"On yon grey stone that fronts the chancel-door,
Worn smooth by busy feet, now seen no more,
Each eve we shot the marble through the ring."
Defoe (1720) writes of the seer Duncan Campbell: "Marbles, which he used
to call children's playing at bowls, yielded him mighty diversion; and
he was so dexterous an artist at shooting that little alabaster globe
from between the end of his forefinger and the knuckle of his thumb,
that he seldom missed hitting plumb, as the boys call it, the marble he
aimed at, though at the distance of two or three yards." The _locus
classicus_ on marbles in the 19th century is in the trial in _Pickwick_,
where Serjeant Buzfuz pathetically says of Master Bardell that "his
'alley tors' and his 'commoneys' are alike neglected; he forgets the
long familiar cry of 'knuckle down,' and at tip-cheese, or odd and even,
his hand is out." Many similar passages might be adduced to prove the
former popularity of marbles with the young of all classes. In some
rural parts of Sussex Good Friday was known as "marble-day" till late in
the 19th century, since on that day both old and young, including many
who would never have thought of playing marbles at other times, took
part in the game. There was some traditional reason for regarding
marbles as a Lenten sport--perhaps, as the Rev. W. D. Parish suggests,
"to keep people from more boisterous and mischievous enjoyments."
The origin of the game is concealed in the mists of antiquity. Marbles
used by Egyptian and Roman children before the Christian era are to be
seen in the British Museum. Probably some of the small stone spheres
found among neolithic remains, which Evans (_Ancient Stone Implements_,
2nd ed., p. 420) admits to be too small for projectiles, are prehistoric
marbles. It is commonly assumed that the game which the youthful
Augustus, like other Roman children, played with nuts was a form of
marbles, and that the Latin phrase of _relinquere nuces_, in the sense
of putting away childish things, referred to this game. Strutt believed
that nuts of the roundest sort were the original "marbles." The earliest
unmistakable reference to marbles in literature seems to be in a French
poem of the 12th century, quoted by Littré s.v. _Bille_.
The marbles with which various games are nowadays played are small
spheres of stone, glass or baked clay. In the 18th century they were
mostly made from chips of marble (whence the name) or other stone, which
were ground into a roughly spherical shape by attrition in a special
iron mill. Nuremberg was then the centre of the trade in marbles, though
some were made in Derbyshire, and indeed wherever there was a
stonemason's yard to afford raw material. The "alley taw," as its name
indicates, was made of alabaster. In the first decade of the 20th
century English marbles were all imported from central Germany, and the
alleys, or most valuable marbles, used for shooting, were mostly made of
coloured glass, sold retail from ten a penny to a penny each. Coloured
stone marbles and so-called china marbles--really of baked clay--were
sold at prices varying from forty to a hundred a penny, though even the
cheapest of these were painted by hand with concentric rings. The
well-made and highly valued alleys of earlier times were no longer
procurable, owing to the decline in popularity of the sport. In the
United States, however, much more expensive and accurately rounded
marbles were still manufactured, the latest being of hollow steel.
There has never been any recognized authority on the game of marbles,
and it is probable that, in the past as in the present, every parish
and school and set of boys made its own rules. There are, however,
three or four distinct games which are traditional, and may be found,
with trifling variations, wherever the game is played. Strutt, writing
at the end of the 18th century, describes these as follows: (1) "Taw,
wherein a number of boys put each of them one or two marbles in a ring
and shoot at them alternately with other marbles, and he who obtains
the most of them by beating them out of the ring is the conqueror."
The marbles placed in the ring--whence the game is often known as
"ring-taw"--are usually of the cheaper kind known as "commoneys,"
"stoneys" or "potteys," and the marble with which the player shoots is
a more valuable one, known as an "alley," or "alley taw," sometimes
spelt "tor," as by Dickens. Usually it is necessary that the alley
should emerge from the ring as well as drive out another marble; under
other rules the ring is smaller, not more than a foot in diameter, and
the player must be skilful enough to leave his alley inside it, whilst
driving the object marble outside. (2) "Nine holes: which consists in
bowling of marbles at a wooden bridge with nine arches." Each arch
bears a number, and the owner of the bridge pays that number of
marbles to the player who shoots through it, making his profit from
the missing marbles, which he confiscates; or the game may simply be
played so many up--usually 100. (3) "There is also another game of
marbles where four, five or six holes, and sometimes more, are made in
the ground at a distance from each other; and the business of every
one of the players is to bowl a marble by a regular succession into
all the holes, which he who completes in the fewest bowls obtains the
victory." This primitive form of golf is played by Zulu adults with
great enthusiasm, and is still popular among the car-drivers of
Belfast. (4) "Boss out, or boss and span, also called hit and span,
wherein one bowls a marble to any distance that he pleases, which
serves as a mark for his antagonist to bowl at, whose business it is
to hit the marble first bowled, or lay his own near enough to it for
him to span the space between them and touch both marbles; in either
case he wins, if not, his marble remains where it lay and becomes a
mark for the first player, and so alternately until the game be won."
In rural parts of England this was known as a "going-to-school game,"
because it helped the players along the road.
Mr F. W. Hackwood states that, in the middle of the 19th century,
taverns in the Black Country had regular marble alleys, consisting of
a cement bed 20 ft. long by 12 ft. wide and 18 in. from the ground,
with a raised wooden rim to prevent the marbles from running off.
Players knelt down to shoot, and had to "knuckle down" fairly--i.e. to
place the knuckle of the shooting hand on the ground, so that the flip
of the thumb was not aided by a jerk of the wrist. The game was
usually ring-taw. But marbles is now obsolete in England as a game for
adults (_Old English Sports_, London, 1907).
A writer in _Notes and Queries_ (IX. ii. 314) thus describes the
marbles used by English boys in the middle of the 19th century: "In
ring-taw the player put only commoneys in the ring, and shot with the
taws, which included stoneys, alleys and blood-alleys. Commoneys were
unglazed; potteys glazed in the kiln. Stoneys were made from common
pebbles such as were used for road-mending; alleys and blood-alleys
out of marble. The blood-alleys were highly prized, and were called by
this name because of the spots or streaks of red in them. In
Derbyshire, where large numbers were made, they had relative values.
