Was Marius actually the threat to the Republic that the Senate seemed to think he was? Was Sulla justified in marching his legions into Rome in 88 BC? Was Marius a power-hungry populist, or a good Roman who stood in the way of Sulla’s overweening ambition? Was Sulla a debauched schemer, or the savior of the Senate?
Basically, does this moment in history have a Good Guy and a Bad Guy?
The way Colleen McCullough told the story in her Masters of Rome series of historical novels, Marius was not a bad guy, but he was glory-mad and, by the time of his seventh and final consulship, just plain mad. As a New Man (a prominent general and statesman but of humble birth), he was overcompensating, in his determination to be known as the greatest Roman of all time. Sulla was also overcompensating – he was a patrician but brought up poor; therefore, all the more devoted to the power and privileges of the nobility. Admirable in his brilliance, but an amoral degenerate.
FWIW. McCullough is famous for the exhaustive research she did in writing the novels; I’ve heard classical history profs sometimes consult her.
The bad guy was Cato the Elder.
Where does he fit into the story? He died in 149 B.C. Marius was not elected consul for the first time until 107 B.C.
Marius is the bad guy. The bastard slaughtered my ancestors, the Cimbri, which supposedly hails from a place in northern Jutland, where I lived for much of my youth. There’s a bull in the central square of the largest town of northern Jutland to commemorate the Cimbri’s brave ravaging down through Europe, which was most unfortunately cut short by Marius and his cowardly and sneaky use of generalship.
Besides Marius instigated the practice of conscriptions and backstabbing used to murder and steal the property of political opponents – or just some poor rich guy which property or wife or daughter you fancied.
Wasn’t it Marius that prevented Sulla’s appointment to lead the legions east to fight the Greeks? And he did it while Sulla had half a dozen legions under his command if I read Tom Holland’s Rubicon right. That seems to me to indicate that he never dreamed Sulla would march legions on an undefended Rome and make the legions instruments of their general’s will rather than the republic’s.
As I recall Sulla had a habit of making list of disloyal Romans, executing them, having the state confiscate their property, and then selling said property to his cronies at a fraction of what they were worth at mock auctions. It’s hard to say which one of those guys was worse.
Marc