Historical sources on Gaius Marius

Quote A – Birthplace and early life 

“[Gaius Marius] was born of parents altogether obscure and indigent, who supported themselves by their daily labor; his father of the same name with himself, his mother called Fulcinia. He had spent a considerable part of his life before he saw and tasted the pleasures of the city; having passed previously in Cirrhæaton, a village of the territory of Arpinum, a life, compared with city delicacies, rude and unrefined, yet temperate, and conformable to the ancient Roman severity. He first served as a soldier in the war against the Celtiberians, when Scipio Africanus besieged Numantia; where he signalized himself to his general by courage far above his comrades, and, particularly, by his cheerfully complying with Scipio's reformation of his army, before almost ruined by pleasures and luxury. It is stated, too, that he encountered and vanquished an enemy in single combat, in his general's sight. In consequence of all this he had several honors conferred upon him; and once when at an entertainment a question arose about commanders, and one of the company (whether really desirous to know, or only in complaisance) asked Scipio where the Romans, after him, should obtain such another general, Scipio, gently clapping Marius on the shoulder as he sat next him, replied, ‘Here, perhaps.’” 

Quote B – Jugurthine War: Marius as Metellus’ lieutenant

“The consul Cæcilius Metellus, being declared general in the war against Jugurtha in Africa, took with him Marius for lieutenant; where, eager himself to do great deeds and services that would get him distinction, he did not, like others, consult Metellus's glory and the serving his interest, and attributing his honor of lieutenancy not to Metellus, but to fortune, which had presented him with a proper opportunity and theatre of great actions, he exerted his utmost courage. That war, too, affording several difficulties, he neither declined the greatest, nor disdained undertaking the least of them; but surpassing his equals in counsel and conduct, and matching the very common soldiers in labor and abstemiousness, he gained great popularity with them… Marius thus employed, and thus winning the affections of the soldiers, before long filled both Africa and Rome with his fame, and some, too, wrote home from the army that the war with Africa would never be brought to a conclusion, unless they chose Caius Marius consul.” 

Quote C – Opening the army to the poor

“He was elected triumphantly, and at once proceeded to levy soldiers, contrary both to law and custom, enlisting slaves and poor people; whereas former commanders never accepted of such, but bestowed arms, like other favors, as a matter of distinction, on persons who had the proper qualification, a man's property being thus a sort of security for his good behavior. These were not the only occasions of ill-will against Marius; some haughty speeches, uttered with great arrogance and contempt, gave great offence to the nobility; as, for example, his saying that he had carried off the consulship as a spoil from the effeminacy of the wealthy and high-born citizens, and telling the people that he gloried in wounds he had himself received for them, as much as others did in the monuments of dead men and images of their ancestors.” 

Quote D – War against the Cimbri and Teutones

“Jugurtha's apprehension was only just known, when the news of the invasion of the Teutones and Cimbri began. The accounts at first exceeded all credit, as to the number and strength of the approaching army; but in the end, report proved much inferior to the truth, as they were three hundred thousand effective fighting men, besides a far greater number of women and children… Having vanquished all they had met, and found abundance of plunder, they resolved to settle themselves nowhere till they should have razed the city, and wasted all Italy. The Romans, being from all parts alarmed with this news, sent for Marius to undertake the war, and nominated him the second time consul… Thus it was decided; and Marius, bringing over his legions out of Africa… received the consulship… On the expedition he carefully disciplined and trained his army… insomuch that thenceforward laborious soldiers, who did their work silently without grumbling, had the name of ‘Marius's mules.’” 