The stoney was worth three commoneys or two potteys. An alley was
worth six commoneys or four potteys. Blood-alleys were worth more,
according to the depth and arrangement of colour--from twelve to fifty
commoneys and stoneys in proportion." "A taw with a history was prized
above rubies," another correspondent observes (IX. ii. 76). "All the
best-made marbles were taws, and no commoneys or potteys were used for
shooting with, either in ring-taw or the various hole-games." In
Belfast, 1854-1858, the marble season extended from Easter to June,
when the ground was usually dry and hard. The marbles were stoneys, of
composition painted; crockeries, of slightly glazed stone-ware, dark
brown and yellow; clayeys, of red brick clay baked in the fire;
marbles, of white marble; china alleys, with white glaze and painted
rings; and glass marbles. The two chief games were ring-taw and hole
and taw; in the latter three holes were made in a line, 6 ft. to 12
ft. apart, and the player had to go three times up and down according
to somewhat elaborate rules (_Notes and Queries_, IX. iii. 65). The
stoneys and crockeries were sold at twenty a penny; the clayeys were
cheaper and were not used as stakes; the marbles proper and china
alleys, used as taws for shooting, cost a halfpenny and a farthing
respectively. In other parts of the country the phraseology of marbles
affords some interesting problems for the philologist. We hear of
"alleys, barios, poppos and stoneys"; of "marididdles," home-made
marbles of rolled and baked clay; in Scotland of "bools, whinnies,
glassies, jauries"; of "Dutch alleys," and so forth. "Dubs, trebs and
fobs," stand for twos, threes and fours. To be "mucked" is to lose all
one's "mivvies" or marbles. When the taw stayed in the ring it was a
"chuck." "Phobbo slips" was a phrase used to forbid the correction of
an error.
The fullest account of the various games of marbles played by English
children is to be found in Mrs Gomme's _Traditional Games of England,
Scotland and Ireland_ (London, 1898), under the headings Boss-out,
Bridgeboard, Bun-hole, Cob, Ho-go, Holy Bang, Hundreds, Lag,
Long-Tawl, Marbles, Nine-Holes, Ring-taw, Three-Holes. Other games are
known as Plum-pudding, or Picking the Plums, in which one shoots at
marbles in a row; Pyramids, in which the marbles are arranged in a
pyramid; Bounce About, Bounce Eye, Conqueror, Die Shot,
Fortifications, Handers, Increase Pound, Knock Out, Rising Taw,
Spanners, Tip-shears; Strutt's _Sports and Pastimes_, ed. J. C. Cox
(London, 1902). Much information will also be found in _Notes and
Queries, passim_--especially the 9th series. For marbles in France see
Larousse, s.v. _Billes_. See also SOLITAIRE. (W. E. G. F.)
MARBOT, JEAN BAPTISTE ANTOINE MARCELIN, BARON DE (1782-1854), French
soldier, son of General Jean Antoine de Marbot (1754-1800), who died in
the defence of Genoa under Masséna, was born at La Rivière (Corrèze), on
the 18th of August 1782. He joined the republican army as a volunteer in
1799, rose rapidly to commissioned rank, and was aide-de-camp to Marshal
Augereau, commanding the VII. corps, in the war against Prussia and
Russia in 1806-7. After this he served with great distinction in the
Peninsular War under Lannes and Masséna, and showed himself to be a
dashing leader of light cavalry in the Russian War of 1812 and the
German campaign of the following year. After a slow recovery from the
wounds he had received at Leipzig and Hanau, he was promoted general of
brigade by Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and took part in, and was
wounded at, the battle of Waterloo. He was exiled at the second
restoration and only returned to France in 1819, after which, however,
his intimacy with the duke of Orleans secured him important military
positions. After the July restoration he was made _maréchal-de-camp_,
and in this rank he was present at the siege of Antwerp in 1832. He was
promoted lieutenant-general in 1836. From 1835 to 1840 he served in
various Algerian expeditions, and in 1845 he was made a member of the
Chamber of Peers. Three years later, at the fall of Louis Philippe, he
retired into private life. He died at Paris on the 16th of November
1854. Marbot wrote two pamphlets, _Remarques critiques sur l'ouvrage de
M. le général Roguet, intitulé Considérations sur l'art de la guerre_
(1820), and _La Nécessité d'augmenter les forces militaires de la
France_ (1825), but his fame rests chiefly, if not indeed wholly, on the
fascinating Memoirs of his _Life and Campaigns_ which were published in
Paris in 1891 (Eng. trans., 1902). To ordinary readers and to students
of history alike these give a picture of the Napoleonic age of warfare
which for vividness and romantic interest has never been surpassed.
His elder brother, ANTOINE ADOLPHE MARCELIN DE MARBOT (1781-1844), was
born at La Rivière, on the 22nd of March 1781, entered the army at an
early age, obtained commissioned rank in the revolutionary wars and
became aide-de-camp to Bernadotte. In 1802 he was arrested on the ground
of being concerned in a plot of the Republicans against the Consulate,
but he was released, though Napoleon continued to regard him as an
opponent of the established régime. After a term of duty with the army
in Santo Domingo he participated in the campaigns of 1806-7, and from
1808 to 1811 he was employed in the Peninsular War. In the Russian War
of 1812 he was wounded and made prisoner. At the end of two years of
captivity he returned to France at the general peace, was aide-de-camp
to Marshal Davout during the Hundred Days, and thereafter passed into
retirement, from which he did not emerge till 1830. He attained the
rank of _maréchal-de-camp_ under Louis Philippe, and died at Bra, near
Tulle, on the 2nd of June 1844.
MARBURG, a town of Austria, in Styria, 41 m. S. of Graz by rail. Pop.
(1900), 24,501. It is very picturesquely situated on the left bank of
the river Drave, on a plain called the Pettauer-Feld, at the base of the
well-wooded Bachergebirge. To the north of the town the train passes
through the Leitersberg tunnel (725 yds. long), opened in 1846, while
the Drave, which has here a width of 200 yds., is spanned by a
magnificent iron bridge, built in 1845. The principal buildings are the
cathedral, dating from the 16th century, the tower of which, erected in
1623, is 136 ft. high, and the old castle. Its situation in the midst of
a fertile vine and fruit-growing district, connected by the navigable
Drave with Hungary, and by railway with Vienna, Trieste, Tirol and
Carinthia, makes it the centre of a considerable traffic in wine and
grain. Its industrial products are leather, boots and shoes, iron and
tin wares, liqueurs and sparkling wine, and it also contains the
extensive workshops of the South Austrian railway. Marburg is the seat
of the bishop of Lavant, and is the native town of the famous Austrian
admiral, Baron Wilhelm of Tegetthoff (1827-1871). Near Marburg is the
village of Mariarast, the church of which is a popular place of
pilgrimage.
