Читать книгу Why Rome Fell - Michael Arnheim - Страница 28

The next popular leader was rather more successful. This was the great military reformer, a novus homo (new man) of equestrian origin, Gaius Marius, who was elected consul an unprecedented seven times between 107 and 86 BCE. Until the Marian reforms, only property owners were eligible to serve in the Roman army. What Marius did was to turn the Roman army into a professional standing army open to all citizens, no matter how poor. Soldiers were now recruited for an enlistment term of sixteen years. Marius’s reforms offered the landless masses the opportunity to become paid professional soldiers, an offer that was enthusiastically taken up. Retired soldiers were given a pension and a plot of land in conquered territory. Marius also extended Roman citizenship to citizens of the allied Italian cities in return for service in the Roman army. While creating a much improved Roman standing army, Marius’s reforms tended to transfer the troops’ loyalty from the state to their general.