# Talk:Marian reforms

Sources would be well appreciated. Lucius Domitius 20:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

It is generally known as the Marius Reforms (at least in the UK). I cant say I've heard it with this variant before. After all he is known as Marius, not Marian. -- RND   talk  10:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Presumably 'Marian' is an adjective, so it's effectively the same as saying 'the reforms of Marius'. 80.47.203.38 11:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I think its more likely that its an anglicised name of Marius. I much prefer Marius though. -- RND  T  C  17:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I've always read it as the "adjectival form" of the name Marius. - Vedexent 06:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's definitely what it is. One doesn't speak of the "Julius calendar" but of the "Julian calendar"; likewise with "Marius" and "Marian." It certainly should remain as is.

I added the External Links header to follow standard wiki layout. The link was almost lost with just [1] showing. -- RND   talk  11:03, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

This is kind of off topic but in Ancient Rome by Pamela Bradley it says that "During his second consulship Marius carried out a major reorganisation of the army" ie The Marian Reforms.
this was after the war against Jugurtha and not during as suggested in the article, I suggest some should fix this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.24.9.99 (talk) 03:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC) 

In the Cohort (military unit) page, the First Cohort states that while Marius's original plan for a legion was 10 cohorts of 480 soldiers, the concept of the First Cohort as a double strength unit of 800 was set in stone in the first century AD.  This page refers to the double strength First Cohort as being the first of the 10 in Marius's definition of a legion, rather than a post-Marian alteration.  Since the reforms regarding military structure are so clearly based around consistency (both in terms of unit size and capabilities) it seems more likely that the original plan was that a legion was 10 cohorts of 480 soldiers (and 120 support staff), making a legion of 4800 soldiers (with 1200 support).  However, just because I don't like the idea of a special First Cohort being almost twice as large as the rest doesn't mean Marius didn't - I have no idea which of these is correct, only that the articles are inconsistent.  If anyone out there knows their military history well enough to know what changes were made by Marius and which were adaptations to his original plan, could they please make the necessary alterations to the erroneous page?  Rashkavar (talk) 05:20, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The idea of a double strength first cohort might not have been a universal thing. There is evidence that some legions were structured this way, but it is not at all clear that every legion was.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.74.0.22 (talk) 12:52, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

There is no mention here of Marius' invention of the silver eagle standards each legion carried and which became a superstitious symbol of Rome's power. This is the one aspect of the Marian reforms that would be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Roman legion depicted in a movie. - J. Conti 108.20.137.173 (talk) 05:51, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

The idea that there were non-combatants regularly attached to each century is commonly found around the internet, but it is disputed theory at best. There is no ancient evidence to support the idea of non-combatants. This is a modern theory that attempts to reconcile the sometimes contradictory nature of the ancient evidence. Ancient descriptions of the Roman army in writers like Polybius, Vegetius, Caesar, and Pseudo-Hygenius never mention non-combatants as part of any military unit or as regular members of an army. The numbers provided by the ancient sources for the various units (centuries, cohorts, legions) are confused and often contradictory. For example, Pseudo-Hygenius specifically states that a century contains 80 men. But elsewhere states that there are 600 men in a cohort. This is an apparent contradiction. Some scholars have attempted to resolve this contradiction by supposing that there were extra non-combatants included among the 600 men in the cohort. This could explain the discrepancy, but nowhere does Pseudo-Hygenius or any other source state that there were non-combatants in a legion. It is merely speculation. There are also many times when various authors describe cohorts and legions in action; not only in combat but also on the march, building camps, and doing other manual labor. At no time does any source ever mention non-combatants being involved in the work of a legion.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.74.0.22 (talk) 13:03, 3 January 2019 (UTC) 