MARBURG, an ancient university town of Germany, in the Prussian province
of Hesse-Nassau, situated on the slope of a hill on the right bank of
the Lahn, 60 m. by rail N. of Frankfort-on-Main, on the main line to
Cassel. Pop. (1905), 20,137. On the opposite bank of the river, here
spanned by two bridges, lie the suburb of Weidenhausen and the railway
station of the Prussian state railway. The hill on which the town lies
is crowned by the extensive old Schloss, a fine Gothic building, the
most noteworthy parts of which are the Rittersaal, dating from
1277-1312, and the beautiful little chapel. This Schloss was formerly
the residence of the landgraves of Hesse, served afterwards as a prison,
and is now the repository of the historically interesting and valuable
archives of Hesse. The chief architectural ornament of Marburg is,
however, the Elisabethenkirche, a veritable gem of the purest Early
Gothic style, erected by the grand master of the Teutonic Order in
1235-1283, to contain the tomb of St Elizabeth of Hungary. The remains
of the saint were deposited in a rich silver-gilt sarcophagus, which may
still be seen, and were afterwards visited by myriads of pilgrims, until
the Protestant zeal of Landgrave Philip the Generous caused him to
remove the body to some unknown spot in the church. The church also
contains the tombs of numerous Hessian landgraves and knights of the
Teutonic Order. The Lutheran church is another good Gothic edifice,
dating mainly from the 15th century. The town-hall, built in 1512, and
several fine houses in the Renaissance style, also deserve mention. The
university of Marburg, founded by Philip the Magnanimous in 1527, was
the first university established without papal privileges, and speedily
acquired a great reputation throughout Protestant Europe. It has a
library of 140,000 volumes, is admirably equipped with medical and other
institutes, which form some of the finest modern buildings in the town,
and was attended, in 1905, by 1576 students. Marburg also possesses a
gymnasium, a "Realschule," an agricultural school, a society of
naturalists, a hospital, and an extensive lunatic asylum. It is the seat
of a district court, and of superintendents of the Lutheran and Reformed
Churches. Marburg pottery is renowned; and leather, iron wares and
surgical instruments are also manufactured there. The environs are very
picturesque.
Marburg is first historically mentioned in a document of the beginning
of the 13th century, and received its municipal charter from the
landgrave Louis of Thuringia in 1227. On his death it became the
residence of his wife, Elizabeth of Hungary, who built a hospital there,
and died in 1231, at the age of twenty-four, worn out with works of
religion and charity. She was canonized in 1235 at the instance of the
Teutonic Knights, who had settled in Marburg in 1233 and were zealous in
promoting her cult. By 1247 Marburg had already become the second town
of Hesse, and in the 15th and 16th centuries it alternated with Cassel
as the seat of the landgraves. In 1529 the famous conference between
Luther and Zwingli on the subject of Transubstantiation took place there
in the Rittersaal of the Schloss (see MARBURG, COLLOQUY OF). During the
Thirty Years' and Seven Years' Wars Marburg suffered considerably from
sieges and famine. In 1806, and again in 1810, it was the centre of an
abortive rising against the French, in consequence of which the
fortifications of the castle were destroyed.
See Kolbe, _Marburg im Mittelalter_ (Marb., 1879); Bücking,
_Mittheilungen aus Marburgs Vorzeit_ (Marb., 1886); Schoof, _Marburg
die Perle des Hessenlandes_ (2nd ed., 1903).
MARBURG, COLLOQUY OF (_Marburger Religionsgespräch_), the name given to
a conference of divines held in 1529 in the interests of the unity of
Protestant Germany. The circumstances in which it was held, the
influence of the men who conducted its deliberations, and the result of
its proceedings, combine to render it of no small importance for the
history of the Reformation in Germany.
After the Imperial Diet of Spires in 1526 had decreed that all states of
the empire should observe the Edict of Worms (1521), banning Luther and
his adherents, in such a manner that they should not be afraid to answer
it before God and the emperor, the reform movement had received such an
access of strength that the Catholic party felt itself menaced in
earnest, and in 1529 again passed a resolution at Spires, deigned not
merely to preclude any further expansion of the Reformation, but even to
prevent it from maintaining the ground already won. This decision was at
once challenged, on the 19th of April, by the protest of the Evangelical
states (whence the name Protestants); and the effect of this disclaimer
was not small. Still, it was devoid of political significance, unless
backed by the united force of all the princes and states subscribing to
the Evangelical teaching; and this unity was wanting. The feud which
raged round the doctrine of the Lord's Supper had already broken out
before the first diet of Spires, and had aroused great and immediate
excitement. At a very early period, however, efforts were made to allay
the dissension. Strassburg pronounced for conciliation: but the most
powerful and zealous champion of peace was to be found in the landgrave
Philip of Hesse, who recognized the absolute necessity--from a political
standpoint--of the union of all German Protestants. It is probable that
he had invited Luther to a religious conference as early as the year
1527; but on that occasion he met with a refusal. True, the impression
conveyed by the attitude of the Catholic party at the second Diet of
Spires had served to awaken the feeling for solidarity among the
Evangelicals there assembled; and on the 22nd of April they had even
secured the basis for a provisional alliance in the shape of a formula
drawn up by Bucer and dealing with the Lord's Supper. But it was obvious
that a permanent coalition could not be expected unless some definite
understanding on the debated point could be attained; and on the very
same day the landgrave despatched to Zwingli an invitation to a
colloquy, and received his prompt acquiescence. Melanchthon, who in the
tension which prevailed at the synod had shown himself inclined to
negotiation, became suspicious on his return, and endeavoured to
influence the elector of Saxony and Luther in accordance with his views.
The landgrave, however, was so far successful that the beginning of
October (1529) saw the colloquy opened in the castle at Marburg. With
Zwingli, who had arrived on the 27th of September, he had several
interviews of considerable political importance before the Wittenberg
divines made their appearance. These interviews settled the
preliminaries of an alliance; but they rested on the assumption that the
theological feud between Wittenberg and Zürich could be removed, or its
violence at least abated.
