for a living, which was beneath senatorial families, but Marius's family was almost certainly not poor. After all, they had the funds for Marius to embark on a political career which was not cheap. However, wealth can be relative and it's possible that when compared to the grand old families of the Republic, he was comparatively poor. Or maybe not. There are things that mattered more to the Romans than money. This is especially true of the Roman nobility. The pedigree of your family name and how illustrious the achievements of your ancestors were in the service of Rome was massively important.
Well, Marius's family was unknown. He had no ancestors of distinction. And whether Marius was born with wealth or not, no amount of money could buy him a prestigious name. Marius will have to earn that. So Marius enters into the Roman military and there he thrives as a soldier. Though I should note he would not have been a common foot soldier. Coming from an equestrian family, which is a term I'll explain later, he likely would have been in a cavalry unit with the sons of other prominent families which would fast track him for some sort of leadership position, if he showed ability. And Marius did have ability. Naturally brave with nerves of steel, he soon makes a name for himself, even striking down an enemy in single combat as his commander watched. A feat which greatly impressed his commander.
It's Marius's feats in the military that will really bring him to the attention of the Roman people. Other politicians had illustrious family names that had brand recognition with the Roman people. They had extensive connections among the other powerful families and many of them were related to each other. As such, they got a first-class education on how the devilishly complex Roman Republic functioned and how they could best exploit this for their own means. Marius had none of this. Being raised in a village in the countryside, he was a rough around-the-edges rustic in comparison to the urbane and sophisticated Roman elite. Marius finds a way to overcome all of these deficits though by just being a stunningly good soldier and commander. And so, having made some sort of name for himself in the army and being a young man overflowing with ambition, Marius enters into Roman politics.
Now, Marius was what the Romans called a homo novus or a novus homo, a new man. I've seen different historians define what it means to be a novus homo or a new man in ancient Rome in different ways. Some, like Matthias Gelzer say a novus homo was a man who was the first in his family to enter the Senate. Others, like Adrian Goldsworthy, define it as a man who was the first of his family to achieve the highest position in Rome, the consulship. Either way, it meant that this man had no illustrious ancestors to point to. His family was an unknown or at least relatively obscure commodity to the Senate and the people of Rome. And of course, the most famous of new men were those who went from zero to hero. Men who were the first in their family to enter the Senate and through their immense talent and hard work managed to make it to the consulship. By any definition, these men were truly homines novi, new men.
And as you might imagine, the Roman nobility, that is the Roman families which had held the consulship, did not like these sorts of men. In fact, they jealously guarded positions of power against such men. The result of this sort of old guard collusion was that in the final 150 years of the Roman Republic there were only 10 new men elected consul. So it's a pretty rare thing. And the reason the nobility were so interested in keeping out new men is that there were a finite number of political positions on what the Romans called the cursus honor. And any position taken by a new man prevented one of their own from gaining a position.
The cursus honorum, or the course of honor, was the race to gain political positions and rise up the political ladder in ancient Rome. There were a set of political offices you would hold in a certain order and often at a specified minimum age, just like the US Congress or presidency. I won't go into the details of the cursus honorum at this point but you'll get a feel for it as we talk about Julius Caesar progressing through the cursus honorum in his life.
But in very broad strokes, there are three required positions on the cursus honorum: quaestor, being the most junior; then praetor; and finally consul, the top dog in Rome. There are also several optional positions like tribune of the plebs and aediles, but we won't go into those positions right now. The really important detail of the cursus honorum for our discussion right now, is the number of men elected to these offices each year.
You see, by Julius Caesar's day, each year 20 quaestors, 8 praetors, and only two consuls would be elected. As you can see, the way the political hierarchy is organized is a pyramid that accepts fewer and fewer men the closer to the top you get. This fosters a spirit of fierce competition among the Roman elite. The last thing they want is for some new family to jump into this competition, and so they generally close ranks against such men. Men like Marius.
The Roman people were also often suspicious of such men since they trusted old family names of the Republic like we trust brand names today. Gaius Marius? Who's that? I've never heard of that family. Who knows what they stand for or if they can be trusted. Best to play it safe and vote for a man from a known family, maybe a member of the Claudii or the Cornelii. And so, any new man who wants to break into the Senate and rise in political life has to have immense ability and determination. Lucky for Marius, these are two qualities he has in abundance.
Now, when Marius enters the cursus honorum, we begin to see more of his personality. Marius has a lot that makes him admirable, but make no mistake, he's got a dark side too. He's selfish, petty, vainglorious, and relentlessly ambitious. Ancient biographer Plutarch writes of Marius,
“Never caring to be a good man so that he were but a great one.”
And of course, by great man, Plutarch means a man with power and prestige who moves world events and is remembered by history. In politics, Marius will march to the beat of his own drum, and he's utterly fearless in doing this, just as he is in war. Early on in his career, Marius is elected Tribune of the Plebs with the help of his family patron. The tribunate is a relatively junior role in the cursus honorum, but a tribune can wield a disproportionate amount of power if they are brave enough to risk the anger of the nobility.
As tribune, Marius puts forward a bill on the regulation of voting. This bill is favored by the common people, but opposed by the nobility. The consul, who is basically the joint head of state for that year, leads the Senate in declaring against the bill. And when the consul calls young Marius to account for proposing this bill, rather than being timid and deferential before these august men, his elders in the Senate, Marius instead threatens to throw the consul in prison if he doesn't back down. And when the consul turns to Marius' patron for help, the man who had helped get Marius elected as tribune, Marius orders him detained too.
Eventually, the entire Senate and nobility are forced to back down before this one headstrong young man. This wins Marius a lot of love from the common people. They now see him as a man of courage and conviction who isn't afraid to fight against the powerful families on their behalf.
Now, unsurprisingly, some young upstart behaving this way rubs some of the nobility the wrong way. But Marius couldn't give a damn. Marius, throughout his career, will compensate for his roughness by doubling down with more of the same, and by being utterly determined and fearless. But those qualities which work so well for Marius in war can sometimes work against him in politics. Marius is a bull in a china shop, and he isn't just breaking china by accident. He's doing it on purpose. For example, later when Marius wins the consulship, he gives a speech where he talks about carrying off the consulship as a spoil from the effeminacy of the wealthy and highborn citizens. That's the kind of thing that rocks the boat with the noble powerful families, families who don't want you there to begin with. Though, if Marius wasn't this headstrong, he probably would never have made it as far as a new man, anyway.
Marius is also a bit of an ancient shock jock. He loves to make inflammatory statements about the nobility because the common people love this. The common people then encourage Marius, and so he says more inflammatory remarks. Like I said, a bull in a China shop.
Moving our story along, in 108 BC, when Marius is roughly 49 years old, Rome is bogged down in a war in North Africa, in what is today Algeria, called the Jugurthine War. This is a war against the king of Numidia, a man named Jugurtha, which is where the war gets its name from. Marius is serving in this war, but he isn't satisfied with the way it's being fought. And Marius being Marius, he feels he has the answers to win this war.
And Marius has good reason to feel so confident. Marius is loved by the soldiers in this campaign, as he will be loved by his troops throughout his life. He is known for getting down in the trenches and digging with his soldiers, eating the same simple food they eat, and sleeping on the same simple beds they sleep on. And in councils of war, Marius always seems to know the best advice, and always knows what to do. So, taking orders from an incompetent aristocrat who is losing the war is beyond frustrating for Marius.
Now, most people in this situation would just sit on their hands and fume at the ineptness of their superiors. But Marius is a man of action. He's also an absolute shameless gloryhound who stands out as a gloryhound, even in a city that routinely pumps out gloryhounds. Throughout his career, Marius will show himself to be incredibly greedy and petty when it comes to honors and glory. The man wants them all for himself, and he does not play well with others. Alice Roosevelt once said of her father, President Theodore Roosevelt, that he wanted to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening. That description applies just as well to Marius. He needs to be the center of attention at all times in terms of glory and honors. So, Marius, not caring to be a good man so long as he's a great man, makes a play for command.
The story goes as follows. One day, Marius goes to his commander, who is a noble and may have even been a patron of Marius’, as well. Marius tells his commander that he wants to return to Rome to run for the consulship. The commander responds in a condescending and insulting manner. He tells Marius that he shouldn't reach for a position beyond his station, and, why isn't Marius patient enough to wait to be consul alongside the commander's son? Well, the commander's son is only 20 years old at this time, so this is a laughable insult to Marius, and the commander knows it. It's why he's saying it. Essentially saying that Marius will never be consul, because Marius is already 49 at this point. These sorts of patronizing and condescending remarks infuriate and motivate Marius, and he is not a man to let a grudge go. In fact, most Roman politicians are that way. Julius Caesar will be a rare exception in this regard.
Well, Marius has been shut down by his commander, but he is never one to back down, so he soon attacks the problem in an unorthodox way, you might say. Among other things, Marius starts networking with the equites in the army and the local equestrian businessmen. And it's worth taking a moment to explain who these equites are and how they fit into the Roman class structure. The equites, or the equestrian order, two names for the same thing, is essentially the first class, or at least the highest property class in Rome. Marius comes from an equestrian family.