Marius' reforms were not a major break from past practice. The armies in the late republic were broadly similar with those of the middle republic: "the composition of the post-Marian armies... did not differ markedly from the past".
"The property qualification for army service had become nearly meaningless by 107" with exemptions from the property qualifications becoming commonplace and recurrent. Marius's recruitment reforms simply made plain what had been for some time commonplace, out of need for men or simply the expediency of calling up urban volunteers rather than conscripting farmers. There also is no evidence that Marius introduced the cohort.
Soldiers and veterans were not permanent clients of their generals. Defections were common. Having some oath of loyalty was symbolic more of a general's lack of security than actual loyalty. The Roman army was not professionalised, nor was there any break between military and civilian service. Ifly6 (talk) 15:46, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The number of men per legion here is 5 times what is cited in a different article on the Roman army that goes through the entire history of the Roman legions. Would you two authors please sync up on your sources and decide which ones are exaggerating? The numbers here look like what Gibbon has and my study of his work shows he didn't handle his facts properly.
100.15.127.199 (talk) 14:26, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Cited six times throughout the article, and given a veneer of reliablity by being hosted on academia.edu, this seems like a very dubiously reliable source.  I can't find any evidence that it's been published by any sort of reliable source, and the author is described on his academia.edu profile as I'm a 18 year old bibliophile, logophile, anti-theophile, technophile, and partially an audiophile. I'm diseased, too. Huzzah! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:26, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I'd say remove it. Ifly6 (talk) 14:25, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
The main issue with this article I think is that nobody really believes in the Gaius-Marius-did-all-these-things-look-at-this-pilum-etc-etc reforms anymore. Professionalisation of the Roman legions was a prolonged process through the first century BC, not some revolutionary programme by the dastardly and insipid populares in their party manifesto. That was a joke; the populares qua political party did not exist. It feels like that should be reflected in a rewrite. Ifly6 (talk) 14:28, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

from someone pretty qualified. The good news is that he tends to mention his sources so we should get something to cite. The bad news is his suggestion so far has a 390 euro paywall.©Geni (talk) 19:41, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Geni: I used that very source to create a "historiography" section as a stopgap.  User:Ifly6 has a draft at User:Ifly6/Marian reforms which may or may not be ready by Friday.  (I still need to go give it a look over myself, but I do think we may need to keep some of the current article, just under a section title like "Traditional view" or "Evolution of the Roman Army in the 2nd and 1st century BC" with a disclaimer that calling said evolution the Marian reforms is (probably) a misnomer. SnowFire (talk) 20:02, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
It will almost certainly not be ready by Friday. I need to translate some somewhat large portions of Cadiou 2018. (Though it would be easier if he didn't keep writing these single sentences with at least five commas that consume eight lines.) Ifly6 (talk) 01:08, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Echoing SnowFire somewhat, I have access to and have read Taylor 2019. The better overview of the matter, I think, though is Gautier and the most recent relevant and well-regarded monograph is Cadiou 2018 which is (somewhat unfortunately) in French. In general though I agree with Devereaux; the article as it stands is of seriously deficient quality. Ifly6 (talk) 23:34, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
The full article with the critiques has since been published: https://acoup.blog/2023/06/30/collections-the-marian-reforms-werent-a-thing/. BalinKingOfMoria (talk) 01:11, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
We saw, yes.  Just there may not be much point in updating this article when it's probably going to be mostly replaced by Ifly's draft at some point.
While it'd read weirdly on a topic of ancient history, I'd argue that "disputed" is the wrong tag to use - maybe {{Update}}?  This article really is describing the traditional view, warts and all.  It's what older historians said, so from a strict WP:V perspective, that's still accurate that older historians said this.  Just the problem is that it doesn't really include what recent historians have said and needs to be brought up to date.  If you read Deveraux's article, you'll note he qualifies his critique with saying one particular 1984 book is not a bad book, just scholarship hadn't come as long as far as it has now.  SnowFire (talk) 01:53, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
@SnowFire Oh, I didn't mean to spam you all—I just wanted to link the article itself for the convenience of future readers :-)
And yeah, Disputed felt a bit odd to me too.... Thanks for suggesting Update instead, I've just changed it to that. BalinKingOfMoria (talk) 04:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
I just added a brief blurb describing the reforms as "thought to be" by "older scholarship", citing the blog post. I know that source doesn't meet the guidelines, but it will be replaced by Ifly's draft when it's ready, and I think in the meantime it's better to have a caveat with an invalid source than completely incorrect information without a signpost. 207.164.135.99 (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

It's a good article, but while it casts doubt on the traditional modern historiography of the "Marian reforms", it never offers an alternative. So if there never was one specific set of monumental reforms, the question becomes, did the changes ever occur at all? And if so, of what nature were they, exactly?
Currently, only the very last two paragraphs of the article attempt an explanation (section: Contemporary historiography). But I'm still left with the feeling of a gaping hole after all the critique has been done. Or is it simply the case, as one of the sources states, that we just don't have an alternative? Just don't know?
"Cadiou has not given us a coherent new account of the late republican army, but he has demolished the old one."
If so, this could be made explicit, so that an amateur hobbyist like me could sleep in peace without the nagging feeling like they've missed something.
MrThe1And0nly (talk) 13:35, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

The topic of how the Roman army turned from its middle republican form to the early imperial form – most especially in terms of recruitment – is still the subject of research; the focus now is on later periods rather than on Marius. There were changes in the late republic: the maniple, for example, does seem to have disappeared in the late 2nd or early 1st century but that did not have to do with Marius.
The issue of broader reforms is more problematic. Going through the list of reforms I want to tally two different columns, whether it occurred around 100 BC and whether Marius was responsible, which I've put at right. Sometimes a "reform" happens as a one-off event; I mark these as N. If Marius was at all connected with an event resembling the tag I mark it Y though some of these really should be ?. These tallies are a bit subjective and I'm sure reasonable people could disagree.
Putting it in a table like this I think most clearly shows why there aren't "Marian" "reforms". The thesis of the "Marian" "reforms" is that there were broad reforms, which stuck, initiated by Marius during his consulships between 107–100. There are some reforms around 100 BC but they are not Marian. And what is Marian is not a reform around 100 BC.
Perhaps to fill the "gaping hole", I would stress that what remains after Cadiou is an emphasis on continuities. I've added the column Ever? to mark reforms that happened but not around 100 BC: it is not always perfectly clear when they happened but it was not around 100 BC; the superscripts mark whether they happened before or after 100 BC. How they should be thought of, however, is as evolutionary expediencies or accretions taken step-by-step to solve immediate problems rather than as some monumental project by one visionary man. Ifly6 (talk) 18:34, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. This is about what I gleaned. The sad thing is, that while Marius' reforms may have been a total fantasy, they were a neat point of reference to read up on the changes in the army. I guess this is touched upon more in the Roman Army wiki, but that doesn't seem to go into all that much depth either.
Out of curiosity, why is "State-purchased equipment" unticked? Is there a possibility that it never happened? MrThe1And0nly (talk) 19:32, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Tacitus records complaints at the accession of Tiberius from soldiers about how their pay was being docked to pay for clothing and other expenses. It's cited in the article as Tac. Ann. 1.17.6: ten asses a day is the value set on life and limb; out of this, clothing, arms, tents, as well as the mercy of centurions and exemptions from duty have to be purchased. Ifly6 (talk) 20:17, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

I question the staggering number of words like "supposed," "alleged," "putative," etc. I get having disclaimers at the start of disputed topics, but not every sentence. It's really just too much. It stops the flow and comes across like someone has an ax to grind.
Foregrounding the current skepticism this much leaves it unclear what this article is even about. Is this an article about a period in Roman history that was later subject to exaggeration and myth making, or about a 19th Century just-so story that's bad and wrong and here's why?
I'd like to see the narrative cleaned up and tackled chronologically with a neutral POV. 98.176.69.41 (talk) 02:41, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

