The Crisis of Rome

by Gareth Sampson

  In the end, his tactics in both battles (Aquae Sextiae and Raudian Plain) allowed the Romans to avoid being swamped by the enemy’s superior numbers, one by utilizing topography and the other by seizing the initiative and turning the enemy’s numbers against him. For the earlier Roman losses, we have little information about the tactics used, but both Noreia and Arausio smack of rash command decisions by the Roman generals and no real thought being given on how to negate the enemy’s numerical superiority.

  Throughout this work the impression one receives, rightly or not, is that Marius was really no innovative tactical genius, but merely a superbly competent general, thoroughly grounded in the basics of Roman warfare, centered on the principal of fighting battles on his terms not the enemy’s. This included choosing his ground carefully, identifying his enemy’s strengths and negating them and always keeping an element of surprise. At Aquae Sextiae he had a force hidden in the woods which attacked the enemy from the rear, and at Raudian Plain it involved forming up before the enemy was ready and forcing their hand. Thus in short, Marius appears to have been thoroughly accomplished in the basics of warfare, which when applied to a Roman army were highly successful.

  Summary – The Tribes

  We have far too little information to analyse the Cimbric tactics, even though they are often dismissed as nothing more than a barbarian mass charge. Clearly, the Cimbric chieftains were now used to the Roman manner of fighting, but for all their supposed invincibility they had been defeated on numerous occasions throughout this period, though not by Roman armies; we hear of defeats en-route to Illyria, in Gaul and in Spain. Thus in mass pitched battles they seemed to be bested, yet possess an ability to defeat Roman armies. We must be careful not to dismiss this as merely the traditional Roman weakness against ‘barbarian’ enemies, as voiced by Polybius himself, as only a decade before their first encounter with the Cimbri, the Romans had defeated the massed armies of the Arverni and Allobroges.424 Thus, either the Roman commanders that faced the Cimbri in the battles were so much poorer than their earlier counterparts, which is always a possibility, or the Cimbri possessed some form of combat that was especially suited to defeating a more developed infantry army. This may have been something as basic as sheer weight of numbers or some variation which utilized their greater manpower.

  Unfortunately, we do not possess enough evidence to judge, but that should never allow us to dismiss them as merely the nameless enemy Rome was fighting, as it takes two sides to fight a battle. One interesting indicator comes from Orosius, who provides the names of four separate Cimbric kings or chieftains. It is all too readily assumed that the Cimbri were a single mass and fought as such. However, with so many chieftains, the more likely situation is that they lived and fought as a number of separate tribes and thus may have been prone to the same problems of separated command as the Romans suffered. Whilst this may have not been a problem when the enemy was on the back foot, when they were under pressure, it may well have resulted in disruption – either at a rushed start of the battle at Raudian Plain or when the cavalry were turned back upon their own lines.

  Whilst we know the Cimbri were battle hardened against Rome, we must not assume this for all the tribal groupings, especially if the Teutones and Ambrones were new to the region (prior to 102 BC) and had not fought the Romans before. This would perhaps explain the ill-disciplined stand the Ambrones made at the river of Aquae Sextiae and the rash uphill charge several days later.

  Ultimately, we do not have the evidence to tell, but we must exercise caution when viewing the tribal enemies Rome faced, and not view them as being a single and homogenous entity, but a collection of different groups with different leaders and experience. In cases like this, then, their very size may well have worked against them.

  Chapter 11

  New Roman Army? – Marius and Military Reform

  One of the most noted aspects of Marius’ tenure as Rome’s leading commander in this period is a number of reforms he made, or is alleged to have made, to the Roman military, both in terms of manpower, equipment and tactics. As a number of these have become quite contentious in historical scholarship, it is necessary to study them separately from the analysis of the warfare to gain a better understanding of them. In fact, there can rarely be a topic in Roman history which has so much written about it based on so little actual evidence. Thus, as always, we must begin by going back to our surviving source to see what they actually say.

  Recruitment

  i) Reform of qualification criteria for military service (107 BC)

  Of all of Marius’ reforms, none have provoked more debate than the apparent changes he made to the eligibility criteria for military service. To be eligible for military service in the Roman army, each Roman citizen (as opposed to Italians) was assessed once every five years at the census, to see how much he was worth (in terms of assets). Each citizen was then placed into one of five bands according to their wealth, along with a sixth category for those whose assets fell below the minimum standard. This was the system that had evolved from Rome’s earliest days, with the citizenry divided by wealth. This allowed the state to see the total wealth available to the city and was the basis of the political and military system, with each band having more military duties but rewarded by a greater political say. Thus the more money a citizen was worth the more he had to contribute to the city’s defence, but this was rewarded by having a more influential vote in the public assemblies. Those that fell below the minimum amount for a citizen were exempted from military service; the underlying ethic being that such men would not be able to afford their own military equipment and that a man who fights for his own land is far more valuable a soldier than a mercenary who fights for money.

  Naturally enough, a system that was created before the sixth century BC (it is claimed that it dated back to the early kings) would have evolved a great deal before reaching the period under analysis.425 The problem we have today is that we have no clear idea of this process of evolution. All we have are the accounts of Cicero,426 Livy and Dionysius, who ascribe minimum values for each census class, but these accounts were written long after the system’s creation. Polybius, who was writing in the mid-second century BC, placed the minimum amount a citizen needed to be eligible for military service at 400 drachmas.427 This has been calculated to be the equivalent of 4,000 Roman asses (the unit of measurement). Citizens above this level were referred to by the Latin term of assidui; those who fell below these criteria and were ineligible for military service were labelled as proletarii or capite censi. Polybius says that they were only fit for service in the navy, as oarsmen.

  Naturally enough, from a purely military point of view this meant that there was a large group of men not eligible for military service. This was exacerbated by Rome’s increased military commitments. However, we must not make the mistake of assuming that the Romans never recruited the proletarii into their armies. In times of national emergency (tumultus), as we would expect, such social norms went out of the window. This can be seen in 281 BC when they fought Pyrrhus and in 217 BC against Hannibal.428

  Nevertheless, this system remained throughout the second century BC, though many have argued that the actual monetary level of the lowest class was lowered to enable more men to be eligible for military service. It has to be stressed that this is speculation only and there is no actual evidence for this (see Appendix III). Thus, the important aspect for us is that when Marius was elected consul in 107 BC this distinction remained, and men below the set level were ineligible for military service. It was this eligibility criterion that Marius challenged:

  He [Marius] himself in the meantime enrolled soldiers, not according to the classes in the manner of our forefathers, but allowing anyone to volunteer, for the most part the proletarii. Some say he did this through a lack of good men, others because of a desire to curry favour, since that class had given him honour and rank [by voting for him].429

  Plutarch has it thus:

  Contrary to
law and custom he enlisted many a poor and insignificant man, although former commanders had not accepted such persons, but bestowed arms, just as they would any other honour, only on those whose property assessment made them worthy to receive these.430

  Florus tells us:

  Finally, Marius with considerably increased forces, for acting as one would expect a low man to act, had forced the lowest class of citizens to enlist.431

  From Valerius Maximus we have:

  Laudable also is the modesty of the people who by briskly offering themselves for the toils and dangers of military service saw to it that commanders did not have to ask capite censi to take the military oath, whose excessive poverty made them suspect and on that account they did not trust them with public arms. But this custom, fortified though it was by long observance, was broken by C. Marius when he enlisted capite censi into the army.432

  Julius Exsuperantius has this:

  When he conscripted new soldiers, he was the first general to take into war the capite censi, who were useless and untrustworthy citizens. But the citizens who had no possessions were recorded in the census by their head, which was all they owned, and in times of war they stayed within the city walls, because they could easily turn into traitors, as poverty often leads to evil. Marius took these men, who should not have been entrusted with public business, to fight in the war.433

  Gellius quotes Sallust434 but also throws in some doubt as to the date of this action:

  Caius Marius is said to have been the first, according to some in the war with the Cimbri, in a most critical period for our country, or more probably, as Sallust says, in the Jugurthine War, to have enrolled soldiers from the capite censi, since such an act was unheard of before that time.435

  Thus we can see that we actually have little detail to go on, with most merely quoting what was commonly accepted in the historical tradition of this period. As we can see, all of the sources overlook the fact that commanders prior to Marius had recruited the capite censi in times of emergency, and there is absolutely nothing to say that Marius abolished the old system, merely that on this one occasion he ignored it. Furthermore, as we have already seen in this work, Marius hardly stands out as the first man to tackle the issue of recruitment. In the 140s, Marius’ former commander and, as we have seen, sometime role model, P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, recruited an army of volunteers to fight at Numantia. Ti. Sempronius Gracchus fought to increase recruitment, and his brother formalized the procedure whereby the state paid for the troops’ equipment (Chapter 1). Furthermore, the consuls of 109 BC tried to increase the available manpower (Chapter 6). This move by Marius can thus be seen as a temporary solution to a temporary problem, regardless of any longer-term trends (see Appendix III) caused by the heavy losses in Gaul, Macedon and North Africa. A further interesting point is made by Sallust when he states that: ‘Marius set sail for Africa with a considerably larger force than had been authorized’. But authorized by whom? The assembly had given him the command in Numidia, and it is tempting to see the Senate attempting retaliation against this attack on their prerogative by limiting the army he could take to Africa and thus limit his effectiveness.