At one time in Rome's history, they made up the cavalry force in Roman armies. You'll sometimes see them translated as knights rather than equites or equestrians, but it's all the same thing. But by Julius Caesar's day, and by Marius' day, equites, or the equestrian order, are mainly wealthy businessmen, landowners, bankers, and public contractors known as publicani. Historian Lily Ross Taylor calls them the capitalist class.
Now, if the equites are the first class, where does the Senate fit in? Well, the Roman Senate represents an elite within that elite that is the equestrian order. The Roman class system can often look like a never-ending series of Russian dolls. And continuing with that theme, there is an elite within the Senate made up of the great and powerful consular families known as the nobles or nobility. That is to say, if a senator gets elected consul, he and his family become part of the nobility. And then, of course, not all noble families are created equal, and there is an even more elite core of families that have repeatedly held the consulship throughout the history of the Republic.
So, to sum all of this up, if an equite manages to get into the Senate, he can elevate himself and his family to that senatorial inner circle, like Marius did. This is why the equestrian order is sometimes referred to as “the seedbed of the Senate”. If an equestrian gets into the Senate and then becomes consul, or if an existing senator whose family had never held the consulship becomes consul, he can elevate himself even further to become a noble, one of the families which had held the consulship. This, is what Marius is trying to do now in trying to run for the consulship.
So, getting back to our narrative, Marius convinces these equites he's made connections with to start writing letters back to their influential friends in Rome. In these letters, they criticize Marius' commander's handling of the war, and they say that the war will never be over unless Marius is made commander. And let's be clear about what's happening here. Marius is quite possibly a client of this commander, he is definitely a subordinate of his, and he's stabbing this man in the back to steal his command. This will make Marius' future gripes with Sulla all the more laughable later in our story.
At the same time that Marius has the equites writing these letters, he never stops his request for furlough from his commander. Eventually, the commander is worn down by all of this and decides that an officer like Marius who doesn't want to be there can't be relied upon in war, so he gives Marius leave to go to Rome to run for the consulship.
Finally back in Rome, Marius, as part of his campaign, slanders his old commander and promises that if the Roman people elect him, he'll kill or capture Jugurtha and thus end the war at a stroke. Marius' military fame is growing at this point, and Rome is fed up with commanders from blue-blooded families that have bungled the war up to now, so he is indeed elected consul. He then has a friendly Tribune of the Plebs pass a law to overrule the Senate's assignment of provinces and awards the Jugurthine War to… himself, of course. Again, not the kind of thing that endears you to the Senate.
Sallust, who is our main ancient source on the Jugurthine War in North Africa, has Marius giving a pretty incredible speech after being elected consul. A speech which expresses some really astounding views on the backwardness and hypocrisy of the nobility that you would not expect to hear over 2,000 years ago in ancient Rome. Since it's a relatively long speech, I'm just going to share the highlights with you, but there are quite a few highlights. It's a great speech.
According to Sallust, Marius calls together the people of Rome and says to them,
“Compare me now, fellow citizens, a new man with those haughty nobles. What they know from hearsay and reading I have either seen with my own eyes or done with my own hands. What they have learned from books I have learned by service in the field; think now for yourself whether words or deeds are worth more. They scorn my humble birth, I their worthlessness; I am taunted with my lot in life, they with their infamies. For my part, I believe that all men have one and the same nature, but that the bravest is the best born; and if the fathers of Albinus and Bestia…”, those are two men who had previously been given command of the war and had failed to win it, so he says, “…if the fathers of Albinus and Bestia could now be asked whether they would prefer to have me or those men for their descendants, what do you suppose they would reply, if not that they desired to have the best possible children?”
Marius then continues, “But if they rightly look down on me, let them also look down on their own forefathers, whose nobility began, as did my own, in manly deeds. They begrudge me my office; then let them begrudge my toil, my honesty, even my dangers, since it was through those that I won the office. In fact, these men, spoiled by pride, live as if they scorned your honours, but seek them as if their own lives were honorable. Surely they are deceived when they look forward with equal confidence to things which are worlds apart, the joys of idleness and the rewards of merit. Even when they speak to you or address the senate, their theme is commonly a eulogy of their ancestors; by recounting the exploits of their forefathers they imagine themselves more glory. The very reverse is true. The more glorious was the life of their ancestors, the more shameful is their own baseness. Assuredly the matter stands thus: the glory of ancestors is, as it were, a light shining upon their posterity, suffering neither their virtues nor their faults to be hidden. Of such glory I acknowledge my poverty, fellow citizens; But — and that is far more glorious — I have done deeds of which I have a right to speak. Now see how unfair those men are; what they demand for themselves because of others' merit they do not allow me as the result of my own, no doubt because I have no family portraits and because mine is a new nobility. And yet surely to be the creator is better than to have inherited and disgraced it.”
Marius then continues, “I cannot, to justify your confidence, display family portraits or the triumphs and consul­ships of my forefathers; but if occasion requires, I can show spears, a banner, trappings and other military prizes,​ as well as scars on my breast. These are my portraits, these my patent of nobility, not left me by inheritance as theirs were, but won by my own innumerable efforts and perils.”
Marius then continues later in his speech, “But I have learned by far the most important lesson for my country's good — to strike down the foe, to keep watch and ward, to fear nothing save ill repute, to endure heat and cold alike, to sleep on the ground, to bear privation and fatigue at the same time. It is with these lessons that I shall encourage my soldiers; I shall not treat them stingily and myself lavishly, nor win my own glory at the price of their toil. Such leader­ship is helpful, such leader­ship is democratic; for to live in luxury oneself but control one's army by punishments is to be a master of slaves, not a commander. It was by conduct like this that your forefathers made themselves and their country famous; but the nobles, relying upon such ancestors though themselves of very different character, despise us who emulate the men of old, and claim from you all honours, not from desert, but as a debt.”
Finally, Marius finishes his speech, “I, Marius, shall be with you on the march and in battle, at once your counselor and the companion of your dangers, and I shall treat myself and you alike in all respects. And surely with the help of the gods everything is ripe for us — victory, spoils, glory; but even though these were uncertain or remote, yet all good men ought to fly to the aid of their fatherland. Truly, no one ever became immortal through cowardice, and no parent would wish for his children that they might live forever, but rather that their lives might be noble and honoured. I would say more, citizens, if words could make cowards brave. For the resolute I think I have spoken abundantly.”
Marius is absolutely scorching the nobility there! You can imagine the common people of Rome just going wild. Marius is giving voice to all their frustrations with the ruling class. He's saying all the things they dream of saying but lack the power or the courage to do so.
And just going back to Marius' speech for a moment, there are so many good lines in it, but one that you may have missed is when Marius talks about not having a bunch of family distinctions to prove his worth. Instead, he presents a series of military honors that he has personally earned. That's when he talks about having “scars on his breast”. And when he says that, he isn't just telling the audience that he has fought many battles and has the scars to prove it. He's also telling them that those scars are all on the front of his body, meaning that he received them standing his ground and fighting the enemy, never from turning his back and running. This was an important and badass distinction in ancient Rome.
Now, after being elected consul, Marius does something very interesting. Rome traditionally had a requirement that only citizens who owned a certain minimum of property could enroll in the legions, and these men were required to bring their own weapons and armor to war. And Rome does not easily part with its traditions. It was a deeply conservative society.
However, they were also a very practical society. So for some time now, this property qualification had been getting lower and lower to allow poorer and poorer men into the army. According to historian Richard John Evans, by the time Marius gets elected consul, the property qualification had become so low as to become almost meaningless. And the reason for the ever-lowering of the property qualification was because Rome increasingly had a shortage of qualified soldiers. And of course, by qualified, I mean in terms of property. And there are a few reasons for this shortage.
For one, a system that required landed citizens to go fight a war and return to their farms after the war was over had become outdated. Rome is no longer a small city-state fighting tribes on its local borders. It's frequently engaged in multi-year or even multi-decade wars around the Mediterranean. So increasingly, citizen-soldiers are required to stay in a theater of war for years on end, or even as a permanent garrison of a conquered territory. And what happens to their farms during those years? Can their wives and children run the farm by themselves? Well, in an age of heavy manual labor and in an extremely patriarchal society like Rome, probably not.
So in many cases, the farms either become overburdened with debt trying to stay afloat, or they fall into disrepair or even ruin, and the families become destitute. What's worse, large landowners in Italy begin to prey on these small farms whose owners are absent on military campaign. When a small family-owned farm becomes heavily indebted, who is lending the money? Well, often it's the large landowners nearby. And when, inevitably, this small farm can't pay its debts, the large landowners seize the farm and force the family off the farm.