The proceedings opened on the 1st of October with conferences between
Luther and Oecolampadius, and Melanchthon and Zwingli: then on the two
following days the discussion proper--confined almost entirely to Luther
and Zwingli--was held before the landgrave and his guest Duke Ulrich of
Württemberg, in the presence of more than fifty persons. As regards the
main point of contention, i.e. the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, no
agreement was found practicable; and the private conversations on the
4th of October, which formed the sequel of the debate, carried matters
no farther. "You have another spirit," said Luther. Since the landgrave,
however, was reluctant to see the colloquy brought to an absolutely
fruitless close, he requested Luther to draw up a list of the most
important points of doctrine on which it might yet be possible to arrive
at some degree of unanimity. This was done on the 4th of October; and a
few alterations were introduced to meet the wishes of the Swiss
deputies. The _Articles of Marburg_, which thus came into being, contain
the doctrine of the Trinity, of the personality of Christ, of faith and
justification, of the Scriptures, of baptism, of good works, of
confession, of government, of tradition, and of infant baptism. The
fifteenth article, treating of the Lord's Supper, defines the ground
common to both parties even in this debateable region, recognizing the
necessity of participation in both kinds, and rejecting the sacrifice of
the Mass. It then proceeds to fix the point of difference in the fact
that no agreement had been reached on the question "whether the true
body and blood of Christ are corporeally present in the bread and wine"
("Nit vergleicht haben wir uns, ob der war leib und plut Christi
leiblich im brot und wein sey"). Nevertheless, the adherents of each
doctrine are recommended to display Christian charity to those of the
other. These articles were signed by the ten official members of the
colloquy: Luther, Jonas, Melanchthon, Osiander, Agricola, Brenz,
Oecolampadius, Bucer, Hedio and Zwingli. The personal contact between
Luther and Zwingli led to no mental _rapprochement_ between the two; but
in the following year the Articles of Marburg did good service as one of
the preliminaries to the Augsburg Confession, and remain a valuable
document for the fundamental principles common to the Lutheran and
Reformed Churches.
See T. Kolde, s.v. "Marburger Religionsgespräch," in _Realencyklopädie
f. protestant. Theologie_, 3rd ed. xii. 248 seq. (C. M.)
MARCA, PIERRE DE (1594-1662), French prelate and historian, was born at
Gan, near Pau, on the 24th of January 1594. His family was known among
judicial circles in the 16th century, and maintained the Roman Catholic
faith after the official introduction of the Reformed religion into
Navarre. After having studied law at the university of Toulouse he
practised successfully at Pau. But he was ambitious, and turned to a
larger sphere. He ardently called for the armed intervention of King
Louis XIII. in Béarn, and on this occasion published his first writing,
_Discours d'un Béarnais, très fidèle sujet du roi, sur l'édit du
rétablissement de l'exercice de la religion catholique dans tout le
Béarn_ (1618). After the easy campaign of 1620, the possessions which
had been taken by the Protestants were given back to the Roman Catholic
church; this task was performed, under his supervision, with judgment
and moderation. During the siege of La Rochelle he performed a mission
which brought him in touch with Richelieu, who shortly afterwards
nominated him _intendant de justice_ in Béarn (1631), and in 1639
summoned him to Paris with the title of counsellor of state. The
following year, the question of the intervention of kings in the
election of bishops having been raised in a pamphlet by Charles Hersent
(_Optalus Gallus de cavendo schismate_, 1640), Marca defended what were
then called the liberties of the Gallican Church, in his celebrated
treatise _De concordia sacerdotii et imperii, seu de libertalibus
ecclesiae gallicanae_ (1641). He was soon rewarded for this service.
Although he had not yet taken even the minor holy orders, he was
nominated bishop of Couserans by the king on the 28th of December 1641,
but the pope refused to give his sanction. It was only after Marca had
formally denied those propositions contained in _De concordia_ which
were displeasing to Rome that he was proclaimed in the consistory (Jan.
13, 1648). During this time, and until 1651, he was governor of the
province of Catalonia, then occupied by the French. After the Treaty of
the Pyrenees, he was sent to direct the conference which had been formed
to fix the limits of Roussillon, which had just been ceded to France
(1660). Marca now interested himself in the fortunes of Mazarin, and
remained faithful to him even during the Fronde. As a recompense, he
was nominated archbishop of Toulouse (May 28, 1652), but had to wait for
the bulls of investiture till the 23rd of March 1654. It was difficult
for him to please both pope and king. In the struggle against the
Jansenists he used all the influence he had with the clergy to secure
the passage of the apostolic constitution of the 31st of March 1653
(_Relation de ce qui s'est fait depuis 1653 dans les assemblées des
évêques au sujet des cinq propositions_, 1657); but in the rebellion
raised by Retz, archbishop of Paris, against the king, he took the part
of the king against the pope. Michel Le Tellier having ordered him to
refute a thesis of the college of Clermont on the infallibility of the
pope, Marca wrote a treatise which was most Gallican in its ideas, but
refused to publish it for fear of drawing down "the indignation of
Rome." These tactics were successful, and when Retz, weary of a struggle
without definite results, resigned the archbishopric, Marca became his
successor (Feb. 26, 1662). He did not derive much profit from this new
favour, as he died on the 29th of June following, without his nomination
having been sanctioned by the pope.
Marca, clever and covetous, was also an historian of note. When very
young he showed his interest in the past history of his native land, and
in 1617, at the age of twenty-three, he had set to work looking through
archives, copying charters, and corresponding with the principal men of
learning of his time, the brothers Dupuy, André Duchesne and Jean Besly,
whom he visited in Poitou. His _Histoire de Béarn_ was published at
Paris in 1640. It was not so well received as his _De concordia_, but is
more appreciated by posterity. If Marca's criticism is too often
undecided, both in the ancient epochs, where he supports the text by a
certain amount of guesswork and in certain points where he touches on
religion, yet he always gives the text correctly. A number of chapters
end with an interesting collection of charters. It is to be regretted
that this incomplete work does not go beyond 1300. During his long stay
in Catalonia he made preparations for a geographical and historical
description of this province, which was bound to France by so many
political and literary associations. Baluze, who became his secretary in
1656, helped him with the work and finished it, adding clever appendices
and publishing the whole in 1688 under the title _Marca hispanica_.
Marca married Marguerite de Forgues on the 4th of June 1618, and had one
son and three daughters. His son, Galactoire, who was president of the
parlement of Navarre, died on the 10th of February 1689.
Marca's biography was written in Latin by two of his intimate friends,
Étienne Baluze, his secretary (_Epistola ad Samuelem Sorbierium, de
vita, gestis et scriptis Petri de Marca_, Paris, 1663), and his
cousin, Paul de Faget (at the beginning of a collection of Marca's
theological pamphlets, first published by Paul de Faget in 1668). This
contained four treatises on the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Mass,
the erection of the patriarchate of Constantinople (in Latin), and the
sacrament of the Eucharist (in French). It was supposed to contain
heretical propositions and caused a good deal of scandal, inciting
Baluze against Faget, both of whom abused the other, to defend the
memory of the prelate.
See Bayle's article in the _Dictionnaire historique et critique_ (s.v.
"Marca"), and the Vie de Marca in the _Histoire de Béarn_ (vol. i.,
1894) of V. Dubarat.