There is no period in Roman history which the phrase "Marian reforms" would describe. The consensus among historians today is that the "Marian reforms" as described in the 19th century did not exist at almost every level. Composing this reply itself raises the wording issue you brought: I initially tried to write the article is about the reforms but this is not accurate since they did not exist; I therefore must write the article is about the supposed reforms.
The alternative is a misleading article. Eg there was an edit which recast the article into description of reforms that actually happened. That was a mistake that emerges from the extent to which the "Marian reforms" are ingrained in popular culture (Rome: Total War). The neutral POV is what the modern reliable sources say: they say the "Marian reforms" did not exist. Readers are best served by a reflection of the scholarship and not their misunderstandings. Ifly6 (talk) 13:51, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
We could quibble the word "alleged" (which sounds like a crime; I quite liked "putative", which is much closer in meaning to "reconstructed" or "hypothetical"), but User:Ifly6 is quite right that this is an article about a myth -- or, at least, an outdated historical construct.  UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:46, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
"Historical construct" works pretty well for the 19th/20th Century elaborations. My main issue is that Marius did have a long and influential consulship and there are several reforms (or at least "actions") attributed to him by classical sources.  The article seems to neglect the historical Marius and our best sources for him. I especially take issue with starting a section with "Beyond the attribution to Marius of setting the precedent for recruiting the poor, made by the historian Valerius Maximus in the early 1st century AD." Why are we immediately moving "beyond" an important near-contempory source suggesting an early origin to the "reform" narrative? In general, this article seems overly focused on puncturing the myth that emerged around Marius later rather than probing its origins.
As for the POV issues, I think the vast number of citations pointing back to a handful of authors (Cadiou, Taylor, and Gauthier, Faszcza especially) poses a problem. I recognize that this is an evolving topic of scholarship and using the latest sources is important. I applaud the work put into tracking down and translating publications, but the reference list sometimes has the same person cited 5 or 6 times in a row, which is unusual to see on wiki articles of this quality. 98.176.69.41 (talk) 03:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
The basic principle at work here is WP:DUEWEIGHT, which says that the balance of material in the article should reflect the balance of how the topic is covered in high-quality, reliable, secondary (WP:HQRS) sources. Hopefully that answers the question of why are we immediately moving "beyond" an important near-contempory source suggesting an early origin to the "reform" narrative?: that's exactly what Wikipedia's policies tell us to do, given that no high-quality, scholarly treatment today takes that primary source at face value. Similarly, if modern scholars have published works probing the origins of the "Marian Reforms" narrative, we should use and cite them, but we can't do that if they haven't (this is the policy against using research that has not appeared in print elsewhere).  UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:45, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
(Hi again. Same armchair critic from five months ago, but I made an account.)
So there's no secondary source for what Valerius Maximus had to say about Marius? Not even from Taylor himself? That strikes me as unlikely. I feel like the more encyclopediac way to present sections like that would be to provide a neutral statement of fact "Valerius Maximus writing in the 1st Century AD said..." and then follow that up with whatever additional commentary, qualification, or modern assessment is appropriate, preferably from multiple perspectives.
As written, it comes across as someone (Taylor?) breezily dismissing a relevant source that's inconvenient for the argument being made (and make no mistake, the style is argumentative). If Valerius is unreliable, misleading, or irrelevant, the article doesn't say so. I didn't know no one takes it at "face value." Why not? Perhaps that would be a good thing to address in the article. Duxbag (talk) 06:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm greatly unclear as to what you want the article to say. Can you provide a proposal?
But as to someone (Taylor?) breezily dismissing a relevant source that's inconvenient for the argument being made the statement that it exists is in an introduction; what follows is a presentation of consensus describing how "the idea of a wide-ranging 'Marian reform' that permanently abolished property qualifications for military service has recently [as of 2020] been thoroughly rebutted" (Gauthier 2020 p 283 with citations). What you seem to want(?) is under the next heading since that's just introductory material. Ifly6 (talk) 20:22, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
Why is Valerius Maximus referenced in introductory material and never brought up again though? Shouldn't the source's claim and sigificance (or lack thereof) be adressed directly, rather than in passing? Anyway, that intro reads as argumentative largely because of it's "Beyond, [...] only [...]" structure. The "beyond" dismisses while the "only" minimizes. The same construction is repeated later in the section as well. The crux of the POV issue seems to lie in segments like that where the article itself is picking sides in an academic debate rather than letting the sources do the talking. If only one side is supported by evidence, a neutral presentation of evidemce should make that clear.
