The next major reformer of the time was Gaius Marius, who like the Gracchi, was a populist. Unlike them, he was also a general. He abolished the property requirement for becoming a soldier during the Jugurthine War, when the Roman army was very low on manpower and had difficulty maintaining the conflict. The poor enlisted in large numbers. This opening of the Army's ranks to the "capite censii" enfranchised the plebs, thus creating an "esprit de corps" in the enlarged army. Some elites complained that the army now became unruly due to the commoners in its ranks, but some modern historians have claimed that this was without good cause: