Caiaus Marius, a celebrated Roman, who, from a peasant, became one of the most powerful and cruel tyrants that Rome ever beheld during her consular government. He was born at Arpinum, of obscure and illiterate parents. His father bore the same name as himself, and his mother was called Fulcinia. He forsook the meaner occupations of the country for the camp, and signalized himself under Scipio at the siege of Numantia. The Roman general saw the courage and intrepidity of young Marius, and foretold the era of his future greatness. By his seditions and intrigues at Rome, while he exercised the inferior offices of the state, he rendered himself known; and his marriage with Julia, who was of the family of the Cæsars, contributed in some measure to raise him to consequence. He passed into Africa as lieutenant to the consul Metellus against Jugurtha, and after he had there ingratiated himself with the soldiers, and raised enemies to his friend and benefactor, he returned to Rome, and canvassed for the consulship. The extravagant promises he made to the people, and his malevolent insinuations about the conduct of Metellus, proved successful. He was elected, and appointed to finish the war against Jugurtha. He showed himself capable in every degree to succeed Metellus. Jugurtha was defeated and afterwards betrayed into the hands of the Romans by the perfidy of Bocchus. No sooner was Jugurtha conquered, than new honours and fresh trophies awaited Marius. The provinces at Rome were suddenly invaded by an army of 300,000 barbarians, and Marius was the only man whose activity and boldness could resist so powerful an enemy. He was elected consul, and sent against the Teutones. The war was prolonged, and Marius was a third and fourth time invested with the consulship. At last two engagements were fought, and not less than 200,000 of the barbarian forces of the Ambrones and Teutones were slain in the field of battle, and 90,000 made prisoners. The following year was also marked by a total overthrow of the Cimbri, another horde of barbarians, in which 140,000 were slaughtered by the Romans, and 60,000 taken prisoners. After such honourable victories, Marius, with his colleague Catulus, entered Rome in triumph, and for his eminent services, he deserved the appellation of the third founder of Rome. He was elected consul a sixth time; and, as his intrepidity had delivered his country from its foreign enemies, he sought employment at home, and his restless ambition began to raise seditions and to oppose the power of Sylla. This was the cause and the foundation of a civil war. Sylla refused to deliver up the command of the forces with which he was empowered to prosecute the Mithridatic war, and he resolved to oppose the authors of a demand which he considered as arbitrary and improper. He advanced to Rome, and Marius was obliged to save his life by flight. The unfavourable winds prevented him from seeking a safer retreat in Africa, and he was left on the coasts of Campania, where the emissaries of his enemy soon discovered him in a marsh, where he had plunged himself in the mud, and left only his mouth above the surface for respiration. He was violently dragged to the neighbouring town of Minturnæ, and the magistrates, all devoted to the interest of Sylla, passed sentence of immediate death on their magnanimous prisoner. A Gaul was commanded to cut off his head in the dungeon, but the stern countenance of Marius disarmed the courage of the executioner, and, when he heard the exclamation of Tune, homo, audes occidere Caium Marium, the dagger dropped from his hand. Such an uncommon adventure awakened the compassion of the inhabitants of Minturnæ. They released Marius from prison, and favoured his escape to Africa, where he joined his son Marius, who had been arming the princes of the country in his cause. Marius landed near the walls of Carthage, and he received no small consolation at the sight of the venerable ruins of a once powerful city, which, like himself, had been exposed to calamity, and felt the cruel vicissitude of fortune. This place of his retreat was soon known, and the governor of Africa, to conciliate the favours of Sylla, compelled Marius to fly to a neighbouring island. He soon after learned that Cinna had embraced his cause at Rome, when the Roman senate had stripped him of his consular dignity and bestowed it upon one of his enemies. This intelligence animated Marius; he set sail to assist his friend, only at the head of 1000 men. His army, however, gradually increased, and he entered Rome like a conqueror. His enemies were inhumanly sacrificed to his fury. Rome was filled with blood, and he who had once been called the father of his country, marched through the streets of the city, attended by a number of assassins, who immediately slaughtered all those whose salutations were not answered by their leader. Such were the signals for bloodshed. When Marius and Cinna had sufficiently gratified their resentment, they made themselves consuls, but Marius, already worn out with old age and infirmities, died 16 days after he had been honoured with the