MARCANTONIO [MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI], the chief Italian master of the art
of engraving in the age of the Renaissance, and the first who practised
it in order to reproduce, not designs of his own invention, as earlier
craftsmen had commonly done, but those of other artists almost
exclusively. The date of his birth is uncertain, nor is there any good
authority for assigning it, as is commonly done, approximately to the
year 1488. He was probably born some years at least earlier than this,
inasmuch as he is mentioned by a contemporary writer, Achillini, as
being an artist of repute in 1504. His earliest dated plate,
illustrating the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, belongs to the following
year, 1505. Marcantonio received his training in the workshop of the
famous goldsmith and painter of Bologna, Francesco Raibolini, usually
called Francia. "Having more aptitude in design," says Vasari, "than his
master, and managing the graver with facility and grace, he made
waist-buckles and many other things in niello, such being then greatly
in fashion, and made them most beautifully, as being in truth most
excellent in that craft." The real fame, however, of Marcantonio was
destined to be founded on his attainments, not in the goldsmith's art
generally, but in that particular development of it which consists of
engraving designs on metal plates for the purpose of reproduction by the
printing press. This art was not new in Italy in the days of
Marcantonio's apprenticeship. It had been practised, in a more or less
elementary form, for not less than forty or fifty years in the workshops
alike of Venetia, the Emilia, Tuscany and Lombardy. But the technical
aim of the Italian engravers had not hitherto been directed, like that
of Schongauer or Dürer north of the Alps, towards securing such freedom
and precision in the use of the burin as should impart to the
impressions taken from their engraved plates both a striking decorative
effect and a power of suggesting to the eye a complex variety of natural
objects and surfaces in light and shade. The Italian masters had been
satisfied with much more rudimentary effects. The Florentine primitives
had been content either with very simple cloudy patches of
cross-hatching in fine straight lines, or with broad open shadings in
the manner of a bold pen-drawing. Mantegna and Pollaiuolo, the two chief
original masters who practised the art, had used the latter method with
great power but at the same time great simplicity.
By the beginning of the 16th century a desire for a more complicated
kind of effects was already arising among the followers of the art in
Italy. Both backgrounds and passages of foreground detail were often
imitated, inartificially enough, from the works of the northern masters.
Marcantonio himself was among the foremost in this movement. About
eighty engravings can be referred to the first five or six years of his
career (1505-1511). Their subjects are very various, including many of
pagan mythology, and some of obscure allegory, along with those of
Christian devotion. The types of figures and drapery, and the general
character of the compositions, bespeak for the most part the
inspiration, and sometimes the direct authorship, of Francia. But the
influence of German example is very perceptible also, particularly in
the landscape backgrounds, and in the endeavour to express form by means
of light and shadow with greater freedom than had been hitherto the
practice of the southern schools. In a few subjects also the figures
themselves correspond to a coarse Teutonic, instead of to the refined
Italian, ideal. But so far we find Marcantonio only indirectly leaning
on the north for the sake of self-improvement. It must have been for the
sake of commercial profit that he by-and-by produced a series of direct
counterfeits on copper from Albert Dürer's woodcuts. These facsimiles
are sixty-nine in number, including seventeen of Dürer's "Life of the
Virgin," thirty-seven of his "Little Passion," on wood, and a number of
single pieces. According to Vasari, Dürer's indignation over those
counterfeits was the cause of his journey to Venice, where he is said to
have lodged a complaint against Marcantonio, and induced the Senate to
prohibit the counterfeiting of his monogram, at any rate, upon any
future imitations of the kind. Vasari's account must certainly be
mistaken, inasmuch as Dürer's journey to Venice took place in 1506, and
neither of the two series of woodcuts imitated by Marcantonio was
published until 1511. The greater part of the designs for the "Life of
the Virgin" had, it is true, been made and engraved seven years earlier
than the date of their publication; and it is to be remarked that,
whereas Marcantonio's copies of the "Little Passion" leave out the
monogram of Dürer, it is inserted in his copies of the "Life of the
Virgin"; whence it would, after all, seem possible that he had seen and
counterfeited a set of impressions of this series at the time when they
were originally executed, and before their publication. But the real
nature of the transaction, if transaction there was, which took place
between Dürer and Marcantonio we cannot now hope to recover. Enough that
the Bolognese engraver evidently profited, both in money and in
education of the hand, by his work in imitating in a finer material the
energetic characters of these northern woodcuts. He was soon to come
under a totally different influence, and to turn the experience he had
gained to account in interpreting the work of a master of a quite other
stamp. Up till the year 1510 Marcantonio had lived entirely at Bologna,
with the exception, it would appear, of a visit or visits to Venice. (A
few of his early engravings are from drawings of the school of
Giorgione.) Very soon afterwards he was attracted, for good and all,
into the circle which surrounded Raphael at Rome. Where or when he had
first made Raphael's acquaintance is uncertain. His passage to Rome by
way of Florence has been supposed to be marked by an engraving, dated
1510, and known as "The Climbers," _Les Grimpeurs_ (Bartsch, 487), in
which he has reproduced a portion of the design of Michelangelo's
cartoon of the Soldiers surprised bathing, and has added behind the
figures a landscape imitated from the then young Dutch engraver Lucas of
Leiden. Contemporary or somewhat earlier than this is a large engraving
done by him from a design by Baldassare Peruzzi, a Sienese artist drawn
about the same time into the Raphael circle. The piece in which he is
recorded to have first tried his hand after Raphael himself is the
Lucretia (Bartsch 192). From that time until he disappears in the
catastrophe of 1527, Marcantonio was almost exclusively engaged in
reproducing by means of engraving the designs of Raphael or of his
immediate pupils. Raphael, the story goes, was so delighted with the
print of the Lucretia that he personally trained and helped Marcantonio
afterwards. A printing establishment was set up under the charge of
Raphael's colour-grinder, Il Baviera, and the profits, in the early
stage of the business, were shared between the engraver and the printer.
The sale soon became very great; pupils gathered round about
Marcantonio, of whom the two most distinguished were Marco Dente, known
as Marco da Ravenna, and Agostino de' Musi, known as Agostino Veneziano;
and he and they, during the last ten years of Raphael's life, and for
several years following his death, gave forth a great profusion of
engravings after the master's work--not copying, in most instances, his
finished paintings, but working up, with the addition of simple
backgrounds and accessories, his first sketches and trials, which often
give the composition in a different form from the finished work, and are
all the more interesting on that account.
