The Life of Caius Marius by Plutarch

Gaius Marius (Caius Marius) was a Roman general and statesman. As victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his important reforms of Roman armies. He set the precedent for the shift from the militia levies of the middle Republic to the professional soldiery of the late Republic; he also improved the pilum, a javelin, and made large-scale changes to the logistical structure of the Roman army. Marius acquired his initial military experience serving with Scipio Aemilianus at the Siege of Numantia in 134 BCE. He won election as tribune of the plebs in 119 BCE and passed a law limiting aristocratic interference in elections. Barely elected praetor in 115 BCE, he next became the governor of Further Spain where he campaigned against bandits. On his return from Spain he married Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar. Marius attained his first consulship in 107 BCE and became the commander of Roman forces in Numidia, where he brought an end to the Jugurthine War. By 105 BCE Rome faced an invasion by the Cimbri and Teutones, and the comitia centuriata elected Marius consul for a second time to face this new threat. Marius was consul every year from 104–100 BCE, and he defeated the Teutones at Aqua Sextiae and the Cimbri at Vercellae. For his victories he was hailed as "the third founder of Rome" (the first two being Romulus and Camillus). However, Marius suffered political setbacks during his sixth consulship in 100 BCE and afterwards entered a period of semi-retirement from public life. The Republic fell into crisis with the outbreak of the Social War in 91 BCE, in which Marius fought with limited success. He then became embroiled in a conflict with the Roman general Sulla which resulted in him being exiled to Africa in 88 BCE. Marius returned to Italy during the War of Octavius, seized Rome, and began a bloody reign of terror in the city which culminated in him being elected consul a seventh time and then dying at the beginning of his consulship, in 86 BCE. His life and career, by breaking with many of the precedents that bound the ambitious upper class of the Roman republic together and instituting a soldiery loyal not to the republic but to their commanders, contributed to Rome's transformation from republic to empire. 🏛️Please subscribe - https://bit.ly/32qv7fU 📖 Plutarch's Lives - https://amzn.to/34Y0E8O