Quote:
Originally Posted by Honey Badger
It's interesting that you bring up Gaius Marius. He is one of my dark horses of a great military commanders that is basically relatively unknown to most people who haven't studied extensive Roman history. Actually, I would take Gaius Marius over Napoleon for many different reasons. Marius would make my top ten list. Napoleon might crack my top 25.
Interestingly he is only 5th on my greatest Roman commander list. As much as I like Gaius Marius as a commander (he revolutionized an already very strong Roman military as well as fortified his army as well as anyone) I would rank Julius Caesar, Pompeii and my dark horse GOAT ahead of him which I didn't plan on unveiling this early in the thread but why not.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla may actually be my GOAT. And a lot of people will take Pompeii, Caesar and certainly you will take Marius > Sulla but I am actually prepared to make a pretty strong case for Sulla as the GOAT. I certainly will make the case for him over the other 3 listed above. I actually think a strong case can be made for Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus as well, but it definitely is a close race with Sulla.
Well, I just happened to have listened to Dan Carlin's Marius-Sulla episodes this week (for the 3rd time), so I'm more than happy to indulge in any Marius Sulla discussion. I think I said in that other thread that of all the Roman GOATS, Sulla
scares me the most.
My quick take; since they never fought it ought with comparable armies, and since Marius was old and possibly senile in his 7th consulship, there's no decisive answer (at least to me) as to who was better. While it may be momentarily tempting to give Sulla the edge in the Jugurthine War (he did after all capture Jugurtha), it was by that time Marius' war, he won many significant battles that made it possible for Sulla's operation to succeed. Marius shone brightest against the Cimbri and the Teutons, who posed the greatest existential threat to Rome since Hannibal. Marius did some good things in the Social War but I think he got sick for the end of it; Sulla certainly distinguished himself the most in that war and got the consulship soon after. Sulla had a very good campaign against Mithridates that he cut short to uh... march on Rome again or something.
I can't say I know much to really judge who was the more brilliant general on the field. It seems that Sulla was more innovative, but who is to say that would have mattered. Marius was brilliant, energetic, ruthless in his own right.
As you suspect, I may nudge in favor of Marius because of the military reforms. If the question is just 'best general', I would not; if the question is 'best military leader', I think foundational reforms to the army count for a lot, and I think they count for a lot with Napoleon.
But now thinking about Sulla I'm going to have nightmares. "The lion's lair is dangerous, though the lion be not there" -- Plutarch