Thus most of his recruits were, in fact,

landless poor citizens, either Roman or from allied cities, to whom he offered large signing bonuses

and promised land upon discharge. He also promised citizenship to large bodies of soldiers recruited from allied cities. Once Jugurtha had been captured,

thanks mainly to Sulla, and the war ended in one zero six BC, trouble erupted in northern Italy.

Germanic tribes had been knocking around the Alps for several years, beating up any Roman armies

sent to face them. Holding the consulship twice in a row was against the mos maiorum, but the situation here was desperate. Since Rome needed

both Marius and his army, he was elected four times

in a row to the consulship, one zero four,

one zero three, one zero two, one zero one.

The Germanic tribes defeated, Marius managed to

get elected consul for one hundred BC but proved unable to gain any benefits for his faithful troops.

Rome was now in a tight spot, because these veteran

soldiers had been recruited, trained, commanded

and paid by Marius, they may have been more loyal to their patron Marius than to Rome. Revolution

was not out of the question. Still Marius folded

his cards, dismissed his client army, and went

into retirement. He'd be back.

At the same time, Rome's Italian allies were becoming upset by their unfair treatment.

From the beginning of Rome's expansion,

allied city-states were forced to contribute men and

money to Rome's foreign wars. Toward the end of the second Punic War, some estimates state that

two thirds of Rome's forces consisted of soldiers

from allied Italian cities. The allies were carrying out

their part of the peace treaties and more,

but received next to nothing in return, no war profits,

no distribution of lands, the public lands called the

ager publicus, no bounties, no prisoners of war to serve as slaves. And certainly no rights. Just before

his murder in one twenty one BC, Gaius Gracchus

had advocated granting full Roman citizenship to all of peninsular Italy, all that got him was killed

In ninety one BC, another tribune,Marcus Livius Drusus,

introduced legislature leading to full Roman

citizenship for all Italians. All that got him was assassinated. The murder of Livius Drusus led to

the Social War of ninety one to eighty eight BC.

Once it was clear that Rome would never willingly

allow Italian allies the full citizenship,Italian tribes such as the Samnites seceded from Rome, and

formed a nation they called Italia. Just as the

Confederate States of America was a near carbon

copy of the good old USA, Italia was a near mirror copy of Rome. Just like the American Civil War,

the fighting between Rome and Italia was as vicious

as it was idiotic. How it might have ended is a mystery

Destiny intervened in the form of a terrorist attack

by King Mithridates of Pontus. This is were the Roman theme music comes in.