I'm doing something I haven't done for 20 years, viz. - re-reading "First Man in Rome" by the - um - controversial Colleen McCullough. (For those new here, McCullough is a real lightning rod - some love her, some loathe her). My knowledge of the period of Marius down to about the mid '80's is shaky but solid, but I just wanted to go back, now that I've learned something about it in the sources, to see what I think.

Like her or loathe her, she's a fine storyteller. It's just always the question . . . how much of the story can be depended on?

I've worked through the endless Consular army disasters in both Africa and trying to stop the Germans coming down into northern Italy, so we're at about 106 BC. Marius has gotten his consulship and has reorganized the army to permit the headcount. Now, I'm absolutely NIL for these sources, other than the biography of Marius itself, so . . . is it true that Marius took a leaf off the Gracchi and, in the face of senatorial opposition to admitting proletarii to the armies, went straight to the popular Assembly to vote it through?

Because if so, it's really a watermark in sooooo many ways. There's a character in there saying, "if you give the headcount a chance in the army, before long they'll think they have a right to influence Rome's government," or some such . . . which of course, is precisely what happened, to Rome's sorrow.

I think I've tended to forget just what a BIG figure Marius was . . . Third Founder of Rome, and controversial from first to last. It's almost like Caesar took all that, drew on it, surpassed it.

Oh, and the really weird one I've GOT to cross-check today - she has Sulla marrying Julius Caesar's (grandfather)younger daughter, Julilla. Surely THAT can't be right, making Marius (married to the older daughter) and Sulla sons-in-law to the Caesars???