On the strength of his war record, Marius soon became an important figure in Roman politics, and he was able to push through a series of military reforms. For a long time, property ownership had been a requirement for service in the army. With the widespread loss of property among the peasantry, the ranks of men eligible for service had diminished greatly. As consul in 107 b. c., Marius removed the property requirement, which led to a massive increase in enlistment. The Roman army, already vast, grew yet more, which created an ominous trend. Soldiers became more loyal to their commanders than they were to the republic. Up to that time, the army had been under the full command of the civilian government, as the
U. S. Army is today. Following Marius's reforms, the army gradually began to emerge as a separate power.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.
In the 90s b. c., a senator named Drusus (DROO-suhs), whose family had been allied with the Gracchus brothers, again proposed reforms extending citizenship to non-Roman Italians. His assassination in 91 b. c. touched off the Social War (91-88 b. c.) between Italians and Romans. This war ended with the extension of Roman citizenship to all Italians. As for the land problem, the government began offering war veterans estates outside of Italy itself, which would lead to the increasing Romanization of the provinces.
Rome was headed for an even more serious internal war, a clash between the populares (pahp-yoo-LARE-ehz), of which Marius was the leader, and the nobiles (noh-BEE-lehz), led by Sulla (SUHL-uh; 137-78 b. c.) As their names imply, these two groups were a later version of the plebeians and patricians, only the populares had considerably more power and wealth than their plebeian ancestors. A sign of how times had changed was the fact that Sulla had served on Marius's staff in the wars with Jugurtha and the Germans; now he was anxious to ensure that his class retained its power. In 88 b. c., he obtained a position that he intended to use for his own purposes: leader of the campaign against Mithradates the Great (mith-ruh-DAY-teez; r. 120-63 B. C.) of Pontus (PAHN-tuhs).
Pontus, a country in eastern Asia Minor, had existed for several centuries. In the preceding two decades Mithradates had been adding to its territories considerably. Once he began threatening Greece, Rome declared war. But just as Sulla was on his way to Greece with his troops, he received word that Marius had transferred command of the force to himself. Furious, Sulla turned his army around and marched on Rome. It was the first time a Roman military commander had used his troops against Rome itself, and it would not be the last.
The term “civil war,” often applied to the whole period from the murder of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 b. c. and the Battle of Action in 27 b. c., is sometimes applied specifically to the events in Rome in 88 b. c. This was not really a war, since the majority of the violence came from Sulla's executions of Marius's allies. Marius himself fled to Africa. Sulla, having destroyed his other enemies in Rome, went on to Greece to fight two bloody, bitter wars with Mithradates (88-85; 83-82 b. c.). During Sulla's absence, Marius had returned to Rome and killed a number of Sulla's friends before dying in 86 b. c.. Therefore Sulla could not take revenge on him when he returned in 82 b. c. Instead, he massacred thousands of Marius's supporters. In at least one case, the killing took place right before the eyes of a horrified senate.
Dictatorship had finally come to Rome, in Sulla's words, “for the reform of the constitution.” It had not been established according to the provisions in Roman law, but it had been established just the same, and given those provisions, it is surprising it did not come sooner. Also surprising is the fact that Sulla, after three years as absolute ruler—during which time he packed the senate with supporters—voluntarily stepped down in 79 b. c. A year later, he was dead.
World History
