MARCUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS
Roman general who captured Syracuse during the Second Punic War (218-201).
Although his successes have been exaggerated by the historian Livy he deserved his sobriquet "the sword of Rome".
In his first consulship (222) he fought the Insubres and won the spolla opima or spoils of honour (the arms taken by a general who defeated an enemy chief in single combat) for the third and last time in Roman history by killing their chief Viridomarus (the other winners of the spolla opima were Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome who defeated Acron king of the Caeninenses in the warfare following the rape of the Sabines, and Aulus Cornelius Cossus who slew the Etruscan king Lars Tolumnius in 437 BC).
After the Roman defeat at Cannae (216) he commanded the remnant of the army at Canusium and saved Nola and souther Campania from Hannibal.
From 214 when he was a consul for the third time to 211 he served in Sicily where he stormed Leontini and after a twoyear seige took Syracuse. His troops sacked the city and carried its art treasures to Rome.
Marcellus was consul again in 210 and took Salapia in Apulia which had revolted and joined forces with Hannibal.
In 209 he fought Hannibal inconclusively near Venusia.
In his fifth consulship in 208 he was killed reconnoitering enemy positions.
MARCUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS
A leading member of the Optimate party (ultraconservative senatorial aristocracy) and an inveterate opponent of the powerful general Julius Caesar.
As consul in 51 he attempted to remove Caesar from his army command but was outmanoeuvred by the pro-Caesarian tribune Gaius Scribonius Curio.
During the Civil War (Caesar versus Pompey the Great and the Senate, 49-46) he followed Pompey to Greece. After Pompey´s death in 48 he retired to Mytilene where he practiced rhetoric and studied philosophy.
In 46 the Senate successfully appealed to Caesar to pardon Marcellus.
It was on this occasion that the renowned orator Cicero delivered his speech Pro Marcello.
Marcellus left for Italy but was murdered in Piraeus Greece by one of his own attendants.
MARCUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS
Nephew of the emperor Augustus (ruled 27 BC-AD 14) who presumably chose him as heir to the throne.
Marcellus was the son of Gaius Claudius Marcellus and Augustus´sister Octavia.
In 25 he was adopted by the Emperor and married to his daughter Julia.
Marcellus served under Augustus in Spain in 25 but he died two years later when he was a curule aedile.
Great hopes had been built on him and he was celebrated by many writers especially by Virgil in a famous passage in the Aeneid.
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