It's OK if other people disagree with me. I don't want to run this into the ground, especially since this article is already better than many. I might go in and snip the extraneous "onlys," but I'm more of a reader than an editor, so I'll leave any bigger decisions to people with more experience and subject knowledge/access to sources. Thanks for hearing me out. Duxbag (talk) 11:26, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
I'll need to have a proper look at Taylor to have a considered opinion here, but I do think we need something to the effect of "none of the other changes lumped under the 'Marian reforms' by 19th-century historians have any basis in ancient sources". However, the substance of the change is good, I think: it's always better to keep the editorial voice subtle and use the facts to bring the reader onto the conclusion. To me, the paragraph above that header is a bigger problem -- it seems to imply that modern (ie, 21st century) historians think that the Marian reforms were a Thing, which is the opposite of what it should say. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:34, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
So I was all set drop this but after re-wording the Valerius Maximus bit, I noticed a much more serious issue which is that that intro to the Ancient Attributions section doesn't mention Sallust at all, despite him being much earlier (and more notable) than Valerius and his being quoted extensively in the Historiography section describing a terrible breach of "the manner of our forefathers." So the statement that the only sources for Marian reform were Valerius and people writing "centuries later" was highly dubious and contradicted elsewhere in the article. I took out the "only" at least, but it still feels like it needs a revision to include Sallust. The bit about Marius' "Mules" also possibly belongs in the ancient attributions section rather than the the modern one since it's based on "ancient sources," but that ones a little more vague to me. Duxbag (talk) 12:54, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
Agreed on Sallust: I was ready to say "that's an action, not a reform", but then we call it just that in the section below. At least one of these needs to change, depending on whether Sallust couches that as "Marius changed the way that the Roman army operates" or "Marius did something once; it was odd then but it's normal now." UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:02, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess it sort of depends whether the change "stuck," at least in Sallust's opinion. I'm also noticing that the Ancient Attributions section does mention Sallust later in the "proletarianization" section, but without properly introducing him, so it seems more like an oversight than deliberate omision. I'm inclined to say Sallust is highly notable and deserves pride of place as it's quite possible that Valerius and all the rest were drawing from him. The whole "reforms" myth might have all started out as "Marius changed it, now it sucks!" Duxbag (talk) 13:33, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
 The reason why I picked Val Max 2.3.1 instead of Sall Iug 86 was because, as UndercoverClassicist mentions, Sallust's presentation is essentially this is a thing that happened. This contrasts to Val Max 2.3.1 which in Walker 2004's translation says This old tradition [of assidiui-only service] was in force for a long time and was well established by then, but Marius abolished it by enlisting men without property as soldiers. The difference is basically that Sallust never says it was a reform (contra one-time expedient); Val Max does. The difference also matters. During the Second Punic War the proletarii were called to service as an expedient or one-off (something Val Max just happens to omit); no similar proletarianisation thesis emerged around that. That Marius' volunteers were dismissed promptly and, when he fought the Cimbri, he then took a normal army levied in the normal way also is part of the recent rejection of "Marian" "reforms". Ifly6 (talk) 23:08, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's our job to decide what constitutes a "reform," especially when so many of our other sources are interpreting Sallust that way. We as the voice of wikipedia don't have to agree with that interpretation. At all. But I think introducing Sallust earlier and describing his actual claim will help readers know what we're talking about later on. Anyway, thanks for hearing me out. Kudos on all the good work so far. 98.176.69.41 (talk) 08:47, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's our job to decide what constitutes a "reform": indeed -- we have to fall in line with what the secondary sources do. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:17, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

How reliable is this as definite fact? While the position that their were no specific Marian reforms seems correct by wider histography, a huge amount of core positions in this page (e.g. poverty of legionnaires didn't exist and most legionaires were actually still 1st and 2nd class landowners) seem to derive explicitly from this book, despite the fact that much of the books content seems to be opinion rather than explicit histography. Many cases seems to take a position of "because this fact isn't 100% true in all cases, it must be 100% false in all cases).... 90.91.194.4 (talk) 09:29, 27 May 2024 (UTC) 

The book is a high quality reliable source that is well accepted by scholars. The distinction created in this comment, between "opinion" (that describes everything) and whatever "explicit historiography" is, isn't relevant for Wikipedia's content and sourcing requirements. The arguments given are in the book; Wikipedia is a summary, largely of conclusions, not a copyright infringing translation of the book. Ifly6 (talk) 20:22, 7 September 2024 (UTC)