Quote E – Jugurtha’s capture, triumph, and death

“As soon as he arrived again in Africa, Metellus, no longer able to control his feelings of jealousy… retired himself, whilst Rutilius, his lieutenant, surrendered up the army to Marius, whose conduct, however, in the end of the war, met with some sort of retribution, as Sylla deprived him of the glory of the action, as he had done Metellus. …[Bocchus] at length… put Jugurtha alive into Sylla's possession. Thus was the first occasion given of that fierce and implacable hostility which so nearly ruined the whole Roman empire… 

…Thus it was decided; and Marius, bringing over his legions out of Africa on the very first day of January… received the consulship, and then, also, entered in triumph, showing Jugurtha a prisoner to the people, a sight they had despaired of ever beholding… When, however, he was led in triumph, it is said that he fell distracted, and when he was afterwards thrown into prison, where some tore off his clothes by force, and others, whilst they struggled for his golden ear-ring, with it pulled off the tip of his ear, and when he was, after this, cast naked into the dungeon, in his amazement and confusion, with a ghastly laugh, he cried out, ‘Hercules! how cold your bath is!’ Here for six days struggling with hunger, and to the very last minute desirous of life, he was overtaken by the just reward of his villanies.” 

Quote F – Seventh consulship

“But these envyings and calumnies were soon dispersed and cleared away from Marius, by the danger that threatened Italy from the west… and Marius, though then absent, was elected. …Marius was recalled to serve as legate with his nephew, the consul Publius Rutilius Lupus… [Later, during the civil conflicts] accordingly, Marius was elected consul for the seventh time, and assuming office on the very Calends of January, which is the first day of the year…” 

Contextual information:

Plutarch was a Greek biographer writing in the late first and early second centuries CE; his Parallel Lives compare major Greek and Roman figures and were widely read in antiquity and the Renaissance. The Life of Marius is a primary narrative source for Marius’ career (Jugurthine War, the Cimbri and Teutones, his reforms, and his violent old age), though it was written about two centuries after the events and reflects Plutarch’s moral interests as much as strict chronology. 

Bibliographical reference:

Plutarch. (1876). Life of Marius (A. H. Clough, Trans.). In Plutarch’s Lives (Vol. 2). Boston: Little, Brown. (Original work written c. 1st–2nd c. CE). 

Copyright: Public domain. 

“The social war, as it is called, in reality a civil war, was a crisis in the history of European development. When it was over, the ancient city-state of the Greeks and Italians had vanished in Italy, and in its place arose a new form of polity, for which there was then no name. The sturdy peoples of central Italy entered on the desperate venture of setting up a rival power against Rome; a plan which, if successful, would have paralysed Rome’s work in the world whether for good or evil. They chose the city of Corfinium, in the heart of the Apennines, some hundred miles east of Rome, gave it the new significant name Italica, and made it, as Washington is now, the city-centre of a federation, where deputies from the various members should meet and deliberate under the presidency of consuls. But now was seen the value of the strategical position of Rome. She could strike in any direction from inner lines, while safe from attack or blockade by sea; but Corfinium had no such natural strategic advantage, nor any unifying power. Yet the Italians were for some time successful in the field, and Rome was for a whole year in the utmost peril. At the end of that year (90 B.C.) the Etruscans and Umbrians to north and east joined the confederates, and then for the first time Rome was likely to be put on the defensive, with enemies on her left flank, as well as on her right and in front. So a law was hastily passed giving the precious citizenship to all who had not taken up arms; and this was the beginning of a process by which, in some few years, the whole of Italy became Roman in the eye of the law, while, on the other hand, it might be said not untruly that Rome became Italian. Henceforward we have to think of the whole peninsula as forming the material support of Mediterranean civilisation.” 

Contextual information:

W. Warde Fowler (1847–1921) was an Oxford classicist and one of the standard late‑Victorian/Edwardian authorities on Roman religion and the late Republic. His short book Rome in the Home University Library series gives a synthetic narrative of Roman political development for general readers. In this paragraph he explains that the so‑called Social War (91–88 BCE) was really a civil war in which Rome’s Italian allies, having long pressed for equal political rights, broke away and founded a rival “Italy” with its own capital at Corfinium (renamed Italica), until Rome responded by extending citizenship widely to loyal or repentant allies. 

Bibliographical reference:

Fowler, W. W. (1912). Rome. New York: Henry Holt; London: Williams and Norgate. 