consular dignity for the seventh time, B.C. 86. His end was probably hastened by the uncommon quantities of wine which he drank when labouring under a dangerous disease, to remove, by intoxication, the stings of a guilty conscience. Such was the end of Marius, who rendered himself conspicuous by his victories, and by his cruelty. As he was brought up in the midst of poverty and among peasants, it will not appear wonderful that he always betrayed rusticity in his behaviour, and despised in others those polished manners and that studied address which education had denied him. He hated the conversation of the learned only because he was illiterate, and if he appeared an example of sobriety and temperance, he owed these advantages to the years of obscurity which he had passed at Arpinum. His countenance was stern, his voice firm and imperious, and his disposition untractable. He always betrayed the greatest timidity in the public assemblies, as he had not been early taught to make eloquence and oratory his pursuit. He was in the 70th year of his age when he died, and Rome seemed to rejoice at the fall of a man whose ambition had proved fatal to so many of her citizens. His only qualifications were those of a great general, and with these he rendered himself the most illustrious and powerful of the Romans, because he was the only one whose ferocity seemed capable to oppose the barbarians of the north. The manner of his death, according to some opinions, remains doubtful, though some have charged him with the crime of suicide. Among the instances which are mentioned of his firmness this may be recorded: A swelling in the leg obliged him to apply to a physician, who urged the necessity of cutting it off. Marius gave it, and saw the operation performed without a distortion of the face, and without a groan. The physician asked the other, and Marius gave it with equal composure. Plutarch, Lives.—Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 9.—Florus, bk. 3, ch. 3.—Juvenal, satire 8, li. 245, &c.—Lucan, bk. 2, li. 69.——Caius, the son of the great Marius, was as cruel as his father, and shared his good and his adverse fortune. He made himself consul in the 25th year of his age, and murdered all the senators who opposed his ambitious views. He was defeated by Sylla, and fled to Præneste, where he killed himself. Plutarch, Caius Marius.——Priscus, a governor of Africa, accused of extortion in his province by Pliny the younger, and banished from Italy. Pliny, bk. 2, ltr. 11.—Juvenal, satire 1, li. 48.——A lover, &c. See: [Hellas].——One of the Greek fathers of the fifth century, whose works were edited by Garner, 2 vols., folio, Paris, 1673; and by Baluzius, Paris, 1684.——Marcus Aurelius, a native of Gaul, who, from the mean employment of a blacksmith, became one of the generals of Gallienus, and at last caused himself to be saluted emperor. Three days after this elevation, a man who had shared his poverty without partaking of his more prosperous fortune, publicly assassinated him, and he was killed by a sword which he himself had made in the time of his obscurity. Marius has been often celebrated for his great strength, and it is confidently reported that he could stop, with one of his fingers only, the wheel of a chariot in its most rapid course.——Maximus, a Latin writer, who published an account of the Roman emperors from Trajan to Alexander, now lost. His compositions were entertaining, and executed with great exactness and fidelity. Some have accused him of inattention, and complain that his writings abounded with many fabulous and insignificant stories.——Celsus, a friend of Galba, saved from death by Otho, &c. Tacitus, Histories, bk. 1, ch. 45.——Sextus, a rich Spaniard, thrown down from the Tarpeian rock, on account of his riches, &c. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 6, ch. 19.
Marmăcus, the father of Pythagoras. Diogenes Laërtius.
Marmărenses, a people of Lycia.
Marmărĭca. See: [Marmaridæ].
Marmărĭdæ, the inhabitants of that part of Lybia called Marmarica, between Cyrene and Egypt. They were swift in running, and pretended to possess some drugs or secret power to destroy the poisonous effects of the bite of serpents. Silius Italicus, bk. 3, li. 300; bk. 11, li. 182.—Lucan, bk. 4, li. 680; bk. 9, li. 894.
Marmărion, a town of Eubœa, whence Apollo is called Marmarinus. Strabo, bk. 10.
Maro. See: [Virgilius].
Marobodui, a nation of Germany. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 42.
Maron, a son of Evanthes, high priest of Apollo in Africa, when Ulysses touched upon the coast. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 9, li. 179.——An Egyptian who accompanied Osiris in his conquests, and built a city in Thrace, called from him Maronea. Mela, bk. 2, ch. 2.—Diodorus, bk. 1.
Maronēa, a city of the Cicones, in Thrace, near the Hebrus, of which Bacchus is the chief deity. The wine has always been reckoned excellent, and with it, it was supposed that Ulysses intoxicated the Cyclops Polyphemus. Pliny, bk. 14, ch. 4.—Herodotus.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 2,—Tibullus, bk. 4, poem 1, li. 57.