2. MariusEgnatius, one of the principal leaders of the Italian allies in the social or Marsian war, which broke out B. C. 90. He was doubtless one of those twelve commanders, who were to be chosen year by year by the allies, to serve under two consuls. (Diod. Fragm. vol. x. p. 186, ed. Bip.) In Livy he is called the leader of the Samnites. The first of his exploits which we have mentioned is the capture of Venafrum, of which he made himself master through treachery, and where he destroyed two cohorts. Not long after, near Teanum, in a defile of Mons Massicus, he fell unexpectedly on the army of the consul L. Caesar, which he put to flight. The Romans fled to Teanum, but lost a great number of men in crossing the Savo, over which there was but a single bridge. In the following year Egnatius was killed in battle with the Romans under the praetors C. Cosconius and Lucceius. (Liv. Epit. lxxv.; Appian, App. BC 1.40, 41, 45.)
It has been ingeniously conjectured (by Prosper Merimée, in his Essai sur la Guerre Sociale) that the M. Marius of Sidicinum mentioned by A. Gellius as being suae civitatis nobilissimus homo, and who was treated with such gross indignity by one of the consuls, probably of the year B. C. 123, was either the father or a near relative of Marius Egnatius.