But the predatory behavior gets worse than that. Some families of soldiers on campaign were violently driven off their farms by nearby wealthy landowners and had their property simply seized. So the scenario that is repeatedly playing out around Italy is, the citizen-soldier, if he survives the war, returns to find his farm in ruin, heavily mortgaged or sold altogether, and his family in poverty. And with no other prospects, the now impoverished family either finds work on a large estate or moves to Rome or some other Italian city, further swelling the population with urban, jobless poor. But there are other problems too.
The great successes of the citizen-soldiers in war have heavily enriched the elites and have brought tens of thousands of slaves back to Italy. The large landowners increasingly staff their agrarian enterprises with small armies of slaves rather than citizens, making it even tougher for a small farmer to compete or for a poor rural citizen to find a job. And to make matters worse for the Roman or Italian farmer, cheap grain was now flowing into Italy from the conquered provinces. So the very citizens who won the great victories and bled for the Republic are seeing little to nothing of the profits of empire and, in fact, are worse off than they were before the victories.
The first great reformer of the late Republic was a man named Tiberius Gracchus. You often see his career depicted as marking the start of the fall of the Roman Republic. Tiberius was supposed to have been inspired to take up the plight of the common citizen as his cause after traveling through Tuscany and seeing that the land was devoid of citizens.
All the farm workers and shepherds he came across were, as Plutarch calls them, barbarian slaves. In a famous quote relayed to us by Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus says in a speech to the people of Rome,
"The wild beasts that roam over Italy have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in; but the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light, indeed, but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children. And it is with lying lips that their imperators exhort the soldiers in their battles to defend sepulchres and shrines from the enemy; for not a man of them has an hereditary altar, not one of all these many Romans an ancestral tomb, but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury, and though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own."
And a really important result of all this for the Republic is that it has a dwindling supply of men who meet the property qualification to be soldiers. Which brings us back to Marius. Though the property qualifications for soldiers had been decreasing over time, Marius breaks with the rule of only recruiting property-owning citizens altogether and begins recruiting men who don't meet any property requirement, even very poor, landless, and jobless men, including the urban poor of Rome. These propertyless men are called the Capite Censi, or the head count, since in the census they have no property to count, so instead they're counted by the head, the only thing that they actually own. And these men, with everything to gain and nothing to lose, are highly motivated, and Marius took only volunteers.
This breaking with tradition incurs the displeasure of the Senate, but Marius, of course, is not one to care much about what the stuffy nobility thinks. In fact, this breach in tradition and the future crisis it will precipitate can, at least in part, be laid at the feet of the Senate.
After Marius had overrode their assignment of provinces and gotten the Jugurthine War assigned to himself, the Senate had attempted to stick it to Marius by telling him that he could not raise new legions for the war, and instead had to only take volunteers. And so it was to outmaneuver this spiteful move on the part of the Senate that Marius started recruiting poor, landless volunteers. And this change in recruitment policy will eventually have radical implications for the Roman Republic, and will be one of the leading reasons why the Republic collapses.
And at first glance, the nobility's resistance to recruiting the poorest citizens of Rome into the army seems like no more than aristocratic snobbery. A bunch of overbred, arrogant aristocrats thinking that the dregs of society couldn't possibly be relied upon to fight for their country since they own no piece of that country. And what Marius is doing appears to be nothing but a positive move. Here he is taking the poorest members of society who aren't contributing much to Rome, and are perhaps causing issues in the city and the countryside via crime and rioting, and Marius is giving them a chance to raise their station in life. He's giving them a chance to fight for Rome, and in so doing earn for themselves and their families respect and fortune. He's taking these men off the streets and pulling them out of rural poverty. He's training them, and he's giving them pride in themselves and their abilities. In the end, Marius will even provide them with land so they can continue to be productive members of society. How could any of this be a bad thing?
Well, these new propertyless soldiers will be dependent on their general to feed them, clothe them, arm them, pay and train them, and when their career is over, they have no land to go back to so they will depend on their general to provide land for them via his influence and power in the Senate. This makes these soldiers into clients of the general. All good opportunity for them flows from their general. So these men become more the soldiers of their individual general than the soldiers of Rome. And when rival senators who never want to see anyone else gain power or clients try to block the generals of these poor soldiers from passing laws that would provide the soldiers with land… how do you think the government of Rome looks to these propertyless soldiers? To them, it is clear that without the strength of their general, they will get nothing. Rome will snub them and toss them back into the depth of poverty that their general had pulled them out of. This breeds extreme loyalty in these soldiers, and soon Roman generals will command their individual armies independent of the Senate and of Rome.
Of course, let's not give the nobility of Rome too much credit. I suspect most, if not all, of the resistance to the recruitment of the Capite Censi was simple ingrained aristocratic snobbery rather than political clairvoyance.
Now, earlier I said that this eventual civil war that is coming is due to the rivalry between two men. So far we've only talked about one of these men, Marius. Now it's time to introduce the other, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla was born a patrician, like Julius Caesar. Despite this blue blood, and similar to Caesar again, Sulla in his youth was poor. Probably even poorer than Caesar, though we are told that he did receive a good education.
So, living in the Roman slums and having little money, Sulla the patrician had a misspent youth partying with actors, musicians, prostitutes, jesters, and female impersonators, all of which the ancient Romans put in a similar category and thought of as the dregs of society. Sulla was, at the time and will remain throughout his life, hard drinking, quick with a joke, and fond of partying with his low-class early friends. And, in addition to being very sexually active, Sulla also seems to have been openly bisexual throughout his life, one more thing to scandalize the Roman upper classes. Plutarch writes about Sulla, and in this quote he talks about players, and when he says players, he's referring to actors. He writes that Sulla was,
“...one who was by nature so addicted to raillery, that in his youthful obscure years he would converse freely with players and professed jesters, and join them in all their low pleasures. And when supreme master of all, he was often wont to muster together the most impudent players and stage followers of the town, and to drink and bandy jests with them without regard to his age or the dignity of his place, and to the prejudice of important affairs that required his attention. When he was once at table, it was not in Sulla’s nature to admit of anything that was serious, and whereas at other times he was a man of business and austere of countenance, he underwent all of a sudden, at his first entrance upon wine and good-fellowship, a total revolution, and was gentle and tractable with common singers and dancers, and ready to oblige anyone that spoke with him. It seems to have been a sort of diseased result of this laxity that he was so prone to amorous pleasures, and yielded without resistance to any temptation of voluptuousness, from which even in his old age he could not refrain. He had a long attachment for Metrobius, a player.”
We'll talk more about Metrobius in a moment. Sulla is also an incredibly intimidating and violent man, unpredictable in his moods and reactions. Plutarch says at times he would bear the greatest wrongs with equanimity, and yet other times he would react violently to seemingly innocuous things. Sulla had intimidation down to an art, and his willingness to resort to violence, I'm certain, only helped him in that talent.
But Sulla could also be incredibly charming, amenable, approachable. He's a massive contradiction. Ancient writer Valerius Maximus talks about there being two Sullas in one man. He is a patrician, and he will become the standard bearer for the conservatives in Rome, and yet, his lifestyle will not reflect that in the least. The way Sulla lives, and the company he keeps are appalling to traditionalists in Rome. Despite this disapproval from his peers, Sulla will remain loyal to his friends from the slums right up to the end of his life. Even once he's reached the pinnacle of power, he will continue partying with them, much to the scandal of his fellow nobles. Plutarch writes about Sulla's contradictory character, saying,
"In general he would seem to have been of a very irregular character, full of inconsistencies with himself; much given to rapine, to prodigality, yet more; in promoting or disgracing whom he pleased, alike unaccountable; cringing to those he stood in need of, and domineering over others who stood in need of him, so that it was hard to tell whether his nature had more in it of pride or servility."
Plutarch then goes on to conclude, "...one might judge that in himself he was really of a violent and revengeful nature, which, however, he could qualify, upon reflection, for his interest."
That sounds like the description of a psychopath if ever I've heard one. Sulla will go on to become a brilliant and fearsome general, winning great military victories and displaying considerable courage. At the same time, he will be enthralled by a female impersonator named Metrobius for much of his life, despite being married to women multiple times. And even once Metrobius is older and past his prime, Sulla will continue to be passionately fond of him. There is no end to the contradictions of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. And then there's Sulla's appearance.
The Romans found his appearance to be extraordinary. He had piercing gray eyes, which people found formidable and intimidating. He had golden red hair and a pale white face covered in blotches of fiery red.
It would seem Sulla was also an extraordinarily good-looking man, and throughout his life he will attract the attention and sometimes devotion of the women of Rome. And not just mortal women. Sulla will claim to be the favorite of the goddess of love, Venus, and he will attribute much of his success in life to her along with fortune. And fortune to the Romans was personified by the goddess Fortuna, so yet another female protector of Sulla.
And it wasn't just Sulla who said these sorts of things about himself. Ancient historian Appian says that he came across the decree of the Senate, which named Sulla as Epaphroditus, meaning the favorite of Aphrodite or Venus, which are the Greek and Roman equivalents for the same goddess.
