User talk:Ifly6/Marian reforms

Marian reforms (from User talk:Ifly6)
I noticed your notes on the talk page for that and also was directed here by two public history answers ; would you be willing to make changes to the article to reflect that? I myself do not have access to academic sources anymore; however, I'm willing to help out in the actual writing. Iseult  Δx parlez moi 16:16, 11 June 2023 (UTC)


 * How would you think the article could be written? I can't imagine much of an article other than "they didn't exist". Ifly6 (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that the fact that popular perception, with much coverage, is that they did is enough for the existence of an article. We can treat it by stating in the lede that they did not exist according to modern scholarship, making the majority of the article about why modern scholarship is at this conclusion, address how this misconception came to be, and also maybe lay out the purported reforms themselves as currently incorrectly perceived. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 21:04, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you have any initial comments on my draft at User:Ifly6/Marian reforms? Ifly6 (talk) 15:49, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That seems like a fantastic draft, and if you're inclined to replace the extant article with the current contents once specific red-text numbers have been filled in, I'm not opposed. I do see a path forward for improvement wherein we might incorporate sources and text (in impact and the generally attributed section, i.e. the standing army) from the current article in a semi-merge, though that's something not particularly urgent and I'm more than willing to handle that. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 20:47, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * When I work on a drop-in rewrite, I usually try to work on the drafts until they could plausibly meet the GA criteria before pushing to the main namespace. If there's anything valuable in the existing article that you'd like to move over, feel free to edit the draft I have to that effect. Ifly6 (talk) 21:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * As someone that enjoys unlearning (and happily remembers our entire class cheating when tested on the Marian reforms), I like that draft! Would Scullard's old textbook do as a source for the red number in "Marius has also been credited with the introduction of the cohort (a unit of thousand men)"? He had "Marius now made the cohort the standard tactical unit (the battalion) of the legion, which henceforth consisted of ten cohorts of 600 men". NebY (talk) 21:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure. Feel free to edit. There's also a few dangling areas where I want to expand: land for veterans, training regimens, Marius being the man introducing eagles, and most of the historiographic section. I intend to go to the Library of Congress to read Cadiou's L'armée imaginaire (and test my rusty French) some time so it may be a bit of a wait. Ifly6 (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Added some references to Scullard, including for the cohort man counts. I have on disc the 2011 Routledge Classics edition; it feels as if I am largely using him as a target though. Ifly6 (talk) 01:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Continued from User talk:Ifly6
Ifly6 (talk) 16:09, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I have made some copy-editing changes across the draft in an effort to simplify some verbiage, avoid passive voice, and to work in the pursuit of clarity. I have four questions, though, which I have left:

1. A property qualification is mentioned. I gather from the extant article and other related articles that this is predicated on owning more than no or little more than no property. Can we clarify this in a better way? Or am I mistaken given modern historiographical changes that I might not be aware of?

2. You write The introduction of long training regimens also has been attributed to Marius. What is "long" here? It invites imagination. Might it be formalized or rigorous? If Scipio Africanus training his troops before marching off to Carthage is a counterexample, it can't possibly be months long.

3. Modern historiography has regularly cast Marius as abolishing the propertied militia and replacing it with landless soldiers with few scruples. Does scruples here imply lack of discipline — a propensity to plunder and abuse of noncombatants — or an increased willingness to kill? Indeed, a dictionary definition gives a feeling of doubt or hesitation with regard to the morality or propriety of a course of action. I imagine that what is meant is the former.

4. The large-scale downsizing of Roman cavalry detachments, for example, likely emerged from the extension of citizenship to all of Italy. Isn't Italy anachronistic? Perhaps Roman Italy?