  From a military point of view, this greatly-increased force provided Marius with enough troops to occupy the towns and fortifications of Numidia and still pursue Jugurtha. If Marius was planning a surge then a far greater army was needed than the one currently in Africa. Furthermore, Marius was able to take an army composed of volunteers rather than those who had been drafted, which always makes for a more effective fighting force. Such a campaign offered the riches of Numidia as loot, though there is no evidence to suggest that he offered land as well, as an inducement. Evans, in his excellent article on the evasion of military service in Rome, points out that one of Marius’ first acts when in Numidia was to march into a rich Numidian region and allow his men some plunder, thereby giving them an immediate payback.436

  ii) Military consequences

  Thus we come to the issue of long-term and short-term effects of this reform. It is unlikely that Marius was motivated by a desire to overturn the traditional method of recruitment, but that in the short term, with manpower such an issue, the constitutional niceties needed to be dispensed with. In the short term, this reform clearly worked, allowing Rome to tap into greater reserves of manpower than previously they had been able to utilize. An interesting question is whether he repeated this move for the campaigns against the northern tribesmen, as the two sources which mention this appear to be confused between the two wars. One obvious source of this confusion is that Marius did indeed repeat this tactic from 104 onwards, which given the circumstances is understandable. If Rome was suffering from manpower shortages before 105, then the loss of 60,000 soldiers or more at Arausio only made the issue worse. In fact, when you consider these losses, it is hard to argue against Marius repeating this recruitment tactic after 104 BC.

  The problem that Marius did raise, was that an army composed primarily of the capite censi (though we have no figures for their percentages) was just as competent in the field as those recruited from the traditional Roman classes; in fact many may argue that it was more so. Although this went against tradition, it was only supposed to be an emergency measure. Yet, this emergency measure seemed to hold many advantages over the traditional methods of recruiting and went a long way to solving the manpower issue that had been plaguing Rome, or at least had seemed to be plaguing Rome. The problem with a good idea such as this was that it would have been difficult to turn the clock back and return to the traditional method, especially if another crisis occurred, as they had the habit of doing. Thus, whilst Marius seems not to have deliberately aimed to overturn the system of recruitment on a permanent basis, he may have unwittingly found that he did so by example.

  An issue consistently raised about this ‘reform’ is that it made soldiers more loyal to their commander than the state, and thus when the two came into conflict they chose their commander. This argument is flawed on a number of levels, beginning with the premise that landless soldiers had a greater desire for plunder than any previous ‘landed’ Roman soldiers. Whilst a conscripted Roman soldier had little choice in fighting for his country, unless he avoided being called up altogether, the greatest benefit was the booty that a campaign brought. The central basis of a soldier’s loyalty to his commander always remained his competency, based on a soldier’s calculation of survival and prosperity. On the battlefield, soldiers fought primarily for survival and the chance of booty rather than loyalty to one’s country.

  Another argument often used is that Marius’ reform meant that Rome changed from having a citizen army raised whenever it was necessary, to having a professional standing army. A consequence of this being that it led to there being a greater bond created between commander and men as they served more time together. If we deal with consequences first, such a view overlooks the actual situation, as Roman armies had been fighting long campaigns for more than a century. Rosenstein’s recent work makes a case for it being the third century BC when Rome began fighting longer and more arduous campaigns rather than the second century.437 The Roman legionaries were hardly amateur in these days, but had been hardened by continuous fighting on multiple campaigns and had been doing so generation after generation.

  Furthermore, it is clear that Rome had no real standing army as such until the Principate. Both Civil Wars produced long-standing armies yet this represented merely a lengthy campaign. Commanders such as Sulla, Pompey and Caesar all disbanded their legions once they had finished campaigning. A standing army only really came about with permanent legions under the Emperor Augustus. Thus it is difficult to find any evidence in the period immediately after Marius.

  It is clear that for many of the landless poor a career in the army was an attractive proposition, but only so far as it provided some reward, which meant that they could enjoy a better life after campaign, with booty, or latterly with land. In many ways this had been the basis of the amateur citi
zen soldier. Although he had little choice in fighting overseas, he did so primarily hoping that there would be some tangible reward from it. Thus both types of men had the same motivations once they were actually serving, the only difference is whether they volunteered or were drafted.

  iii) Political consequences

  Two other issues become entangled in this question, based on the veterans of these campaigns, in both their colonial settlement and their political use. Following the war in Africa, Marius did organize colonies in Africa for his veterans and again after the Northern Wars. From a strategic point of view this made perfect sense, merely exporting the policy the Romans had used for centuries in securing Italy to their control, across the Mediterranean. However, most previous colonial settlements had been organized by the Senate in conjunction with the tribunes and the assemblies. C. Gracchus’ clash with the Senate and his proposed colonies had set the tone for a more confrontational policy. Thus we have two models to choose from. As we will see when examining Marius’ sixth consulship (Appendix I), his African colonies seem to have passed without incident whilst the colonial programme of 100, led by the tribune Saturninus, followed the more confrontational route. The key point here is that the foundation of colonies for veterans was a sound policy for both strategic and social reasons (relieving tension amongst the landless citizens) and did not intrinsically lead to clashes between Senate and general, only in cases where there was existing tension or when a third party (such as a particular tribune) was involved.