The best of these engravings produced in the workshop of
Marcantonio--those, namely, done by his own hand, and especially those
done during the first few years after he had attached himself to
Raphael--count among the most prized and coveted examples of the art. In
them he enters into the genius of his master, and loses little of the
chastened science and rhythmical purity of Raphael's contours, or of the
inspired and winning sentiment of his faces; while in the parts where he
is left to himself--the rounding and shading, the background and
landscape--he manages his burin with all the skill and freedom which he
had gained by the imitation of northern models, but puts away the
northern emphasis and redundance of detail. His work, however, does not
long remain at the height marked by pieces like the Lucretia, the Dido,
the Judgment of Paris, the Poetry, the Philosophy, or the first Massacre
of the Innocents. Marcantonio's engravings after the works of Raphael's
later years are cold, ostentatious, and soulless by comparison. Still
more so, as is natural, were those which he and his pupils produced
after the designs of the degenerate scholars of Raphael and
Michelangelo, of a Giulio Romano, a Polidoro, or a Bandinelli.
Marcantonio's association with Giulio Romano was the cause of his first
great disaster in life. He engraved a series of obscene designs by that
painter in illustration of the _Sonnetti lussuriosi_ of Pietro Aretino,
and thereby incurred the anger of pope Clement VII., at whose order he
was thrown into prison. Marcantonio's ruin was completed by the
calamities attendant on the sack of Rome in 1527. He had to pay a heavy
ransom in order to escape from the hands of the Spaniards, and fled from
Rome, in the words of Vasari, "all but a beggar." It is said that he
took refuge in his native city, Bologna; but he never again emerges from
obscurity, and all we know with certainty is that in 1534 he was dead.
(S. C.)
MARCASITE, a mineral with the same chemical composition as pyrites,
being iron disulphide FeS2, but crystallizing in the orthorhombic
instead of in the cubic system. The name is of Arabic origin and was
long applied to crystallized pyrites (q.v.); it was restricted to the
present species by W. Haidinger in 1845. The mineral was known to G.
Agricola in 1546 under the names _Wasserkies_ or _Weisserkies_ and
_Leberkies_, and it has been variously known as white pyrites, hepatic
pyrites, lamellar pyrites, radiated pyrites (German _Strahlkies_) and
prismatic pyrites. The orthorhombic form of the crystals, as distinct
from the cubic form of pyrites, was recognized by Romé de l'Isle in
1772, though later R. J. Haüy considered the crystals to be only
distorted cubic forms.
[Illustration]
The crystals are isomorphous with mispickel (q.v.), but only rarely are
they distinctly developed and simple (fig.). Usually they are twinned on
a prism plane, M, producing pentagonal stellate groups of five crystals;
twinning on the plain g, in which the crystals intercross at angles of
nearly 60°, is less common. This frequent twinning gives rise to
characteristic forms, with many re-entrant angles, to which the names
"spear pyrites" and "cockscomb pyrites" are applied. The commonest state
of aggregation is that of radially arranged fibres, the external surface
of the mass being globular, nodular or stalactitic in form.
Apart from crystalline form, the external characters of marcasite are
very similar to those of pyrites, and when distinct crystals are not
available the two species cannot always be easily distinguished. The
colour is usually pale bronze-yellow, often rather lighter than that of
pyrites; on freshly fractured surfaces of pure marcasite the colour is
tin-white, but this rapidly tarnishes on exposure to air. The lustre is
metallic and brilliant. The streak is greyish or brownish-black. The
hardness (6-6½) is the same as that of pyrites, and the specific gravity
(4.8-4.9) as a rule rather less. Arsenical varieties of marcasite,
containing up to 5% of arsenic, are known as lonchidite and kyrosite.
Marcasite readily oxidizes on exposure to moist air, with the
production of sulphuric acid and a white fibrous efflorescence of
ferrous sulphate, and in course of time specimens in collections often
became completely disintegrated. In nature it is frequently altered to
limonite with the separation of native sulphur. Marcasite is thus the
less stable of the two modifications of iron disulphide. Many
experiments have been made with a view to determining the difference
in chemical constitution of marcasite and pyrites, but with no very
definite results. It is a noteworthy fact that whilst pyrites has been
prepared artificially, marcasite has not.
Marcasite occurs under the same conditions as pyrites, but is much
less common. Whilst pyrites is found abundantly in the older
crystalline rocks and slates, marcasite is more abundant in clays, and
has often been formed as a concretion around organic remains. It is
abundant, for example, in the plastic clay of the Brown Coal formation
at Littmitz, near Carlsbad, in Bohemia, at which place it has been
extensively mined for the manufacture of sulphur and ferrous sulphate.
In the Chalk of the south-east of England nodules of marcasite with a
fibrous radiated structure are abundant, and in the Chalk Marl between
Dover and Folkestone fine twinned groups of "spear pyrites" are
common. The mineral is also met with in metalliferous veins, though
much less frequently than pyrites; for example the "cockscomb pyrites"
of the lead mines of Derbyshire and Cumberland. (L. J. S.)
MARCEAU-DESGRAVIERS, FRANÇOIS SÉVERIN (1769-1796), French general, was
born at Chartres on the 1st of March 1769. His father was a law officer,
and he was educated for a legal career, but at the age of sixteen he
enlisted in the regiment of Savoy-Carignan. Whilst on furlough in Paris
Marceau joined in the attack on the Bastille (July 14, 1789); after that
event he took his discharge from the regular army and returned to
Chartres, but the embarrassments of his family soon compelled him to
seek fresh military employment. He became drill instructor, and
afterwards captain in the departmental (Eure-et-Loire) regiment of the
National Guard. Early in March 1792 he was elected lieutenant-colonel
of one of the battalions of the Eure-et-Loire; he took part in the
defence of Verdun in 1792, and it fell to his lot to bear the proposals
of capitulation to the Prussian camp. The spiritless conduct of the
defenders excited the wrath of the revolutionary authorities, and
Marceau was fortunate in escaping arrest and finding re-employment as a
captain in the regular service. Early in 1793 he became with other
officers "suspect," and was for some time imprisoned. On his release he
hurried to take part in the defence of Saumur against the Vendéan
royalists, and distinguished himself at the combat of Saumur (June 10,
1793) by gallantly rescuing the representative Bourbotte from the hands
of the insurgents. The Convention voted him the thanks of the country,
and thenceforward his rise was rapid. His conduct at Chantonnay (Sept.
5) won him the provisional rank of general of brigade. On the 17th of
October he bore a great part in the victory of Cholet, and on the field
of this battle began his friendship with Kléber. For the victory of
Cholet Kléber was made general of division and Marceau confirmed as
general of brigade. Their advice was of the greatest value to the
generals in command, and the military talents of each were the
complement of the other's. Marceau, who became general of division (Nov.
10), succeeded to the chief command _ad interim_, and with his friend
won important victories near Le Mans (Dec 12-13) and Savenay (Dec. 23).
