Each of these three men failed as a politician at Rome, and in much the same way each of them transferred to the wide arena of Roman politics the limitations imposed by the traditions of a small city state. Marius could not manage the Electorate nor the Senate; Pompeius could not manage the Senate; Cicero saw in Rome a magnified Arpinum. Of the three, Marius, in spite of the clumsiness which defeated his own purposes, had grasped the one political idea which was to conquer all others in the end; he saw that the men who fought in the armies of the Empire must have a share in the government of the Empire; he contributed to this end, perhaps unconsciously, by his reorganization of the Army. The reforms of Marius in military organization were in the first place technical, and unfortunately we cannot assign the several details to their responsible authors. We do not know exactly what was done by Marius himself, what by his successors; but we do know that his administration marks the period at which the Roman Army took the form of a professional standing army as distinct from a militia. The change had been long in progress, military necessities had imposed it; occasional service had been practically replaced by continuous service. Marius substituted in fact, if not in every form, a military organization in the army for a civil organization; the change was forced upon the Roman by the dangerous invasions from the north which had found the Government unprepared. Marius dispersed the invaders; he stood forth as the saviour not only of Rome, but of Italy, and he was able to reorganize the army in terms not of the Roman constitution but of military necessities. The Roman Armies at this date were not recruited exclusively or even in the greater proportion from Rome herself; not only was each legion supported by auxiliaries, such as cavalry and light armed skirmishers, drawn from non-Italian territories, but the legion itself was recruited from the allies in Italy as well as from Rome, and the balance of military strength was against the capital.