Editing Marian reforms (section)

==== Land and citizenship for veterans ====

Modern historians have also attributed to Marius the development of the client armies, tying the loyalty of the veterans to generals securing land grants on discharge.{{sfnm|Mackay|2009|1p=97|Scullard|2011|2p=47}} This picture, however, is largely an exaggeration stemming from the {{lang|la|[[Lex Appuleia agraria|lex agraria]]}} ({{circa|100&nbsp;BC}}) distributing lands to Marius' veterans and poor Romans.<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1995|pp=149–50|ps=. Evans largely dismisses Appian's narrative (''BCiv.'' 1.29–30) as "little less than absurd".}}</ref> No such client army can be seen in Marius' own land laws, which required cooperation from civil society – the senate, people, and other magistrates – and was not imposed by military decree.{{sfn|Lintott|1994|p=92}}

Moreover, through the post-Marian period, land distributions were sporadic and volunteers were taken on with no promises or reasonable expectations of land at discharge.{{sfnm|Gauthier|2015|1p=101|Keaveney|2007|2p=62}} Soldiers both in the Marian and post-Marian periods largely went home peacefully when land demands were not immediately met, though land distributions became more common after [[Sulla]]'s example in the aftermath of [[Sulla's civil war|his civil war]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tweedie |first=Fiona C |date=2011 |title=The case of the missing veterans: Roman colonisation and veteran settlement in the second century BC |journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=458–473 |doi=10.25162/historia-2011-0019 |jstor=41342861 |s2cid=252451787 |issn=0018-2311}}</ref> Only during the civil wars during the later last century&nbsp;BC did demands for land become more prevalent, though not always explicitly to agrarian ends, due to the soldiers' increased bargaining power. For example, during [[Caesar's civil war]] (49–45&nbsp;BC), mutineers demanded lands as a pretext for larger cash donatives, and only during the [[Second Triumvirate|triumviral period]] (43–31&nbsp;BC) did this pretext fall away.{{sfn|Keaveney|2007|pp=63–64}}

There is also no evidence that Marius created or operated any system to give veterans [[Roman citizenship]] on discharge.<ref>Marius gave citizenship to a few cohorts during the Cimbric War. However, this was done ad hoc and only once. {{harvnb|Lavan|2019|p=28 n. 6}}.</ref> Before the [[Social War (91–87 BC)|Social War]] there is only a single example of a citizenship grant for martial valour.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mouritsen |first=Henrik |title=Italian unification |year=1998 |series=BICS Supplement 70 |publisher=Institute of Classical Studies |location=London |isbn=0-9005-8781-4 |page=90}} Mouritsen notes also that Marius' citizenship grant during the Cimbric War is the only pre-Social War example.</ref> Most scholars believe that grants of citizenship to veterans became common only under the emperor [[Claudius]] in the 1st century&nbsp;AD.{{sfn|Lavan|2019|pp=28–29}}