After the battle of Le Mans, Marceau rescued and protected a young
Royalist lady, Angélique des Mesliers. It is often supposed that he was
in love with his prisoner; but the help even of the commander-in-chief
did not avail to save her from the guillotine (Jan. 22, 1794). Marceau
had already retired from the war, exhausted by the fatigues of the
campaign, and he and Kléber were saved from arrest and execution only by
the intervention of Bourbotte. Marceau became affianced about this time
to Agathe Leprêtre de Châteaugiron, but his constant military
employment, his broken health, and the opposition of the comte de
Châteaugiron on the one hand and of Marceau's devoted half-sister
"Emira," wife of the Republican politician Sergent, on the other,
prevented the realization of his hopes. After spending the winter of
1793-1794 in Paris he took a command in the army under Jourdan, in which
Kléber also served. He took part in the various battles about Charleroi,
and at the final victory of Fleurus (June 26, 1794) he had a horse shot
under him. He distinguished himself again at Jülich and at Aldenhoven,
and stormed the fines of Coblenz on the 23rd of October. With the Army
of the Sambre and Meuse he took his share in the campaign of 1795 on the
Rhine and the Lahn, distinguishing himself particularly with Kléber in
the fighting about Neuwied on the 18th and 19th of October, and at
Sulzbach on the 17th of December. In the campaign of 1796 the famous
invasion of Germany by the armies of Jourdan and Moreau ended in
disaster, and Marceau's men covered Jourdan's retreat over the Rhine. He
fought the desperate actions on the Lahn (Sept. 16 and 18), and at
Altenkirchen on the 19th received a mortal wound, of which he died on
the 21st, at the early age of twenty-seven. The Austrians vied with his
own countrymen in doing honour to the dead general. His body was burned,
and his ashes, which at the time were placed under a pyramid designed by
Kléber, were transferred in 1889 to the Pantheon at Paris.
See Maze, _Le Général Marceau_ (1889); Parfait, _Le Général Marceau_
(1892); and T. C. Johnson, _Marceau_ (London, 1896).
MARCEL, ÉTIENNE (d. 1358), provost of the merchants of Paris under King
John II., belonged by birth to the wealthy Parisian _bourgeoisie_, being
the son of a clothier named Simon Marcel and of Isabelle Barbou. He is
mentioned as provost of the Grande-Confrérie of Notre Dame in 1350, and
in 1354 he succeeded Jean de Pacy as provost of the Parisian merchants.
His political career began in 1356, when John was made prisoner after
the battle of Poitiers. In conjunction with Robert le Coq, bishop of
Laon, he played a leading part in the states-general called together by
the dauphin Charles on the 17th of October. A committee of eighty
members, constituted on their initiative, pressed their demands with
such insistence that the dauphin prorogued the states-general; but
financial straits obliged him to summon them once more on the 3rd of
February 1357, and the promulgation of a great edict of reform was the
consequence. John the Good forbade its being put into effect, whereupon
a conflict began between Marcel and the dauphin, Marcel endeavouring to
set up Charles the Bad, king of Navarre, in opposition to him. The
states-general assembled again on the 13th of January 1358, and on the
22nd of February the populace of Paris, led by Marcel, invaded the
palace and murdered the marshals of Champagne and Normandy before the
prince's eyes. Thenceforward Marcel was in open hostility to the throne.
After vainly hoping that the insurrection of the Jacquerie might turn to
his advantage, he next supported the king of Navarre, whose armed bands
infested the neighbourhood of Paris. On the night of the 31st of July
Marcel was about to open the gates of the capital to them, but Jean
Maillart prevented the execution of this design, and killed him before
the Porte Saint-Antoine. During the following days his adherents were
likewise put to death, and the dauphin was enabled to re-enter Paris.
Étienne Marcel married first Jeanne de Dammartin, and secondly
Marguerite des Essars, who survived him.
See F. T. Perrens, _Étienne Marcel et le gouvernement de la
bourgeoisie au xiv^e siècle_ (Paris, 1860); P. Frémaux, _La Famille
d'Étienne Marcel_, in the _Mémoires_ of the _Société de l'histoire de
Paris et de l'Île de France_ (1903), vol. xxx.; and Hon. R. D. Denman,
_Étienne Marcel_ (1898). (J. V.*)
MARCELLINUS, ST, according to the Liberian catalogue, became bishop of
Rome on the 30th of June, 296; his predecessor was Caius or Gaius. He is
not mentioned in the _Martyrologium hieronymianum_, or in the _Depositio
episcoporum_, or in the _Depositio martyrum_. The _Liber pontificalis_,
basing itself on the Acts of St Marcellinus, the text of which is lost,
relates that during Diocletian's persecution Marcellinus was called upon
to sacrifice, and offered incense to idols, but that, repenting shortly
afterwards, he confessed the faith of Christ and suffered martyrdom with
several companions. Other documents speak of his defection, and it is
probably this lapse that explains the silence of the ancient liturgical
calendars. In the beginning of the 5th century Petilianus, the Donatist
bishop of Constantine, affirmed that Marcellinus and his priests had
given up the holy books to the pagans during the persecution and offered
incense to false gods. St Augustine contents himself with denying the
affair (_Contra litt. Petiliani_, ii. 202; _De unico baptismo_, 27). The
records of the pseudo-council of Sinuessa, which were fabricated at the
beginning of the 6th century, state that Marcellinus after his fall
presented himself before a council, which refused to try him on the
ground that _prima sedes a nemine iudicatur_. According to the _Liber
pontificalis_, Marcellinus was buried, on the 26th of April 304, in the
cemetery of Priscilla, on the Via Salaria, 25 days after his martyrdom;
the Liberian catalogue gives as the date the 25th of October. The fact
of the martyrdom, too, is not established with certainty. After a
considerable interregnum he was succeeded by Marcellus, with whom he has
sometimes been confounded.
See L. Duchesne, _Liber pontificalis_, I. lxxiii.-lxxiv. 162-163, and
II. 563. (H. De.)
MARCELLO, BENEDETTO (1686-1739), Italian musical composer, was born in
1686, either on the 31st of July or on the 1st of August. He was of
noble family (in his compositions he is frequently described as
"Patrizio Veneto"), and although a pupil of Lotti and Gasparini, was
intended by his father to devote himself to the law. In 1711 he was a
member of the Council of Forty, and in 1730 went to Pola as
Provveditore. His health having been impaired by the climate of Istria,
he retired after eight years to Brescia in the capacity of Camerlengo,
and died there on the 24th of July 1739.