Once again, thanks for your work. I'll look more into merging the articles vis-à-vis sources like Matthew's On The Wings of Eagles. Iseult  Δx parlez moi 03:04, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the points are well taken.
 * Re (1), the specific property qualifications are last stated in Polyb I think but many people doubt whether they were applicable by the time Marius came around and we simply don't know what the property qualification was in 109 BC. Some people have guesses though.
 * Re (2), I'll reword.
 * Re (3), few scruples here means "willing to overthrow the republic and fight fellow citizens for money (retirement benefits etc)". Speaking for myself I think a lot of this rhetoric actually emerges from the unstated assumption in many ancient texts that poor people are inherently morally corrupt and therefore would do these things.
 * Re (4), in this case "Italy" refers to the peninsula. It's common in the literature to call it "Italy". It was common also in the ancient period. One of the names, for example, of the Social War is called bellum Italicum in a senatus consultum dated to 78 BC. Cicero similarly calls it that at Clu 21 and Leg agr 2.80.
 * I think Matthew's On the wings of eagles is both outdated and unreliable. The publisher ("Cambridge Scholars Publishing") has been on the cusp of addition to predatory publishing lists; the book received no academic reviews – the only review I could find was one in an undergraduate journal – and comparatively few citations (adjusting for age). Much of the scholarship since 2018 has basically fallen behind with Cadiou 2018, which basically entirely rejects Matthew's Marian-reforms-happened position.
 * I also saw some of your copyedits. I also take most of the changes there well. I would appreciate it, however, if you didn't substitute commas for some of the spaced en-dashes: they are set up that way because commas may not be sufficiently clear. I also write in British English (adverbs most commonly suffixed rather than prefixed; points after abbreviations commonly omitted eg Guardian style guide); changes to American style seem to me somewhat bothersome. Ifly6 (talk) 04:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * All good; points taken. I don't think then that space needs to be devoted to a specific rebuttal of Matthew. I'll see what I can play around with with regards to your responses to my original four points. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 04:34, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * If I may, regarding property, neither of these seems quite right:
 * volunteers from both those who met the property qualification and also those – called the capite censi or the proletarii – who, lacking lands entirely, did not.
 * volunteers from both those who owned property and also those called the capite censi or the proletarii who did not.
 * Whatever the specific minimum qualification was - perhaps 11,000 As at one point - and whether or not it was really applied, it could exclude some who did own property, up to that value.
 * I wouldn't describe it so much as "seen as an attempt to evade popular opposition to conscription" as "seen as an expedient alternative to conscription, which would have faced popular opposition". NebY (talk) 13:00, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll restore the original wording, which discussed it as an expediency. As to the adsidui and their qualifications I intend to create a new section on it which should clear that all up. Ifly6 (talk) 15:28, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I've restored UK Style, as well as adding an edit notice. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 06:31, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Adsidui
It seems that many scholars now debate whether or not there was any lowering in the property qualification floor: On notera cependant que l'hypothèse d'un abaissement régulier du plancher censitaire pour le recrutement légionnaire a cessé de faire l'unanimité et est désormais présentée comme une interprétation sinon contestable, du moins contestée. Cadiou 2018 pp 52–53. My French has become rather poor in the many years of not using it – though I can't say I was that great even at the peak – so reading it has been something of a slog (though nevertheless very rewarding). Taylor makes the same point, which in the current version is at note 21: ... Taylor believes the property qualifications fell but notes that some scholars, including Lo Casio, dispute this. Any thoughts on how this should be presented? Ifly6 (talk) 05:46, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
 * We have in the lede a presentation of the property requirement as popularly construed to be a hard property-owning line. This new development in disputes over the existence of a change in the requirement itself suggests to me that a dedicated paragraph or two might be in order, both to clarify the vagueness and disagreements over what a property requirement was and whether there was a contemporary change in that. I understand that pre-reform armies were conscripted and divided based on the said requirement. Perhaps a way to present these complications while more clearly establishing earlier Republican army composition (this isn't currently in the draft) would be to make a new subsection or section describing that, which would then as as a matter of necessity describe the purported requirement. It would immediately precede Army proletariansation.
 * The debate over whether the requirement itself was lowered can then by shunted off into a new subsection or into the Historiography section while keeping extant text; this can be reorganized pending clear scholarly consensus. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 06:44, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I've created a Background section with two subsections on the general changes and more specifically on property qualifications. Will need some filling in which, depending on changes in time availability, I should be able to get to later this week. Ifly6 (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Tentatively, if this phrasing was otherwise being kept
 * enlisting volunteers from both those who owned property and also those called the capite censi or the proletarii who did not
 * perhaps something like
 * enlisting volunteers from both those who met a property qualification and also those called the capite censi or the proletarii who did not
 * would leave enough uncertain about whether and when there was any lowering? NebY (talk) 20:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "property-owning" qualification? Ownership? Minimum? Iseult   Δx parlez moi 21:12, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

