Marcus Claudius Marcellus (consul 51 BC)

Marcus Claudius Marcellus, was a member of the plebeian gens Claudia of the branch cognomitated Marcellus and a Roman politician.

Marcellus was elected curule aedile in 56 BC. In 52 BC he was elected consul, together with Servius Sulpicius Rufus, for the following year. During his consulship Marcellus proved himself to be a zealous partisan of Pompey and the optimates, and urged the senate to extreme measures against Julius Caesar. Marcellus caused a citizen of Comum to be scourged, as a means to show his contempt for the citizenship privileges bestowed by Caesar upon that colony. On the 30th of September, Marcellus managed to procure a resolution of the senate, that the whole subject of abrogating Caesar's Gallic command should be brought under discussion on the 1st of March in the following year.

Upon the start of the civil war, Marcellus fled Rome with the optimates and joined the Republican Grand Army in Epirus. After the battle of Pharsalus Marcellus abandoned opposition to Caesar, and withdrew in an honorable exile to Mytilene, where he was left unmolested by Caesar. His cousin Gaius Claudius Marcellus petioned the dictator for clemency vis-à-vis Marcellus, and upon it being granted he started out for Rome but en route he was assassinated by one of his own attendants, P. Magius Chilo.

Marcellus was the brother of Gaius Claudius Marcellus Maior, consul in 49 BC and the cousin of Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor, consul in 50 BC.

Preceded by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus

Consul of the Roman Republic with Servius Sulpicius Rufus 51 BC

Succeeded by Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor