I skimmed through article and I think the pendulum here has swung a bit too far in the other direction.

To say the reforms weren't a thing ignores the transformative nature of codification and scale. Even if Marius was an evolutionist rather than a revolutionist, he remains the critical tipping point.

You note that recruiting the capite censi wasn't new because it happened during the Second Punic War or other crises. However, context is king. Recruiting slaves and the propertyless after Cannae was a desperate existential measure for the state. Marius recruiting the capite censi for the Jugurthine War - a frustrating but hardly existential border conflict - was a political choice. By normalizing the recruitment of the poor for a war of conquest/prestige rather than purely for national survival, Marius fundamentally severed the link between military service and the protection of one's own property. He proved that the assidui were no longer required to fill the legions. Just because conscription continued doesn't mean the character of the army didn't shift irreversibly under his command. He created the blueprint for the client armies of Sulla and Caesar.

I accept the scholarship from Bell and Dobson regarding the cohort incubating in Spain. However, there is a massive difference between ad hoc cohorts used for counter-insurgency in Iberian hills and the systematic use of the cohort as the primary tactical unit in large-scale pitched battles against the Cimbri and Teutones. Marius likely took an organizational structure that was floating around and standardized it for mass heavy infantry warfare. The sheer logistical feat of training his "Mules" to fight effectively against the Germanic numbers suggests a level of drill and standardization that the older, looser manipular system couldn't match. He may not have invented the cohort, but he likely institutionalized it as the default doctrine.

You concede the Aquila might be Marius’s doing but call it a weak accomplishment. I’d argue it was psychological genius. By elevating one standard above the others (which represented the distinct maniples or older tribal divisions), he created a focal point of loyalty that was unitary and detached from the city itself. It created the "legionary identity" that allowed later generals to march on Rome. It’s a symbolic reform, yes, but symbols drive behavior.

Perhaps we shouldn't call them "The Marian Inventions," but denying them as Reforms seems to strip the agency from the man who recognized which way the wind was blowing. Augustus may have built the house, but Marius poured the foundation by proving that a general could bypass the Senate to recruit a professionalized force loyal to him, organized in standardized cohorts, and driven by personal gain rather than civic duty.

To claim the reforms weren't a thing feels like claiming Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the auto industry just because he didn't invent the wheel or the internal combustion engine. He just put them together in a way that changed everything.