I just made some edits to the section Background which addresses it directly. Ifly6 (talk) 21:40, 18 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I am so enjoying seeing you unfold the errors in so much that I was taught. I'll just sit back. NebY (talk) 23:37, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
 * If you think there's anything to copy edit etc feel free to do so. Sadly my access to Cadiou 2018 is weekends only due to my own time constraints (the only nearby library that has it does not circulate). Fortunately, when I'm going to be visiting family over the 4th July weekend I've secured a borrowed copy from their university library. Ifly6 (talk) 22:41, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Misc 1
I noticed in the recent additions a phrase According to the literary sources; could we rephrase that? The literary sources implies some set of definitive sources. Maybe contemporary sources? Classical historians? Older historiography? Iseult  Δx parlez moi 01:25, 19 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'll go edit that; it's not entirely clear. (Nb the literary sources in classics generally refers to the ancient corpus which are basically a set of definitive sources. And until someone hopefully figures out how to read the Herculaneum scrolls scroll-shaped charcoal lumps it seems as if it will stay that way.) Ifly6 (talk) 01:42, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Acoup
Re your recent edit summary on the main page,, if you have some time, I'd appreciate if you could review this draft I've been working on, which is the second time I've been scooped by Dr Devereaux (the first was on the Roman dictatorship). Ifly6 (talk) 06:24, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Unfortunate. If I'd known this was here I'd have scooped up some pre-formatted journal cites rather than laboriously re-doing 'em.  That said, I'm actually not much of an expert on this topic, I was just curious enough to read Taylor 2019 and throw in a spicy quote after reading https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1672777119024271360.
 * I will say that there's really two topics here which may be hard to disentangle: the "Marian Reforms" in the broad sense which really means "changes in the Late Republican army", which the current Wikipedia article covers, and "what the heck did Gaius Marius personally do that we know about", which is probably much shorter. Might even require two separate articles.
 * For a long-term thing, Taylor calls Christopher Matthews' 2010 "On the Wings of Eagles: The Reforms of Gaius Marius and the Creation of Rome's First Professional Soldiers" a "valiant rear-guard defense" of the idea that the Marian Reforms were a thing that happened. I see you're already citing a different 2010 work by Matthews, but the title makes it sound like it'd be a great source when presenting the modern version of the traditional view.  SnowFire (talk) 06:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't have access to Matthew On the wings but on first glance I don't entirely find Matthew (I don't think there's an "s" there) entirely reliable both from the publisher and his conclusions. Matthew for example believes that Marius created the cohort. This view has absolutely no ancient backing and there is frankly no basis at all for believing this, especially when Sallust says Metellus used cohorts in Numidia before Matthew's 104 BC date for introduction. Ifly6 (talk) 07:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Belated reply: at first I was confused because sure, the Cambridge in-house vanity press publishes some odd stuff from their professors, but what's the big deal, but... I see what you mean.  Why is a random independent publishing house in Newcastle calling itself "Cambridge Scholars."  Alas.  That said, "this view has no ancient backing" isn't the end of an argument - we have plenty of ancient sources that say things that are bonkers and obviously untrue like the Emperor being able to command animals to do his bidding, and we have some things we know about the period from archaeology that the surviving ancient sources don't talk about at all.  Presumably Matthew has his reasons to think what he does.  SnowFire (talk) 06:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Looking more closely at the draft... I will say that I'm not a fan of the phrasing in parts.  I don't get the impression that people paid attention to Gabba in the 1940s, given that Taylor 2019 cites plenty of 20th century scholars & authors who hew to the traditional view, so whatever evidence Gabba presented wasn't considered that convincing at the time.  (A Semmelweiss situation where someone really right is ignored, perhaps?)  There's a few "recently"s in this draft too at the moment, best to be more specific.  I'm also not a fan that Cadiou's book is cited as "disproving" the idea - our knowledge about the past is real misty in both directions.  (And additionally, the quote, while positive, is actually drawing its influence back some, if the reviewer is pleading for the monograph to be better known - that's him saying that it apparently wasn't widely known at the time.)  I'd suggest keeping it more as "Scholar XYZ argued this, with scholars ABC and DEF agreeing and saying their arguments were convincing" or such phrasings, at least in misty Classics history rather than chemistry and the like.  SnowFire (talk) 07:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * This might not be clear in the current draft, but Gabba didn't say that the Marian reforms didn't happen. Gabba said in 1949 that the Marian reforms were a culmination of the reduction in the property limit and therefore were not revolutionary. This view then took literal decades to move into the Anglophone scholarship (largely because it was in Italian; it was translated by Cuff in 1976) before it was itself put into serious question in the early 2000s in consequence of the re-evaluation of the evidence relating to the "low count" and whether 2nd century Italy suffered population decline (it didn't).
