To keep the baggage trains from becoming too large, Marius had each man carry as much of his own equipment as he could, including his own armor, weapons and 15 days rations or about 50–60 pounds of load total. To make this easier, he issued each legionary a forked stick to carry his load on his shoulders. The soldiers became known as “Marius Mules”, (muli mariani in Latin) due to the amount of gear they had to carry themselves, a tribute to the mules physical stamina.]