And though Sulla was left nothing by his father by way of inheritance, it will be two women who changed that. One is Sulla's stepmother, who loved him like a son. When she dies, she leaves everything she has to him. The second woman is a high-end and wealthy prostitute or courtesan named Nicopolis. Nicopolis was so in love with Sulla that when she dies, she too leaves everything she owns to Sulla in her will. Both of these deaths and subsequent inheritances come around the same time, when Sulla is around 30 years old. The money from these inheritances then allows Sulla to pursue a political career, and he gets elected quaestor, thus entering the Senate. And it's as quaestor that young Sulla is then sent to Africa to serve under Marius in the Jugurthine War.
When Sulla arrives in Africa, he has no military experience whatsoever. But apparently, the man's a natural, because he ends up distinguishing himself in this war quite a bit. Like Marius, Sulla will fight and work right alongside his men in this campaign, soon making himself an invaluable part of the army and a valued legate to Marius. This sort of courage on the battlefield and this willingness to work right alongside their soldiers is the kind of stuff that wins extreme loyalty among the soldiers of both Marius and Sulla, and not just in this war, but in all their campaigns.
Marius and Sulla are a lot alike in this way. What's more, Sulla is full of charisma, and soon everyone in the army, including Marius, becomes huge fans of Sulla. Ancient historian Sallust writes about Sulla in his history of the Jugurthine War, and he first talks about Sulla's background and character and then his conduct in the war, so it's kind of a two-part quote. Sallust writes,
“Sulla, then, was a noble of patrician descent, of a family almost reduced to obscurity through the degeneracy of his ancestors. He was well versed alike in Grecian (meaning Greek) and Roman letters, of remarkable mental power,​ devoted to pleasure but more devoted to glory. In his leisure hours he lived extravagantly, yet pleasure never interfered with his duties, except that his conduct as a husband might have been more honourable. He was eloquent, clever, and quick to make friends. He had a mind deep beyond belief in its power of disguising its purposes, and was generous with many things, especially with money.” He then goes on to say, “…he was the most fortunate of all men, but his fortune was never greater than his deserts, and many have hesitated to say whether his bravery or his good luck was the greater.”
Sallust then continues, now talking about Sulla in the Jugurthine war,
“Now Sulla, as I have already said, after he came with his cavalry to Africa and the camp of Marius, although he was without previous experience and untrained in war, soon became the best soldier in the whole army. Moreover, he was courteous in his language to the soldiers, granted favours to many at their request and to others of his own accord, unwilling himself to accept favours and paying them more promptly than a debt of money. He himself never asked for payment, but rather strove to have as many men as possible in his debt. He talked in jest or earnest​ with the humblest, was often with them at their work, on the march, and on guard duty, but in the meantime did not, like those who are actuated by depraved ambition, try to undermine the reputation of the consul (meaning Marius) or of any good man. His only effort was not to suffer anyone to outdo him in counsel or in action, and as a matter of fact he surpassed almost all. Such being his character and conduct, he was soon greatly beloved by both Marius and the soldiers.”
So Sulla gets busy winning friends and influencing people, but there is one thing that Sulla is remembered for in this war above all else. It's what really puts Sulla's name on the map. You see, Sulla is sent by Marius to meet King Jugurtha's father-in-law, King Bochus of Mauretania, Mauretania being a neighboring North African kingdom.
To make a long story short, Sulla makes a great impression on this King Bochus, and convinces him to set up and host a peace negotiation with King Jugurtha and Sulla in attendance. Since no weapons will be allowed at this peace conference, Jugurtha will be unarmed and can be ambushed by Bochus, whose men will presumably conceal weapons, and he can then be handed over to Sulla.
Bochus is the perfect man to set Jugurtha up like this, since he is Jugurtha's father-in-law and ally, and therefore is trusted to some degree. But all of this is very risky for Sulla. These two kings are family by marriage, albeit royal family, which is not always the most loyal to each other, but still they do have an alliance sealed by a marriage. Jugurtha is married to Bochus' daughter, which means King Bacchus might very well get cold feet and decide he'd rather betray Sulla the Roman and hand Sulla over to Jugurtha rather than the other way around.
And by the way, ahead of this meeting, Jugurtha is asking Bochus to do just that. Jugurtha wants Bacchus to abduct Sulla and hand him over to Jugurtha as leverage in peace negotiations with Rome. Bochus, meanwhile, is basically telling everyone what they want to hear. He tells Sulla he will abduct Jugurtha and hand him over to Sulla. He tells Jugurtha he will abduct Sulla and hand him over to Jugurtha. And it seems he really hasn't made up his mind as to which one he would betray, and he vacillates back and forth while keeping both options open by telling both parties what they want to hear. And Sulla, he has to be aware of at least the possibility that he's being duped here, even if he isn't aware that Bochus is simultaneously negotiating and promising things to Jugurtha. So he's putting himself in a lot of danger to even show up to this meeting, but Sulla is a gambler and decides to trust in his famed luck.
So the meeting place is set by Bochus and all parties show up, no doubt a bit on edge. And finally, Bochus makes his decision and his men ambush Jugurtha, killing his men and capturing the king. King Bochus then hands King Jugurtha in chains over to Sulla, who spirits him away to Marius, who then brings him back to Rome, ending the Jugurthine war at a stroke, as Marius had promised.
Now, it's here, in the aftermath of this whole escapade, that the ancient sources tell us the feud between Marius and Sulla begins. Marius has finally met his match in the young Sulla. Sulla is almost as bad a glory hound as Marius. Sulla is the one who captured Jugurtha. He is the one who convinced Bochus to betray Jugurtha, and he's the one who risked his life to make it happen. But he did all of this under the leadership and orders of Marius. And in ancient Rome, the commander got all credit or all blame, since anything his subordinates did were at his orders. But you reap what you sow, and Marius had badmouthed his old commander and stolen his command right out from under him. Well, Sulla now starts bragging around Rome that he had really won the war, not Marius. And the nobility, who don't like Marius and want to take him down a peg anyway, jump on this and start supporting Sulla. Raised poor or not, Sulla was a patrician, while Marius was a new man, some interloper in Roman politics.
As you might imagine, this infuriates Marius. And Sulla is really laying it on thick. He even goes so far as to have a signet ring engraved with a depiction of King Bochus handing over King Jugurtha to himself, meaning to Sulla. Plutarch tells us that this ring of Sulla's touched Marius to the quick. Marius, throughout his life, will continually be involved in disputes over battle credit and glory. But at least for now, Marius sees Sulla as being beneath him. Besides, Marius has bigger fish to fry. He spotted what is actually the greatest opportunity for glory in his entire life.
At the same time Marius and Sulla were fighting the Jugurthine War, Rome was dealing with a much bigger existential threat. A group of Germanic tribes had begun migrating en masse, men, women, and children. They left their homeland, possibly in what is today Denmark, and wandered south through Europe, a little too close for comfort to the Romans. The names of these tribes are the Tuetonnes and the Cimbri. They later picked up additional allied tribes in their wanderings known as the Ambrones and the Tigurini. These tribes say they are looking for a new homeland, but they seem to be either very picky with finding this new homeland, or they're enjoying raiding and pillaging as they go a little too much, because they've yet to find a suitable home after many years of wandering.
When the Cimbri and Tuetonnes start attacking Roman allies, then the Romans need to step in. The Romans were never big fans of these sorts of wandering tribes. They were bound to cause instability in the region, and the Romans were all about keeping stability under the control of Rome, of course.
To make a long story short, Rome sends army after army at these Germanic tribes and watches them get absolutely smashed in some of the greatest military defeats in Rome's history up to that point. The most recent armies sent were split under the command of two men, one a patrician, the other a new man like Marius. The two commanders bickered and the patrician refused to work with the new man, and refused to even join camps with the new man, instead keeping his army in a separate camp. This fractious, divided leadership of Rome's military allows the Germans to crush both Roman armies. The ancient sources tell us that 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers, along with 40,000 camp followers, died in that battle alone, which becomes known as the Battle of Arausio. This, like many ancient numbers, is probably an exaggeration. But even still, historian Adrian Goldsworthy writes in his book, Caesar, Life of a Colossus, that the Roman battle losses at the Battle of Arausio rivaled those suffered at the Battle of Cannae. That is, Hannibal Barca's greatest victory over the Romans. And this is only the most recent in a series of similar military defeats for Rome.
And with this defeat at the Battle of Arausio, the way is wide open for the barbarians to sweep down into Italy. The people of Rome are in terror. So much so that they decide to do away with conventions and laws, and they say, to heck with the nobility, we need a true military man to command an army that can fight these Germans and be the salvation of Italy. Marius, coming fresh off the Jugurthine War and having the strong military reputation he does, seems like the perfect choice.
And I say the Romans dealt away with convention and law, because technically Marius had to wait 10 years between consulships. Marius had only waited two years. But the Romans feel, legality and convention be damned, if we don't put Marius in charge and give him an army there won't be a Rome left. And so they elect Marius Consul. Marius will be elected consul for the next five years in a row. This is extraordinary. The consulship was supposed to be the peak of a great politician and statesman's career, an office he was elected to once in a lifetime if he was lucky. And like I said, in rare cases where a man was elected twice, he had to wait 10 years between his terms. But in Rome's desperation, they don't care what precedent this sets. They just want to survive. And Marius seems like the only man who can save them. Similar to FDR being elected to a third and fourth term as president of the U.S. during World War II.
But I would argue, in Marius' case, it's even more extraordinary. You see, the Roman Senate was comprised of a bunch of haters, particularly the old powerful families. Rome was a city that encouraged the most relentless, insatiable ambition in its powerful men and yet harnessed that ambition for the best interests of the state. It was one of the secrets to Rome's success. And while every senator wants to be the preeminent citizen in the republic, if anyone actually reaches that spot or nears that spot or attempts to reach that spot, the rest of the jealous senators try to tear him down, even joining together to do so. The Romans not only thought that this kind of constant feuding wasn't a bad thing, they thought it was often a good thing since it prevented any one man from becoming a powerful tyrant over the state. And so, it is a sign of just how terrified Rome is that they would elect Marius, a new man, to the consulship five times in a row, giving him a total of six consulships. And Marius, of course, is in his element.
So, Marius recruits and begins to train his army. And he has a stroke of luck, too, because the Germanic tribes sort of inexplicably decide not to descend on Italy but continue their wandering elsewhere. One of the tribes travels all the way to Spain, where they fight the Celtiberians of northern Spain. This reprieve gives Marius a number of years to train and drill his men, to build a bond with them, and to gain their trust. It's also one of the reasons the Romans had to keep electing Marius to office again and again. Until the Germanic tribes are defeated, they don't trust anyone else with the army. They need Marius in command until the war is over, however long that takes.
During this whole period, Sulla is again serving under Marius and doing a heck of a job of it. In fact, he supposedly wins so much distinction that Marius gets jealous and starts stifling Sulla's opportunities for advancement and for action. Or at least, that is how Sulla feels. And so Sulla leaves Marius's army and joins the army of Marius's co-consul, a man of low energy, a man who is happy to entrust lots of responsibility to Sulla. In this way, Sulla wins power and fame for himself.
Well, eventually the Germanic tribes do decide to move on Italy. They split into two forces and take two different routes. The Cimbri move against Marius's co-consul, Catullus, the army where Sulla is serving, and the Tuetonnes, along with the Ambrones, move against Marius.
Now, it's in these campaigns that Marius wins an unparalleled name for himself. Marius has built a fortified camp and is waiting for the Tuetonnes. When they arrive, Plutarch claims their numbers were beyond belief, and that to the Roman eyes, they looked and sounded terrifying. Marius is well aware of their effect on his soldiers, so when the Teutones offer battle, Marius ignores them. Instead, he orders his troops up onto the ramparts to watch and observe the Tuetonnes, knowing that the more accustomed the Romans become to the look, the sound, and the fighting style of these Germans, the less scary they will seem.
And this strategy works, and as the Germans become more familiar, the Romans feel braver, more confident. But no matter how impetuous his troops become, Marius refuses to go out to meet the Germans in battle, even as the Tuetonnes and the Ambrones routinely insult the Romans.
Becoming tired of this game, the Tuetonnes and Ambrones eventually attack Marius' camp, but are repelled. And so, unable to draw Marius into battle or to take his camp, they march on, hoping to make it through the Alps and into Italy unopposed since Marius apparently won't fight them. Plutarch claims the Germans took six days in total to pass the Roman camp, their numbers were so large. And as they passed by the Roman camp, they called out to the Romans and asked if they have any messages they'd like to send to their wives, for they, meaning the Germans, would shortly be with them. You can imagine the steam coming out of an ancient man's ears, but still, Marius keeps control of his troops.
When the Tuetonnes and Ambrones finally pass by, Marius takes his army out of camp and begins stalking the Germans. In the course of this cat-and-mouse game, Marius first defeats the Ambrones in battle. This leaves only the Tuetonnes and the surviving members of the Ambrones to contend with. Marius then engages these in the Battle of Aquae Sextiae and wins a brilliant victory. He hides a group of 3,000 men behind the enemy army. Once the Tuetonnes are locked in battle with the main Roman force, the 3,000 hidden Romans fall on their rear, and the rest is history. In the aftermath, so many Germans are killed by the Romans that Plutarch tells us the locals made fences around their vineyards with the bones of the fallen, and that for years the local harvest was prodigious due to the fertilization it had received from all the rotting corpses that day. Marius even manages to capture the king of the Tuetonnes, Teutobod, alive.
Marius can now cross the Tuetonnes and the Ambrones off his list. That still leaves the Cimbri. And soon after Marius' victory, he learns that his colleague, Catulus, had suffered a defeat at the hands of the Cimbri. So, Marius takes his army and goes to reinforce Catullus and to challenge the Cimbri. At this point, the Cimbri send some ambassadors to Marius, demanding land for themselves and for their brethren.
In a scene that will become famous in Roman history, Marius asks them who their brethren are. The Cimbri ambassadors reply, the Tuetonnes. And at this, all of the Romans present begin to laugh, and Marius says to the ambassadors,
“Do not trouble yourself for your brethren, for we have already provided lands for them, which they shall possess forever.”
Of course, Marius is talking about their graves, or rather the land where their corpses were left to rot. The ambassadors of the Cimbri understand that they are being mocked, and they start insulting and threatening the Romans. They say that they, meaning the Cimbri and the Tuetonnes, will make the Romans pay for this mockery when the Tuetonnes arrive. You see, the Cimbri had received previous reports of the Tuetonnes' defeat, but they didn't believe it.
In fact, anyone who tried to bring news of this defeat to them, they would abuse. And apparently they still don't believe Marius and still expect the Tuetonnes to arrive. And in reply to the ambassadors' threats and claims that the Tuetonnes will still be coming, Marius says,
“They are not far off and it will be unkindly done of you to go away before greeting your brethren.”
And with this, Marius brings out the kings of the Tuetonnes in chains. There can be no more denial for the Cimbri as to what happened to their brethren. And for the Romans, it's this magical moment where their great general, Gaius Marius, looks these Germans, who Rome has been so terrified of in the eyes, and fearlessly mocks and intimidates them. Marius is supplying enough confidence to fuel the entire Republic.
After this whole exchange, the Cimbri become angry and push for battle, which Marius accepts. Marius cleverly positions his army facing west so that the rising sun will shine directly in the eyes of the Cimbri. It's also the summer solstice, and the Cimbri aren't accustomed to the blistering heat that day. On top of all of this, the wind is howling, blowing a thick cloud of dust over both armies and making it difficult to see. I imagine that this dust only makes the heat and thirst of the Cimbri that much worse.
Marius positions his own army on the wings, and Catulus’ army in the center. And Sulla is there at the battle with Catulus, and Sulla will later claim that Marius positioned his army this way because he expected the victory to be won on the wings, and so he wanted to make sure that he got all the credit for the victory.
Once the battle actually begins, according to Sulla's memoir, as relayed to us by Plutarch, so take it with a grain of salt, Sulla says Marius and his men got lost in the dust and passed the Cimbri right by. And according to Sulla, Marius and his men then spent the rest of the battle just bumbling about, aimlessly looking for the enemy, but never actually finding them because of all the dust.
And as Marius and his men were wandering blindly through the dusty battlefield, Sulla claims that Cimbri found their way through the dust to Catulus’ army by chance, and it was therefore Catulus’ army that did most of the fighting. And of course, this is the army where Sulla is stationed, so like I said, take it with a grain of salt, this is what Sulla claims in his memoirs, I'm sure Marius would have a very different account of the battle.
However it happened, the Romans win a complete and total victory, smashing the Cimbri at what becomes known as the Battle of Vercellae. And whether he deserves the credit or not, Marius gets all the glory. Marius returns to Rome an unparalleled conquering hero. He's named the third founder of Rome and marches in a triumph as the people of Rome worship and adore him. Everyone, whether at a feast or simply at home with their family, make offerings and libations in honor of,
“The gods and Marius”.
For a glory hound like Marius, this is like having his drug of choice, glory, injected directly into his veins. How can he ever be content with everyday life once he's experienced what it feels like to be hailed as the savior of his country? And now that Marius has achieved a high like this, he will chase it for the rest of his life, to his own and to his city's detriment.
Marius is elected to a sixth consulship, but then the winds begin to change. Marius learns what many great wartime leaders find out. However much their society values their leadership in war, when it comes to peace, they get tossed aside like a tool that's no longer needed. Winston Churchill felt this way after the defeat of Nazi Germany when he was promptly ousted as prime minister. This hurt him deeply after he felt that he had rescued his country from subjugation by Nazi Germany. Where was their appreciation?
