Historiographical Myth or Proven Fact? The Discourse Around the So-Called Marian Reforms in the Works of Contemporary Researchers

The article analyzes the state of research on the so-called military reform of Gaius Marius in modern historiography. By analyzing the works of modern researchers of the Roman army, an attempt is made to highlight the most controversial issues of the problem. In particular, whether the reform itself took place in space and time and whether it was Marius who led to the emergence of a professional army in Ancient Rome. We also drew attention to the incompleteness of the discussion around the reform initiatives of the Arpinatus, as debates are still ongoing about the transformation of the Roman army into a professional one by Marius. It was also noted that among the researchers of the republican army—French, British, American, Canadian, and Polish-there are those who claim that the “Marian Reform” is a “historiographical myth.“ There are also those who stubbornly and categorically continue to prove the existence of the “reform”, despite the considerable amount of refuted evidence provided in the works of Emilio Gabba, Jacques Armand, John Rich, and Peter Brunt, which have already become classics. Some of the contemporary researchers have evolved their views on this issue, possibly after reading the work of the above scholars. We have not only attempted to analyze the works of the last twenty years, but also to show some of the basic principles on which the vision of a new view of what is called “Gaius Marius’ military reform” is based. The authors of the publication outline several directions of vision of the so-called Gaius Marius reform in modern antiquity—from the complete rejection of the existence of the “reform” and the initiatives of the Arpinatus in the military sphere to the vision of it as a complex phenomenon (with technical, tactical and social components), a turning point in the military and political history of ancient Rome and an indisputable, already proven fact.