MARCELLUS, the name of two popes.
Marcellus I. succeeded Marcellinus, after a considerable interval, most probably in May 308, under Maxentius. He was banished from Rome in 309 on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Eusebius. He is commemorated on the 16th of January.
Marcellus II. (Marcello Cervini), the successor of Julius III., was born on the 6th of May 1501, and was elected pope on the 9th of April 1555. He had long been identified with the rigorist party in the church, and as president of the Council of Trent had incurred the anger of the emperor by his jealous defence of papal prerogative. His motives were lofty, his life blameless, his plans for reform nobly conceived. But death removed him (April 30, 1555) before he could do more than give an earnest of his intentions. He was followed by Paul IV.
Contemporary lives are to be found in Panvinio, continuator of Platina, De vitis pontiff, rom.; and Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum pontiff. rom. (Rome, 1601-1602). P. Polidoro, De gestis, vita et moribus Marcelli II. (Rome, 1744), makes use of an unpublished biography of the pope by his brother, Alessandro Cervini. See also Brilli, Intorno alla vita e alle azioni di Marcello II. (Montepulciano, 1846); Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans., Austin), i. 284 seq.; A. von Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, iii. 2, 512, seq.
(T. F. C.)
MARCELLUS, a Roman plebeian family belonging to the Claudian gens. Its most distinguished members were the following:—
1. Marcus Claudius Marcellus (c. 268-208 B.C.), one of the Roman generals during the Second Punic War and conqueror of Syracuse. He first served against Hamilcar in Sicily. In his first consulship (222) he was engaged, with Cn. Cornelius Scipio as colleague, in war against the Insubrian Gauls, and won the spolia opima for the third and last time in Roman history by slaying their chief Viridomarus or Virdumarus (Polybius ii. 34; Propertius v. 10, 39). In 216, after the defeat at Cannae, he took command of the remnant of the army at Canusium, and although he was unable to prevent Capua going over to Hannibal, he saved Nola and southern Campania. In 214 he was in Sicily as consul at the time of the revolt of Syracuse; he stormed Leontini and besieged Syracuse, but the skill of Archimedes repelled his attacks. After a two years’ siege he gradually forced his way into the city and took it in the face of strong Punic reinforcements. He spared the lives of the inhabitants, but carried off their art treasures to Rome, the first instance of a practice afterwards common. Consul again in 210, he took Salapia in Apulia, which had revolted to Hannibal, by help of the Roman party there, and put to death the Numidian garrison. Proconsul in 209, he attacked Hannibal near Venusia, and after a desperate battle retired to that town; he was accused of bad generalship, and had to leave the army to defend himself in Rome. In his last consulship (208), he and his colleague, while reconnoitring near Venusia, were unexpectedly attacked, and Marcellus was killed. His successes have been exaggerated by Livy, but the name often given to him, the “sword of Rome,” was well deserved.
Livy xxiii. 14-17, 41-46; xxiv. 27-32, 35-39; xxv. 5-7, 23-31; xxvi. 26, 29-32; xxvii. 1-5, 21-28; Polybius viii. 5-9, x. 32; Appian, Hannib. 50; Florus ii. 6.