The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

The core of this new army was a reserve legion that had been conscripted by the previous year’s consul, Publius Rutilius Rufus. When his ill-fated colleague Mallius had gone off to battle the Cimbri, Rutilius had stayed behind in Rome to continue raising reinforcements. Not wanting these reinforcements to sit idle, Rutilius kept them busy with a training regimen adapted from the gladiatorial schools. The men engaged in hand-to-hand combat, calisthenics, and physical conditioning. When Marius inherited this small force in early 104 he found it to be one of the best-trained groups of soldiers he had ever commanded.5 To build around this core, Marius canvassed for new recruits. As with the Numidian campaign, Marius secured an exemption from the property requirements and drafted men of every class and background. He had little difficulty raising recruits. Men who had watched their friends and neighbors win riches and fame in North Africa now wanted in on the action. Where once the hopeless underclasses had been left behind by the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean, they now stood to profit along with the nobility. We do not know exactly how many men Marius took with him to Gaul, but it was perhaps as many as thirty thousand Romans plus forty thousand Italian Allies and foreign auxiliaries. One thing we know for sure, however, is that Marius made sure Sulla stayed by his side. Though Marius was annoyed that Sulla happily took credit for capturing Jugurtha, he could not deny th...