 * If you're referencing Rafferty's quote that people need to read Cadiou 2018, he said that shortly after it came out. It is also in large part a lament to the fact that Cadiou 2018 is in French and how Anglophone scholars have largely ignored non-English works: Rumour has it that an English translation is being contemplated. If so, it is sorely needed. Anglophone scholars do not pay as much attention as we should to Francophone scholarship, but we need to pay attention to this. (Faszcza makes a similar point actually about how Gabba did not transmit into Anglophone scholarship until its translation and notes a number of mid-century works in English which show this. He also seems rather annoyed by how military historians refused to read any of the demographers' arguments for decades; he also calls the subfield "methodologically stagnant" and suggests this is why it is eliminating itself from the academy in a very spicy footnote.) In the five years since Cadiou, I would assess most scholars have followed him and his view that the Marian reforms did not happen at all. Ifly6 (talk) 07:24, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm also sure that there are some popular press publications which still repeat the myth of the Marian reforms qua Lange's hypothesis. Cadiou 2018 p 39 n 13 notes how it has survived entirely intact in (rough translation and paraphrase) "the vulgate of less academic works which proliferate in the age of digital publications whose scientific interest is debatable". Rosenstein 2023 similarly calls the modern position "unfortunately not popular among popular writers". I don't think we ought, should, or need to care about them. Ifly6 (talk) 07:44, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Also, if you have any copy-edits or clarifications, feel free to do them in the draft version. I don't want to assert some kind of editorial monopoly. Ifly6 (talk) 07:49, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree we shouldn't care too much about popular writers except in so far as to note their influence. (And hell, Rome: Total War came out in 2004, so they could reasonably argue their take on the Marian Reforms was still a valid stance for the era.  It wouldn't be the craziest thing in that game, given the Egyptians who time-traveled from the Middle Kingdom into the Ptolemaic era...)  That said, the fact that extremely important historians of the Roman Empire wrote about this for a long time means that the view should probably be covered.  Mommsen & co. were important in their day and doing their best.  I was reading up on some Judea/Palestine history awhile back, and Emil Schürer's "A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ" from the 1880s-90s is still mentioned by scholarly authors writing in the 21st century who sharply disagree with Schürer on lots of points.  But his work is still considered eminent enough to be worth contesting or at least talking about.  I imagine there'd be something similar here - worth acknowledging the respectable scholars of the past and what they thought the Marian Reforms were, even if modern scholars think it's all built on sand.  SnowFire (talk) 06:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that the draft I have here does that: first, people (Lange, Mommsen et al) call a pile of attributed reforms the "Marian reforms"; for each attributed reform, the draft describes it and then presents the modern view on it. After all of this, the draft discusses the entire history of the "historiographical mirage". It provides collateral citations to the original sources (Sallust, Val Max, Lange etc). Ifly6 (talk) 15:49, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I do concur with that. When I proposed a wholesale change to the article some three weeks ago, I kept in mind the prominence of this misconception and as such included in my proposal a certain structure to acknowledge, analyze, and rebut that. The draft at present does that. I believe that to do more runs afoul of WP:UNDUE; there's no dispute in fact here (certainly not in contemporary historiography), only long-running misconception. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 21:45, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yea, Mommsen's photo is literally in the article, along with that of the person who first popularised the idea in general. I can't say I am aware of any further sources which dive deeply into the 19th century historiography on the matter from a modern lens; additions would have to be, in my view, buttressed by such a source instead of simply synthesised from original research. Ifly6 (talk) 21:53, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Misc 2
I tagged Michael Taylor to take a look at this draft. Ifly6 (talk) 15:50, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I also tagged Devereaux on his blog for comment after his post was published. Ifly6 (talk) 19:33, 30 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I mentioned as much in a reply to his tweet, though I should have been a bit more specific. Anyways, I made a more extensive ce just now; this includes moving things around, as I believe that some things might have been missed through previous edits. Please review at your leisure. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 23:55, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I've done some more copyediting, movement, and expansion. If you have any time for another pass it'd be appreciated. I'm happy to see that this project you recommended to me on the 11th has received such post hoc attention. Ifly6 (talk) 20:47, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a pleasant surprise, to be sure. Just did another pass. Question re quote Other reforms occurring around the time of the late second century BC have also been attributed to Marius, including changes in equipment, equipment procurement, tactical units, and army operations: what sort of changes in tactical units? Is it changes in small unit tactics or in smaller-unit organization? When I read "tactical units" in that context, I envision an interchangeable part being replaced or upgraded, which doesn't quite square with potential reorganizations in leadership structure, unit size, or purpose. Iseult   Δx parlez moi 21:41, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Cohorts vs maniples. Ifly6 (talk) 21:51, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I am continuing to wait for feedback from professional sources. Ifly6 (talk) 14:44, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Taking a bit longer than expected for one of them. Ifly6 (talk) 18:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I have pushed to prod: Marian reforms. It's done. Ifly6 (talk) 02:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Three cheers! Iseult   Δx parlez moi 20:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)