The Roman Republic Wasn't Destroyed by Foreign Enemies — It Was Destroyed by Its Own Men Marching on Rome
The showdown between Marius and Sulla, the self-made man and the aristocrat, brought a Roman army into Rome for the first time — and nailed the first proscription list in the city center. The Republic never turned back.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
A barbarian host three times the rumored size is marching toward Italy
Plutarch records that the Teutones and Cimbri numbered 300,000 warriors, plus far more women and children, moving south from the Jutland peninsula and possibly taking nearly a decade to reach the Alps. When the Romans first heard the reports, they thought the numbers absurd; later they discovered every rumor had been an underestimate. Tom compares it to the asteroid hurtling toward Earth in a Hollywood disaster film, while Dominic goes straight to December 2019: you hear the first reports out of Wuhan, and people at the breakfast table are still discussing summer vacation. That image sets the tone for the whole episode — Rome, entirely unaware, being approached by a migration-shaped apocalypse.
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookThis rivalry will put a Roman army inside Rome for the first time
The Marius-Sulla showdown is not an ordinary feud between political enemies. Dominic points out that it leads to the first time in Roman history that a Roman army marches on the city of Rome, followed by bloody civil war, proscription lists nailed up in the city center, and Rome ruled by military dictatorship. This is the key turning point in the Republic's final collapse and the establishment of Caesarian autocracy. Tom adds that it is more like the prelude to the giant contest between Pompey and Caesar — Marius later married into the Caesar family, becoming the young Caesar's uncle by marriage.
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookThe influx of wealth made Romans start to suspect they were the bad guys
The Romans' self-narrative about conquering the world was this: they were the most moral people, all their wars were self-defense, and therefore the gods supported them. But after Carthage and Corinth were utterly destroyed in 146 BC, some Romans began to feel uneasy and ask, "Are we the bad guys?" Pliny the Elder saw the period from the conquest of Macedon to Attalus bequeathing Pergamon to Rome as the catastrophic turning point in Roman morality — Romans no longer merely admired foreign luxury, they learned to covet it. Dominic likens this anxiety to 18th-century Britons' fear of corruption in the face of Indian wealth, and to the Jeffersonian tradition's wariness of empire and wealth.
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookSeven consulships was something no one in Roman history had ever done
Two consuls were elected each year, holding the powers of the expelled kings: commanding armies, presiding over the Senate and elections, and communicating between men and the gods. Two were chosen so they could watch each other; a one-year term was meant to prevent power from hardening. By the time Marius was growing up, holding the consulship more than once was already taboo — whether by formal law or by customary pressure. And Marius was a novus homo, a "new man," from a family with no tradition of holding high office. Plutarch records that as a boy he fell from a tree and found seven eaglets in a nest; a soothsayer said he would become the greatest man in the world and hold the consulship seven times. The record in Roman history was six.
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookTribunes of the plebs are inviolable, but the last one was just killed and his corpse defiled
The tribune of the plebs had veto power, could convene the popular assembly to pass his own bills, and was absolutely inviolable in his person. But when Marius ran for tribune, it was only two years since the previous tribune had been murdered: the gang was led by a consul, the body was beheaded, and the skull was filled with lead as a trophy. Dominic says this means class war had already come to Rome, and the tightrope a "man of the people" like Marius had to walk was extremely dangerous, possibly fatal. After his election he passed a bill limiting aristocratic influence over voters in the voting areas, which Plutarch says won him a reputation for "great courage, formidable opponents among the conservatives, and reliably standing up for ordinary people."
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookKilling a tribune set a precedent, and once a taboo breaks it never holds firm again
Tiberius Gracchus was beaten to death with a stool leg in 133 BC; Gaius Gracchus was murdered, beheaded, and had his skull filled with lead in 121 BC, and three thousand followers were executed by the consul without trial. Dominic stresses that this was not the violence of normal Roman politics but the first outbreak of civil-war-style violence in the streets of Rome since the expulsion of the kings in 509 BC — the first in four hundred years. Tom says it was both a fatal precedent — if a consul could kill an elected tribune on grounds of a state emergency, any future magistrates could do the same — and less severe than it looks, because the Roman populace as a whole remained deeply conservative, resenting the elite while respecting it, and would not truly slide into the kind of class war seen in the Greek city-states.
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookMarius went back to Rome to run without telling Metellus, and took his African command
In the summer of 108, Marius asked Metellus for leave to return to Rome and run for consul. Metellus was first shocked, then contemptuous, and finally treated it as a joke, but Marius would not back down. Metellus deliberately kept him at the front until the last moment, so that he barely made the registration deadline. But Marius's agents in Rome were already playing the populist card, saying Metellus was rigid, arrogant, cold, and aloof, while Marius was a man of the people. The result was that Marius not only won the consulship for 107 BC but also took over Metellus's African command. Metellus was furious, and his friends in the Senate voted him the title "Numidicus" as consolation, giving him a fourth name.
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookSulla wore that ring, and Marius's glory was divided
After Marius's triumph, a second, more private cloud appeared: he felt upstaged by his own subordinate. This subordinate had successfully negotiated Jugurtha's surrender, and Marius's enemies in the Senate began crediting the man who ended the war rather than Marius. The subordinate did not deny it either, and even had a signet ring made depicting himself receiving Jugurtha's surrender, which he wore constantly. Plutarch records that this enraged Marius greatly, because Marius was extremely sensitive about his own honor, unwilling to share glory with anyone, and ready to take offense at any moment. The subordinate's name was Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
— Tom Holland / Dominic SandbrookIn their own words · checked verbatim
if a consul can justify putting an elected tribune to death and completely ignoring his inviolability simply by referencing a national emergency then what's the stop magistrates in the future doing exactly the same
Tom Holland43:31
He described it as a city for sale and bound for imminent destruction, should a buyer be found.
Tom Holland52:53
by hercules what cold baths you have here in rome
Tom Holland1:02:10
by insisting on wearing this ring all the time he greatly irritated marius who was incredibly sensitive when it came to his own honor scorned to share his glory with anyone else and was always ready to take offense
Tom Holland1:04:15
the name of this lieutenant we are going to be hearing a lot about it in the episodes to come it is lucius cornelius sulla
Tom Holland1:04:15
the Romans, it said, lose over 100,000 men, which is more than they lose in Cannae
Tom Holland1:11:40
Figures
| Number of Teutones and Cimbri warriors | 300,000 warriors, plus far more women and children | 0:00 |
| Year Marius was born | 157 BC | 16:34 |
| Year Arpinum received full voting rights | 188 BC | 17:34 |
| Number of consulships held by the Metelli | At least seven between 123 and 98 BC | 28:55 |
Glossary
- novus homo
- A man from a family with no tradition of holding high office; Marius is the classic example.
- cursus honorum
- The Roman ladder of offices ascending from the lower magistracies to the consulship.
- popularis
- The political line that sought popular support against the senatorial elite.
- tribune of the plebs
- The office holding veto power, the right to convene the popular assembly, and personal inviolability.
How to listen
Listeners interested in late Roman Republican politics, the rise of military strongmen, and how institutions are eroded precedent by precedent; founders and investors can read it as the classic script of the self-made man challenging an aristocratic system.
The ads and trailer at 34:00-37:00 can be skipped.