Ma'rius or
Mariusthe Younger or
the YoungerMarius2. C.Marius, the son of the great Marius, was only an adopted son.
(Liv. Epit. 86; Vell. 2.26.)
Appian in one passage (B. C. 1.87) calls him a nephew of the preceding, though he had
previously spoken of him as his son (B. C. 1.62). He was born in B. C.
109; and the particulars of his life down to the time of his father's death are
related in the preceding article. During the three years after the death of the elder Marius
Sulla was engaged in the prosecution of the war against Mithridates, and Italy was entirely in
the hands of the Marian party. The young Marius followed in the footsteps of his father, and
was equally distisguished by merciless severity against his enemies. he was elected consul for
the year B. C. 82, when he was twenty-seven years of age, and his
colleague was Cn. Papirius Carbo. Slla had landed at Brundisium at the beginning of the
preceding year, and after conquering the southern part of the peninsula, appears to have
passed the winter in Campania. Marius was stationed on the frontiers of Latium to oppose him;
and the decisive battle was fought near Sacriportus (the position of which is quite
uncertain). Marius was entirely defeated, and threw himself into the strongly-fortified town
of Praeneste, where he had deposited the treasures of the Capitoline temple (Plin. Nat. 33.1.. s. 5): Sulla left Lucretius Opella to
prosecute the siege while he hastened on to Rome. But Marius, resolving that his enemies
should not escape, sent orders to L. Junius Brutus Damasippus, who was then praetor at Rome,
to summon the senate under some pretext, and put to death Mucius Scaevola, the pontifex
maximus, and many others. [BRUTUS, No. 19.] Various efforts were
made to relieve Praeneste, but they all failed; and after Sulla's great victory at the Colline
gate of Rome, in which Pontius Telesinus was defeated and slain, Marius despaired of holding
out any longer, and, in company with the brother of Telesinus, attempted to escape by a
subterraneous passage, which led from the town into the open country; but finding that their
flight was discovered, they put an end to one another's lives. According to other accounts,
Marius killed himself, or was killed by his slave at his own request. Marius perished in the
year of his consulship. His head was cut off and carried to Sulla, who contemptuously
remarked, in allusion to his youth, that he ought to have worked at the oar before steering
the vessel. It was after the death of the younger Marius that Sulla first assumed the surname
of Felix. (Plut. Sull. 28_32,
Mar. 46; Appian, App. BC 1.87-94; Liv. Epit. 86-88; Veil. Pat. 2.26, 27; Flor. 3.21;
Oros. 5.20; V. Max. 6.8.2.)