Gaius Marius

By these means he became moderately well off.

Having been appointed quaestor to Marius in his first consulship, he sailed with him to Libya to make war upon Jugurtha.

He was put in charge of the camp and won great credit for himself, especially by improving a favorable opportunity and making a friend of Bocchus, the king of Numidia.

For he hospitably entertained ambassadors of the king, who had escaped from Numidian robbers, and sent them on their way with gifts and a safe escort.

Now Bocchus had for a long time hated and feared his son-in-law, Jugurtha, who had been defeated and had fled to him for safety, and was then plotting against him.

He therefore invited Sulla to come to him, wishing to have the seizure and surrender of Jugurtha effected through Sulla rather than through himself.

Sulla imparted the matter to Marius, and taking with him a few soldiers, underwent the greatest peril.

He put faith in a barbarian, and one who was faithless towards his own relations, and to secure his surrender of another, placed himself in his hands.

These blatant displays of political violence and willingness to step beyond traditional political boundaries heralded a century of chaos in Rome, with the incredible expansion of the city's empire, and the riches, glory and prestige this brought to individual commanders was a major factor in destabilizing a political system that was designed to organize the affairs of a city-state, rather than an overseas empire of incredible scope and wealth.

Victorious generals led armies that were loyal to themselves rather than to the state and thus statesmen like Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla started using violence and the riches they had accumulated on campaign to purge political enemies and violate hallowed customs.

In the 80s BC, Sulla broke with centuries of tradition to march his army on Rome and declare himself dictator.

Another issue the Republic faced was the lack of a major enemy power that could unite Romans in opposition.

For much of its history, the Roman Republic had been exclusively a Mediterranean power with little control over land any further north than Tuscany and Liguria in Italy.

The General Marius had gradually begun extending Roman power northwards to the Alps in the late second century BC, and Julius Caesar had overseen a series of formidable conquests in Gaul, the region approximating to modern-day France, in the 50s BC.

Now, Augustus was determined not only to consolidate Caesar's earlier conquests by bringing wayward Celtic tribes in the greater Gaul region under Rome's control, but also by pushing the borders of the empire north and east to defensive lines along the River Rhine and River Danube.

In the north, this would involve conquering much of Germania, while in the south it would require control over regions which the Romans knew as Pannonia, Noricum, and Illyricum, which approximate with the countries of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It's not the first time thing like that I've seen but every time I see them I'm pretty amazed and I thought this was pretty neat because it was all kind of like in one place and there was no like you know kind of like in the bath UK bath complex some of it is like rebuilt you're walking through as the Romans did but it's not all the original stuff right so I thought this was pretty neat let's talk a little bit about what we saw and why it's different than what was there in 138 BC which is what was originally built, right? So for around 60 years, Valentia experienced what can only be described as peaceful growth, right? But in 80 BC, Rome was not very peaceful.

In fact, it was torn apart by a civil war between our podcast old friends, Marius and Sulla.

As we all know, Sulla's forces came out on top.

One of Marius' top generals named Quintus Sertorius fled to Spain.

While there, he organized local Romans and Iberian tribes and and broke away from Rome and created what amounted to an independent republic.

The Senate, of course, did not recognize this new state.