15. M.ClaudiusMarcellus, C. F. C. N., son of the preceding and of Octavia,
the daughter of C. Octavius and sister of Augustus. He must have been born in the year B. C. 43, and was a youth of promising talents and engaging manners,
having been brought up with great care by his mother, a woman of superior understanding, as
well as of the highest virtue. As early as B. C. 39 he was betrothed
in marriage to the daughter of Sex. Pompey, as one of the conditions of the peace concluded in
that year between Pompey and Octavian (D. C. 48.38); but the
marriage never took place, as Pompey's death, in B. C. 35, removed
the occasion for it.
In B. C. 29 Augustus, on his return from Egypt, distributed a
congiarium, in the name of young Marcellus, to the boys of the Roman populace (id. 2.21); and
in B. C. 25 we find him, together with Tiberius, presiding at the
games and spec tacles exhibited by Augustus at the foundation of his new colony of Emerita in
Spain. (Id. 53.26.) It was apparently in the same year that Augustus adopted him as his son,
at the same time that he gave hin his daughter Julia in marriage (Plut. Ant. 87; Dio Cass. Dii. 27), and caused him to be admitted into the senate with
praetorian rank, and with the privilege of suing for the consulship ten years before the legal
period. Shortly after wards (in B. C. 24), the young Marcellus was
elected curule aedile for the ensuing year, and dis tinguished his magistracy by the
magnificence of the games which he exhibited, on occasion of which the whole forum was covered
over with an awning, as well as the theatres themselves, which were hung with splendid
tapestries. Augustus himself did every thing in his power to contribute to the effect of this
display, in which Octavia also bore an importart part. (Dio Cass. Dii. 28, 31; Pro pert. 3.18.
13-20; Plin. H. N 19.1.) But Marcellus was not destined to survive the
year of this his first office: in the autumn of B. C. 23, almost
before the end of the games and shows, he was attacked by the disease, of which he died
shortly after at Baiae, notwithstanding all the skill and care of the celebrated physician
Antonius Musa. He was in the 20th year of his age (Propert. Ml.c.), and
was thought to have given so much promise of future excellence, that his death was mourned as
a public calamity; and the grief of Augustus, as well as that of his mother, Octavia, was for
a time unbounded.
On the other hand, his untimely fate was so favourable to the views of Livia as to give rise
to the suspicion, probably unfounded, that she had been the means of hastening it. (D. C. 53.33.) The rising favour of Marcellus with Augustus had led to
the general expectation that he would name him his successor; and it is probable that he would
have done so had the life of the young man been prolonged; but he evidently deemed him as yet
unequal to the charge; and in a severe illness, which endangered his own life at the beginning
of the year 23, Augustus had certainly destined Agrippa to succeed to the management of
affairs in case of his death, a circumstance which gave rise to great jealousy between the
two, and to the temporary removal of Agrippa from Rome, (Ibid. 31, 32.)
The obsequies of Marcellus were celebrated with the greatest magnificence by Augustus, who
himself pronounced the funeral oration over his remains, after which they were deposited in
the mausoleum lately erected for the Julian family. At a subsequent period (B. C. 14) Augustus dedicated in his name the magnificent theatre near the Forum
Olitorium, of which the remains are still visible. But the most durable monument to the memory
of Marcellus is to be found in the wellknown passage of Virgil, which must have been composed
and recited to Augustus and Octavia before the end of the year 22. (D.
C. 53.30-32, 54.26; Vell. 2.93; Plut. Marc. 30; Suet. Oct. 63; Tac. Ann. 1.3, 2.41, Hist. 1.15; Propert. 3.18; Verg. A. 6.860_886; Serv. ad Virg. l.c.; Donat. Vit. Virg.)