Marius will come to feel much the same way as Rome decides that other men are more fit for office in peace times. After all, Marius is still that bull in a china shop. In fact, he's worse now. At one point, he unilaterally and illegally granted citizenship to 1,000 men of an Italian town who Marius felt had shown conspicuous bravery in the war. This may have been the right thing to do, but some people, presumably the nobility in the Senate, impeached Marius for this. In reply, according to Plutarch, Marius says that,
"The law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war."
That's the kind of talk that makes people nervous.
Then there's the way Marius gets himself elected. Unable to give up the spotlight, he bribes the voters. But Marius' true cardinal sin is to ally himself with two popular demagogues, a radical Tribune of the Plebs named Saturninus and an equally radical Praetor named Glaucia.
With these new radical allies, Marius is even involved in or at the very least connected to at least one political assassination. After one particularly brazen political assassination in which Glaucia and Saturninus have some of their followers beat the newly elected consul to death in the forum in front of everyone, the Senate and nobility are forced to grit their teeth and go to Marius for help.
Marius, in a bizarre event, ends up hosting both the nobility and the radical Tribune Saturninus at his house at the same time, both parties in different rooms and unaware of each other. Marius, after speaking with one party, makes some excuse of having diarrhea and then leaves the room to go speak to the other party in a different room. Marius then repeats this process going back and forth and instigating the two parties against each other, all while claiming to have some excessively frequent diarrhea. None of this makes Marius more liked by the nobility.
In the end, Marius, at the request of the Senate, gathers a sort of armed militia together and forces his old allies, Saturninus and Glaucia, along with their supporters, to surrender. In the aftermath of all of this, despite Marius being the man who put down Saturninus and Glaucia, his reputation with the nobility takes a hit for having originally associated himself with these men at all. There are even rumors that he considered joining their plots.
On the other hand, Marius' reputation suffers with the common people as well. Marius had intended to keep his old allies alive, to crush their cause, but not their lives. Things spiraled out of control after their surrender, though, and vigilantes took it upon themselves to kill Saturninus, Glaucia, and their supporters. Marius did not order these deaths, and he even tried to prevent them. But to the common people of Rome, who have supported Marius throughout his career, this is a moot point. As far as they're concerned, Marius took the side of the nobility and crushed their champions, Saturninus and Glaucia.
And so, with both sides unhappy with him, and with his very poor political skills, and without a war to keep him in the public eye, Marius loses influence and fades into the background, like the tool of war hung up on a shelf to gather dust.
Meanwhile, Sulla is rising in the Cursus Honorum. He's gaining power and prestige, and yet still, his feud with Marius has continued to rear its ugly head. When King Bochus has figures of victory dedicated to Rome, he depicts himself handing over King Jugurtha to Sulla. If this wasn't inflammatory enough, Bochus' figures showing himself handing over Jugurtha to Sulla are made of gold, or at least gilded gold, so not the sort of thing anyone in Rome can miss.
And when Marius sees this, he becomes enraged, and he tries to have the figures torn down. In response, some men rally to Sulla's side and try to prevent Marius from doing this. This dispute over who gets credit for winning the Jugurthine War, and therefore who gets the glory, becomes so heated that Plutarch describes Rome as being all but in flames.
Now, it's worth explaining at this point that there are two political groups or traditions or styles in Rome, and these political traditions can be difficult to wrap your mind around. You'll see them explained in many different ways by different historians. I mean, you can really get into the weeds on this stuff. But it's key to remember that they are not political parties in the modern sense. They don't have platforms or ideologies, and they aren't organized. They don't even always work together. Politics in Rome, after all, is very personal.
The first of these traditions are the Boni, or Optimates. These are two names for the same group. Boni means good men, and Optimates means the best men. In this podcast, I almost always refer to them as the Optimates, simply because boni just sounds so goofy.
The Optimates are essentially the in-crowd in terms of noble families. They are the ones who want to keep the status quo and protect the primacy of the Senate at all costs. They pretty much don't want any changes made to the Roman constitution, particularly changes that attempt to alter the existing power structure. Unsurprisingly, the status quo benefits the optimates very well, and they intend to keep it that way. In fact, the Optimate creed seems to be to look out for their own group, and all other groups can kick rocks.
And following that creed, they try to keep most of the spoils of empire for themselves, and they do a pretty good job of it, though the equites can give them a run for their money at times. You could describe the Optimates as the good old boys of ancient Rome. And like any good old boys club, they don't like when any of their own breaks ranks and bucks the system. In fact, they will react violently at times when some bold reformer threatens to make great changes to Rome against their will. They have in the past killed such reformers, like the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, also known as the Gracchi brothers.
The second tradition are those men of the Senate who break ranks with the Optimates. These are the Populares. Now again, the populares are not a party so much as a political tradition that is taken up by a senator when it suits him personally. Julius Caesar will be rare in that he will be the most constant of all the populare leaders, but Caesar is unusual in many ways.
A populare is a senator who tries to go around the Senate and derive power directly from the people by championing popular causes. What makes this all the more dangerous from the optimate perspective is that the Roman Senate technically doesn't and can't pass laws. Instead, the Roman Senate votes on a law or some other measure and it's technically a recommendation. The actual law needs to be passed by the people's assembly.
Now, in the ideal optimate world, the Senate contains all the wise, educated men who are well informed on what is happening around the empire and abroad. Men who come from families with generations of service to the Republic and so can be trusted to have the best interest of the Republican in mind. And in the ideal optimate world, Rome and the people's assembly listen to what the wise Senate says and essentially do as they are told.
And that is typically the way things go. The Senate holds an immense amount of power and prestige and you cross them at your own peril. But there's always that quirk in Rome that the Senate can't actually pass laws itself. It has to rely on the people's assembly to pass the laws for it.
This means that an ambitious populare who becomes a tribune or allies himself with a tribune can go around the Senate completely and try to pass reforms directly via the people's assembly. The Senate does not react well to this and, as I've said a few times, they tend to get violent. This violence is not legal, but like I said, the optimates are the in-crowd and when they break the law, it's okay.
Now, there is often debate, even today, as to whether these populares were altruistic reformers trying to bring much-needed change for the benefit of the poorer people of Rome, or whether they were rabble-rousing demagogues who just capitalized on the gripes of the Roman people to gain personal power. As you might imagine, the optimates believe that these populares didn't have an altruistic bone in their body but rather wanted to make themselves the most powerful man in Rome by stoking up the resentment of the poor plebeians, the great unwashed, against the nobility.
And they have a point. Young Roman aristocrats and politicians in general were incredibly ambitious. But I think it depends on the particular populare you're talking about. Some were more altruistic than others. Some more in it for personal gain. But I think rare is the populare that is purely altruistic or purely selfish. I think most of them had a mix of these motivations and it's just a question of where the mix lies for that particular individual. After all, if you are an ambitious man and also a man who cares about the plight of the common people and you can see a way to help their plight while growing your fame and power, well, then it's win-win for everybody. Everybody but the optimates, that is.
Now, of the characters in our story so far, Marius is a populare. He's the people's hero and he often pisses off the optimates. Well, as he becomes increasingly odious to the optimates and now that they don't need him to save them from Germanic invasions anymore, they start casting around for their own champion to stand against Marius. The man they choose is Sulla.
Sulla, in some ways, is a very odd choice considering the poverty and raucousness of his younger days. But even still, he's a patrician, a true noble, and a true Roman. And Sulla believes in the primacy of the Senate and that Rome should stay true to its traditional ways. Sulla is also a man willing to feud with Marius and a capable commander in his own right. And so, increasingly, the optimates are supporting Sulla in his disputes with Marius.
Now, getting back to Marius and Sulla's dispute over the golden figures of Bochus handing Jugurtha over to Sulla, the one Plutarch says had Rome all but in flames. Just before things can get really out of hand in this dispute, an extremely bloody and destructive civil war breaks out in Italy which makes both Marius and Sulla bury the hatchet… for now.
This civil war, known as the Social War, is not caused by Marius and Sulla's rivalry. It has different causes. The Social War is a war between Rome and its Italian allies who feel they aren't being treated as they deserve considering the amount of manpower they now supply to the Roman army. Specifically, they want citizenship, which Rome refuses to give them. Some of Rome's Italian allies stay loyal to Rome, others form a coalition against Rome.
Well, with war breaking out again, that old war tool that's been rusting away on the shelf gets dusted off again. Rome has a need for Marius. But at this point, Marius is in his late 60s and he's not in good health. He seems to have lost some of his old shine. At times in the Social War, he's timid and slow. He always seems to delay. By his own admission, he has some sort of nerve or muscle condition afflicting him.
Goldsworthy writes about Marius' performance in this campaign,
“Marius played a major role in the first year of fighting, winning a number of small actions and, perhaps more importantly, avoiding defeat. He was now in his late sixties, which the Romans considered very old for a general in the field, and there was some criticism of his conduct as too cautious. Whether because of this, or through failing health, he does not seem to have played any active role in the war after 90 BC.”