Marcello is best remembered by his _Estro poetico-armonico_ (Venice,
1724-1727), a musical setting for voices and strings of the first fifty
Psalms, as paraphrased in Italian by G. Giustiniani. They were much
admired by Charles Avison, who with John Garth brought out an edition
with English words (London, 1757). Some extracts are to be found in
Hawkins's _History of Music_. His other works are chiefly cantatas,
either for one voice or several; the library of the Brussels
conservatoire possesses some interesting volumes of chamber-cantatas
composed for his mistress. Although he produced an opera, _La Fede
riconosciuta_, at Vicenza in 1702, he had little sympathy with this form
of composition, and vented his opinions on the state of musical drama at
the time in the satirical pamphlet _Il Teatro alla moda_, published
anonymously in Venice in 1720. This little work, which was frequently
reprinted, is not only extremely amusing, but is also most valuable as a
contribution to the history of opera.
A catalogue of his works is given in _Monatshefte für
Musikgeschichte_, vol. xxiii. (1891).
MARCELLUS, the name of two popes.
MARCELLUS I. succeeded Marcellinus, after a considerable interval, most
probably in May 308, under Maxentius. He was banished from Rome in 309
on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had
imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He
died the same year, being succeeded by Eusebius. He is commemorated on
the 16th of January.
MARCELLUS II. (Marcello Cervini), the successor of Julius III., was born
on the 6th of May 1501, and was elected pope on the 9th of April 1555.
He had long been identified with the rigorist party in the church, and
as president of the Council of Trent had incurred the anger of the
emperor by his jealous defence of papal prerogative. His motives were
lofty, his life blameless, his plans for reform nobly conceived. But
death removed him (April 30, 1555) before he could do more than give an
earnest of his intentions. He was followed by Paul IV.
Contemporary lives are to be found in Panvinio, continuator of
Platina, _De vitis pontiff, rom._; and Ciaconius, _Vitae et res gestae
summorum pontiff. rom._ (Rome, 1601-1602). P. Polidoro, _De gestis,
vita et moribus Marcelli II._ (Rome, 1744), makes use of an
unpublished biography of the pope by his brother, Alessandro Cervini.
See also Brilli, _Intorno alla vita e alle azioni di Marcello II._
(Montepulciano, 1846); Ranke, _Popes_ (Eng. trans., Austin), i. 284
seq.; A. von Reumont, _Gesch. der Stadt Rom_, iii. 2, 512, seq.
(T. F. C.)
MARCELLUS, a Roman plebeian family belonging to the Claudian gens. Its
most distinguished members were the following:--
1. MARCUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (c. 268-208 B.C.), one of the Roman
generals during the Second Punic War and conqueror of Syracuse. He first
served against Hamilcar in Sicily. In his first consulship (222) he was
engaged, with Cn. Cornelius Scipio as colleague, in war against the
Insubrian Gauls, and won the _spolia opima_ for the third and last time
in Roman history by slaying their chief Viridomarus or Virdumarus
(Polybius ii. 34; Propertius v. 10, 39). In 216, after the defeat at
Cannae, he took command of the remnant of the army at Canusium, and
although he was unable to prevent Capua going over to Hannibal, he saved
Nola and southern Campania. In 214 he was in Sicily as consul at the
time of the revolt of Syracuse; he stormed Leontini and besieged
Syracuse, but the skill of Archimedes repelled his attacks. After a two
years' siege he gradually forced his way into the city and took it in
the face of strong Punic reinforcements. He spared the lives of the
inhabitants, but carried off their art treasures to Rome, the first
instance of a practice afterwards common. Consul again in 210, he took
Salapia in Apulia, which had revolted to Hannibal, by help of the Roman
party there, and put to death the Numidian garrison. Proconsul in 209,
he attacked Hannibal near Venusia, and after a desperate battle retired
to that town; he was accused of bad generalship, and had to leave the
army to defend himself in Rome. In his last consulship (208), he and his
colleague, while reconnoitring near Venusia, were unexpectedly attacked,
and Marcellus was killed. His successes have been exaggerated by Livy,
but the name often given to him, the "sword of Rome," was well deserved.
Livy xxiii. 14-17, 41-46; xxiv. 27-32, 35-39; xxv. 5-7, 23-31; xxvi.
26, 29-32; xxvii. 1-5, 21-28; Polybius viii. 5-9, x. 32; Appian,
_Hannib._ 50; Florus ii. 6.
2. M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS, an inveterate opponent of Julius Caesar.
During his consulship (51 B.C.) he proposed to remove Caesar from his
army in March 49, but this decision was delayed by Pompey's irresolution
and the skilful opposition of the tribune C. Curio (see CAESAR, JULIUS).
In January 49 he tried to put off declaring war against Caesar till an
army could be got ready, but his advice was not taken. When Pompey left
Italy, Marcus and his brother Gaius followed, while his cousin withdrew
to Liternum. After Pharsalus M. Marcellus retired to Mytilene, where he
practised rhetoric and studied philosophy. In 46 his cousin and the
senate successfully appealed to Caesar to pardon him, and Marcellus
reluctantly consented to return. On this occasion Cicero's[1] speech
_Pro Marcello_ was delivered. Marcellus left for Italy, but was murdered
in May by one of his own attendants, P. Magius Chilo, in the Peiraeus.
Marcellus was a thorough aristocrat. He was an eloquent speaker (Cicero,
_Brutus_, 71), and a man of firm character, although not free from
avarice.
See Cicero, _Ad fam._ iv. 4, 7, 10, and _Ad Att._ v. 11 (ed. Tyrrell
and Purser); Caesar, _B. C._ i. 2; Suetonius, _Caesar_, 29; G.
Boissier, _Cicero and his Friends_ (Eng. trans., 1897).
3. M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (c. 43-23 B.C.), son of C. Marcellus and
Octavia, sister of Augustus. In 25 he was adopted by the emperor and
married to his daughter Julia. This seemed to mark him out as the heir
to the throne, but Augustus, when attacked by a serious illness, gave
his signet to M. Vipsanius Agrippa. In 23 Marcellus, then curule aedile,
died at Baiae. Livia was suspected of having poisoned him to get the
empire for her son Tiberius. Great hopes had been built on the youth,
and he was celebrated by many writers, especially by Virgil in a famous
passage (_Aeneid_, vi. 860). He was buried in the Campus Martius, and
Augustus himself pronounced the funeral oration. The Theatrum Marcelli
(remains of which can still be seen) was afterwards dedicated in his
honour.
Horace, _Odes_, i. 12; Propertius iii. 18; Dio Cassius liii. 28, 30;
Tacitus, _Annals_, ii. 41; Suetonius, _Augustus_, 63; Vell. Pat. ii.
93.