Copyright: Public domain. 

“By this time Marius was generally recognized as the ablest general of the day, and was appointed to the chief command against the Cimbri and Teutones. Two Roman armies had been destroyed near the Lake of Geneva, and it seemed as if a repetition of the disaster of the Allia and the capture of Rome itself might not be impossible. Marius, out of unpromising materials and a demoralized soldiery, organized a well-disciplined army, with which he inflicted on the invaders two decisive defeats, the first in 102 at Aquae Sextiae (Aix), 18 m. north of Marseilles, and the second in the following year on the Raudian plain near Vercellae (Vercelli), about midway between Turin and Milan. For some centuries afterwards Rome remained unmolested by northern barbarians. In 101 Marius was elected consul a fifth time (previously in 107, 104, 103, 102), hailed as the ‘saviour of his country,’ and honoured with a triumph of unprecedented splendour.” 

“Meantime, Sulla having left Italy for the Mithradatic war, Cinna’s sudden and violent revolution put the senate at the mercy of the popular leaders, and Marius greedily caught at the opportunity of a bloody vengeance, which became in fact a reign of terror in which senators and nobles were slaughtered wholesale. He had himself elected consul for the seventh time, in fulfilment of a prophecy given to him in early manhood. Less than three weeks afterwards he died of fever, on the 13th of January 86.” 

“Marius was not only a great general, but also a great military reformer. From his time a citizen militia was replaced by a professional soldiery, which had hitherto been little liked by the Roman people. He further made the cohort the military unit instead of the maniple, and his cavalry and light-armed troops were drawn from foreign countries, so that it may be said that Marius was the originator of the mercenary army. The Roman soldier was henceforth a man who had no trade but war. A great general could hardly fail to become the foremost man in the state. Marius, however, unlike Caesar, did not attempt to overturn the oligarchy by means of the army; he used rather such expedients as the constitution seemed to allow, though they had to be backed up by riot and violence. He failed as a political reformer because the merchants and the moneyed classes, whom the Gracchi had tried to conciliate, feared that they would themselves be swept away by a revolution of which the mob and its leaders would be the ultimate controllers. Marius had a decided tinge of fanaticism and superstition. In canvassing for the consulship he was guided by the counsels of an Etruscan soothsayer, and was accompanied in his campaigns by a Syrian prophetess. The fashionable accomplishments of the day, and the new Greek culture, were wholly alien to his taste.” 

Contextual information:

This is the Gaius Marius entry from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, written by a professional classicist and summarizing late‑19th/early‑20th‑century scholarship. 

Bibliographical reference:

Encyclopaedia Britannica. (1911). Marius, Gaius. In The Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed., Vol. 17, pp. 743–744). Cambridge University Press. 

Copyright: Public domain.

“Sulpicius, who still held the office of tribune, together with Marius, who had been consul six times, and his son Marius, also Publius Cethegus, Junius Brutus, Gnaeus and Quintus Granius, Publius Albinovanus, Marcus Laetorius, and others with them, about twelve in number, had been exiled from Rome, because they had stirred up the sedition, had borne arms against the consuls, had incited slaves to insurrection, and had been voted enemies of the Roman people (hostes publici); and anybody meeting them had been authorized to kill them with impunity or to drag them before the consuls, while their goods had been confiscated.” 

Contextual information:

Appian was a Greek historian of the second century CE whose Roman History includes a detailed narrative of the late Republic’s civil wars. In Book I of The Civil Wars he explains how Sulla marched his legions on Rome in 88 BCE, defeated his domestic opponents, and then persuaded the Senate to declare Marius (six‑time consul at that point), his son, and their allies hostes publici – “enemies of the Roman people” – whose lives and property were forfeit. 

Bibliographical reference:

Appian. (1899). The Civil Wars (H. White, Trans.). In Appian’s Roman History (Vol. 1). London: Macmillan. (Original work written c. 2nd c. CE). 

Copyright: Public domain.