But Marius is not the only general Rome has in this war. And it's Sulla who really comes out as the star of this war. Sulla is in his prime and he's making the most of it, establishing a name for himself as a brilliant commander. He even wins himself the grass crown in this war. This is Rome's highest military distinction, awarded when a single citizen manages to save an entire army from annihilation. The award could only be given by the soldiers who had been saved. The soldiers would weave some grass from the battlefield together into a crown and award it to their savior. Very few grass crowns were ever given out in Roman history. And so now, with a crown of grass atop his head and newfound fame as a war hero, Sulla runs for the consulship and wins.
Now, right around this time, war breaks out in the eastern part of Rome's empire. War with King Mithridates VI of Pontus. Pontus was a Hellenized kingdom located in what is today northern Turkey. King Mithridates himself is a clever and conniving man, a very fascinating personality, he’s a real survivor. We're told that he routinely drank small amounts of poison to give himself a tolerance. That way, no rivals for his throne could ever poison him.
He's also said to have been a prolific killer of his own family. I guess the old family tree needed some trimming, and as far as I can gather from the ancient sources, he's reported to have killed his own mother, his brother, his sister, three of his own sons, three of his own daughters, and his nephew. The nephew, by the way, he's supposed to have killed with his own hands.
Mithridates and Rome have been rubbing up against each other in uncomfortable ways for a while now, and one of the many things that got the nobility or the optimates mad at Marius was that as a private citizen, Marius went east and seemed to try to pick a fight with Mithridates.
Mithridates had received Marius with all due respect and honor, and yet at this meeting, Marius had essentially told the king to his face to either be stronger than Rome or obey Rome. The nobility worried that this may have been a case of Marius trying to start a war so that he could be the center of attention again in Rome.
War did not break out as a result of Marius' visit, but in the subsequent years, Rome and Mithridates continue to have these sorts of sandpaper-like interactions which further erode relations. Much of the bickering is over the control and influence over neighboring kingdoms in Asia Minor, kingdoms that are between Pontus and Rome, kingdoms which both sides feel they have the right to control or at the very least to influence.
To make a long story short, eventually Mithridates launches an invasion of the Roman province of Asia in 88 BC while Rome is distracted by the Social War, that civil war between Rome and her Italian allies.
Rome is caught by surprise, and soon Mithridates occupies all of Asia Minor and sends armies to invade Greece proper and the Greek islands. Much of this territory had belonged to Rome or Rome's allies or puppets. And then comes the real punch in the face for Rome. Mithridates is well aware that there is an enormous amount of resentment felt by the peoples of Asia Minor and Greece toward Rome. And there are multiple reasons for this, not least of which is that Rome is their conqueror.
But perhaps the biggest continual cause of resentment is the Publicani. The Publicani are like ancient corporations. They are groups of equestrian businessmen that pool their funds together in common cause. Specifically, the Publicani make money by taking on public contracts.
You see, during the Republic, Rome never wanted to have a large, unwieldy civil service running their empire. They thought that such a thing would be too costly, and rather than enriching them, could threaten to bankrupt them. They would much rather contract much of the administration of their empire out to private companies, the Publicani. That includes the collection of taxes. And that is where a lot of the resentment comes from.
The late Roman republican system of collecting taxes from their provinces was, by today's standards, outlandish. Rome would put a contract to collect taxes from a particular province out to bid. The Publicani would then make bids for the rights to the contract, based on how valuable they estimated it to be. For example, one Publicanus, which is singular of Publicani (which is plural), one Publicanus might bid 10 million denarii for the right to collect the taxes in the province of Asia, and another Publicanus would bid against them and offer 15 million denarii, and so the bidding would continue until there was a winner for the contract, just like government contractors today. The winning Publicanus was then required to pay their bid in a flat fee to the Roman treasury. They would then have license to go collect taxes from the province to recoup their fee to the treasury and make a profit beyond that.
Now, that may leave you scratching your head. How exactly did the Publicani make a profit doing this? Well, that's the kicker. You see, whatever amount the Publicani are able to collect in excess of their contract with Rome, they get to keep. That's how the Publicani are making their money on this contract.
What this means in practice is that the Publicani ruthlessly squeeze the provincials for as much money as they can get out of them, and they are not above using force, at times even selling provincials into slavery to pay for their debts. What's more, it's common for the Publicani to collude with the local governor, who would then aid them in their squeezing dry of the provincials. On top of that, most of the Publicani and the governors are skimming off the top as they collect these taxes.
What's more, if the governor didn't play ball and at least give the Publicani a free hand in extorting the locals, upon the governor's return to Rome, they would haul him to court on corruption or extortion charges. Meanwhile, Rome, for the most part, couldn't care less as long as they got the amount the Publicani promised in their bid. And what can the provincials do about any of this? They are the conquered peoples of the Roman Empire. If they had the strength to resist the Roman military, they wouldn't have been conquered in the first place. This leaves the provincials with very little recourse. And as I said, this system of taxation created enormous resentment in the provinces. It's one of the reasons tax collectors are so reviled in the New Testament. And by the way, they are referred to as Publicans in the King James Bible.
Well, Mithridates is well aware of provincial sentiment toward their Roman overlords, and he intends to capitalize on this resentment while binding Asia Minor and Greece to his side in this war irrevocably. So Mithridates writes secret letters to the leaders of all the communities in these occupied territories. In these letters, he gives them secret instructions that on a specified day, they are to kill all of the Romans and Italians in their jurisdiction, men, women, and children. Ancient historian Appian writes,
“…he, (meaning King Mithridates), wrote secretly to all his satraps and magistrates that on the thirtieth day thereafter they should set upon all Romans and Italians in their towns, and upon their wives and children and their domestics of Italian birth, kill them and throw their bodies out unburied, and share their goods with himself. He threatened to punish any who should bury the dead or conceal the living, and offered rewards to informers and to those who should kill persons in hiding, and freedom to slaves for betraying their masters. To debtors for killing money-lenders he offered release from one half of their obligations.”
And so on the pre-arranged day, a bloodbath takes place. It's always hard to know how serious to take ancient numbers, but our ancient sources tell us that anywhere from 80,000 to 150,000 Romans and Italians are butchered on this single day. This is something that Rome cannot stand for. And so they create a command for a general to go east to fight a war against Mithridates. This command is much coveted in Rome.
The eastern half of the empire has always been the richer, more populated and more civilized half of the empire. As such, the opportunities to win riches and glory as a commander are limitless. And so, every ambitious Roman politician is salivating over this command. At the same time, Rome believed the cultures of the east were weak and effeminate in comparison to the martial Romans and so would be easy to defeat. Add to all of this that fighting a war in the east felt like following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, and the Romans had a sort of obsession with Alexander. In the end, Sulla's luck holds true, and he is selected as the commander of the war against Mithridates.
Well, Marius sees all of this, and old glory hound that he is, decides that he's always wanted an eastern command, and he'll be damned if he's going to sit by and watch Sulla gain all that glory and wealth. Glory and riches that Marius feels by rights belongs to him as Rome's greatest living general.
By this time, Marius is an old man, especially by the standards of an ancient general, he’s 69. Yet the man is addicted to being the center of attention, addicted to glory, addicted to ambition. Plutarch talks about Marius being possessed by ambition and a mad desire for fame, those never-ending passions. Even in his golden years, he can't give it up and retire. He covets this command. Chasing glory and adoration is all he knows, and so Marius starts making moves to take this command away from Sulla.
But how to do this? Marius is a private citizen with no official position in the government. Why should he be given this command? Well, Marius sees a way around this. He allies himself with yet another radical firebrand tribune of the plebs named Publius Sulpicius Rufus. We'll simply call him Sulpicius. And one day, to everyone's surprise, Sulpicius puts forward old Marius's name to take over the command in the east from Sulla. The Roman people are divided by this. Marius is, after all, the people's hero, and he's a great war hero. He will always have some support. Other people support Sulla and tell Marius he should go look after his health at the warm baths at Baiae. After all, Marius himself admitted his health was so bad he had to lay down his last command, and that one was in the Social War in Italy. Now he's talking about traveling all the way to modern Turkey? Get out of here, Marius!
As you can imagine, this sort of mocking dismissiveness just fires up a big ego like Marius. So everyone thinks he's too old, too sickly, too fat, that he's washed up and past his prime, huh? Well, time to show them that that's not true. Time to show them that Marius is back.
But first, he has to revitalize his reputation in Rome. So Marius starts a very public workout routine, sort of an ancient military PR campaign. He starts going down to the Campus Martius, or the Field of Mars, where the young men work out and train for war. Marius starts training right alongside them. He starts showing them that despite the fact that he's overweight now, he still has great skills with weapons and horsemanship. Ancient biographer Plutarch writes,
“...out of mere boyish passion for distinction, affecting to shake off his age and weakness, he went down daily to the Campus Martius, and exercising himself with the youth, showed himself still nimble in his armor, and expert in riding; though he was undoubtedly grown bulky in his old age, and inclining to excessive faintness and corpulency.”
