Gaius Marius the Younger

This article is about the son of the Roman statesman who reorganized the army, and was seven times Consul. For other people with the name Marius, see Marius.

Gaius Marius Minor from "Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum "

Gaius Marius Minor, also known in English as Marius the Younger or informally "the younger Marius"^[1] (110 BC/108 BC - 82 BC), was the adopted son of Gaius Marius, who was seven times consul, and a famous military commander.^[2][3] Appian first describes him as the son of the great Marius, but in a subsequent passage, he is described as the general's nephew.^[4] His adoptive mother, Julia was an aunt of Julius Caesar.

In his youth, Marius was educated with Titus Pomponius Atticus and Marcus Tullius Cicero by Greek tutors. Like his father, Marius advanced his political career through popularist tactics. When his father died in 86 BC, he assumed control of his faction. He is said to have lacked his father's charisma and courted popularity on the family name.

He was elected to the consulship for 82 BC. This was a political move by Carbo, his consular colleague, to drum up popular support and enthusiasm for the war against Sulla; Marius was much too young to be a legally elected consul. Two talented and better-qualified men among the populares, his cousin Marius Gratidianus and Quintus Sertorius, were passed over in favor of the younger Marius's symbolic value.^[5] Marius married Mucia, daughter of Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur.

In the Civil War in 82 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla and his army defeated the armies of Marius at the battle of Sacraportum, after which he retreated with around 7000 surviving troops to the fortress city of Praeneste. Sulla's legate Quintus Lucretius Ofella conducted the siege, throttling the town with a ring of rapidly constructed earth and tuff barricades. Towards the end of the siege Marius committed suicide.

See also

• Maria (gens)

References

1. ^ Minor means "the younger" in Latin; it was a nickname rather than part of this Marius's official name.
2. ^ Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita Epitome, 86.
3. ^ Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History, ii. 26.
4. ^ Appianus, Bellum Civile, i. 62, 87. In the above-cited passages, Livius and Velleius Paterculus indicate that he was not Marius' natural son.
5. ^ C.F. Conrad, "Notes on Roman Also-Rans," in Imperium sine fine: T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic (Franz Steiner, 1996), pp. 104–105 online, citing also G.V. Sumner, The Orators in Cicero's Brutus (Toronto, 1973), pp. 118–119.

Preceded by Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus Asiagenus and Gaius Norbanus

Consul of the Roman Republic with Gnaeus Papirius Carbo 82 BC

Succeeded by Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Marcus Tullius Decula

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