AW404 - The Marian Reforms

The Ancient Warfare Magazine team tackle the Marian reforms — what they actually were versus the textbook version, and whether the transformation from citizen militia to professional army was as sharp a break as commonly assumed. Good corrective scholarship on one of the most important organisational shifts in military history. At 45 minutes it's tightly focused and well-informed.

The Ancient Warfare team tackle one of the most debated topics in Roman military history — the Marian reforms and the shift from citizen militia to professional army. What makes this worth the time is the explicit focus on how far the traditional narrative of reform has been understood or misunderstood by modern historians. This is the kind of episode that rewards anyone who's read Goldsworthy or Keppie and wants to hear the arguments tested.