Eventually, some of the people of Rome begin to come down to the Campus Martius each day to watch Marius compete with the youth and to support him. It's like a Rocky montage, with Marius getting back in shape and the people of Rome cheering him on. But not everyone is loving it. Many other people in Rome disapprove and think it's ridiculous that Marius who, as Plutarch puts it, rose from nothing to greatness should not be content with everything he's already achieved in life. Why should he not be satisfied with being the third founder of Rome, being an icon and hero of his country, having held the consulship six times, none of which he ever could have expected to achieve as a youth growing up in a tiny village near Arpinum? Why should he still want to fight great wars in the East at his age? Why is he still grasping for more when he's already been given so much?
Apparently, in reply to these sorts of statements, Marius makes some ridiculous pretenses, saying, for example, that he wants the command because he wants to teach his son how to be a general. That is no reason to be given command of a war. Like, come on, Marius, is it take your son to war day? And of course, no one believed for a second that that's why Marius, the old glory hound, really wants the command.
Now, this tribune Marius has allied himself with to steal Sulla's command, the man named Sulpicius, is a wild guy. Ancient biographer Plutarch tells us that Sulpicius kept 600 young equites about him as his personal bodyguard. He calls this group the Anti-Senate. Supposedly, Sulpicius also has another 3,000 swordsmen that he can call upon when needed.
Now, all of this sounds radical and sounds violent on the part of Sulpicius. And I'm certain the Optimates would say, it is! But there's another angle to see this from. Like I said before, in the past, the elite in the Senate have violently killed reformers and their supporters in extrajudicial fashion. In the case of Gaius Gracchus, they're supposed to have killed 3,000 of his followers after cutting Gaius's head off and filling it with lead. You see, the Senate had offered mercenaries his head's weight in gold. So, of course, a heavier head would net them more gold.
Well, Sulpicius, with Marius's backing, starts trying to pass laws the Optimates consider to be radical. Laws that would shift the power balance in Rome. The Optimates and others gather to oppose this with all their might. And soon, Sulpicius and his followers are basically at war in the streets with the opposition in a sort of riot or series of riots in the days leading up to the vote on the bill.
But, just before the day of the vote, the two consuls, Sulla and a man named Pompeius, make their move. They are both Optimates and oppose this reform. So, in order to block its passing, they decree a suspension of public business so that no vote can be held at all. As you might imagine, Sulpicius and his side go ballistic. The consul Pompeius manages to escape, but his son, who is Sulla's son-in-law, is murdered.
Sulla himself is forced to flee the mob. And as he flees, he finds himself passing Marius's house. Knowing that this would be the last place that the mob would look for him, Sulla ducks inside and the mob passes him right by. And Marius, for his part, is supposed to have received Sulla with hospitality and helps him escape through another door. And if this is accurate, Marius will come to regret this act of humanity bitterly.
Though, I should add, Sulla, in his memoirs, which are now lost and only referenced by other sources, denies that this is how things happened. He says Sulpicius and his followers forced him at the point of a sword to Marius's house to confer with Marius until he relented and gave in to their demands. Take your pick as to who you believe, but Sulla is eventually forced to appear publicly and lift the suspension on public business. And as a result, he is allowed to stay in office, while his colleague, on the other hand, is stripped of office.
Sulla, at this point, is probably thinking that all of this is a dreadful mess. But, very soon he's going to be headed east to fight the Mithridatic War, where he will make his fame and fortune. So, in other words, yes, it's a mess, but soon the mess will be someone else's problem. So, Sulla flees Rome and heads down to Nola, near modern Naples, where his army, before going east, is besieging some of the last Italian rebels from the Social War, and he continues the siege.
But then, one of Marius's legates arrives at Sulla's army, with news from Rome. And Sulla finds out, not only did Sulpicius pass his revolutionary bill everyone had been fighting about, but he had then used the people's assembly to strip Sulla of the eastern command after Sulla left Rome and had given the command to Marius.
This legate, who delivers the message, is there to take control of the army from Sulla on behalf of Marius. Having received this infuriating news, the wheels in Sulla's head start turning. A law has been passed declaring his command must be given to Marius. This law was passed, as he sees it, with violence against the objection of the consuls and the senate. But the law has been passed, and so legally he has to stand down as per the dictates of Rome.
But Sulla looks at Rome, and he sees no army. And as far as he's concerned, Rome's moral authority or legitimacy is dead since the government is now being controlled by Marius and Sulpicius. Sulla then looks at himself, a general at the head of six loyal legions. Legions more loyal to him personally as their general than to the Roman government, thanks to the changes Marius had made to army recruitment. So yes, the law says Sulla has to step down. But no one is there to physically make him step down. So in reality, he doesn't have to step down at all. Sulla realizes that he has the real power here, not Marius.
But even still, Sulla has a massive decision to make here with the highest of stakes. And not just earthly stakes, but divine stakes. No Roman general in the history of the Republic, which at this point in 88 BC is 421 years old, has ever marched a Roman army on Rome. Even though Sulla knows he has the physical power to do so, that's an enormous mental barrier to overcome. Being the first general to do so would likely make you reviled by your fellow citizens. But this isn't the only mental barrier, and maybe not even the most important.
Rome is encompassed by a boundary known as the Pomerium. By law, no military activity is allowed within the Pomerium. Which means soldiers under arms cannot cross the Pomerium into Rome. In fact, weapons in general were banned from being brought past the Pomerium. But as you'll see in later episodes, people often broke this law and carried concealed weapons to be used in political scrums. But this prohibition on military activity within the Pomerium applies to Roman generals too. In fact, the very act of a Roman general crossing the Pomerium and entering Rome automatically removes his imperium and turns him back into a private citizen. But all of this is not just temporal law. It's also divine law.
The Pomerium, by this point in Roman history, has been expanded outward to allow the city of Rome to grow. But the original Pomerium was said to have been plowed into the earth by Rome's mythical founder himself, Romulus. And when Romulus did this, the Pomerium became sacred and protected by the gods. And so if anyone were to bring troops into the city under arms, they would be committing a sacrilege and thus potentially incur the wrath, not just of their fellow citizens, but also of the gods. That's the kind of thing to strike fear into the heart of even the most confident of generals.
And so with all this weighing on his mind, Sulla goes before his troops and gives a speech. He tells them about how the Mithridatic command is being taken from him and given to Marius. He decries the terrible wrongs being done to him by Marius and Sulpicius, the insulting violence they had used against him in Rome. And Sulla knows exactly what he's doing. His legionaries have been desperately looking forward to this war in the east where they can make such a fortune, it will change their lives, change their families' lives. And when Sulla tells them that he's been stripped of command, they fear Marius will recruit new legions and replace them, and so they won't get to fight against Mithridates anymore, which means no getting rich.
But setting the stage like this is as far as Sulla goes. He doesn't issue them any radical orders that might shock them and cause a backlash. Instead, Sulla simply tells his troops to be ready to obey his orders and just leaves it at that. But his soldiers can read between the lines. They understand Sulla's meaning perfectly well. In fact, they speak it out loud, boldly telling Sulla to be of good courage and lead them to Rome.
Then, still in a fury over this attempt to rob their general of his command and them of their war, the soldiers then stone Marius' legate to death, sealing their pact with Sulla in blood. And Sulla, thrilled that his soldiers are on the same page as him, tramples upon four centuries of unbroken precedent and marches his army on Rome. That's right. Julius Caesar, the man infamous for marching on Rome, was not the first person to do so. In fact, he won't even be the second person to do so.
But that is where we will end this episode for today. Lucky for you, the next episode is already released and ready to be listened to. In our next episode, the feud between Marius and Sulla turns to open and bloody warfare, and a young Julius Caesar struggles just to stay alive amidst this clash of titans.
Thank you all for listening. What you have just heard is a re-recording of episode 1a of the March of History. As this podcast has progressed, so has the sound quality and, I hope, so have I as a host. And since this is often the very first episode new audience members hear, I decided it would be worth redoing this episode to reflect the current quality of the podcast. The next episode, 1b, is also a re-recording. And as I said, the famous Julius Caesar will make his entrance onto the stage of history. But now, after listening to this episode, you'll have a great understanding of the events happening around and to Caesar.
And if you're new to Roman history, and this all felt overwhelming, don't stress it. Just keep listening and I assure you, things will start to make more and more sense as you become more familiar with the Roman world. Plus, this episode is a little bit more jam-packed with explanations of how the Republic functioned than most episodes because we are building a foundation or a world on which all future events will happen. Now that you have that foundation, buckle up, because the life of Julius Caesar is straight out of an adventure story. It's one of the all-time great stories in history. And by the time you get to the end of his life, you'll probably have felt every emotion you can think of.
And if this is your first time learning about the life of Julius Caesar, man, I envy you. Because there is nothing quite like hearing a story for the first time. And as I said, this story is something special. After all, it's not just the story of one of the most capable individuals in all human history. It's also the story of the fall of the Roman Republic. And man, are there similarities to modern times. But I'll leave it at that for today. Thank you again for listening. I'm your host, Trevor Fernes, and I will talk to you on the next episode of The March of History.