Marcus Marius Gratidianus - Family and Career

Family and Career

See also: Maria (gens).

Gratidianus was the son of Marius's sister and Marcus Gratidius of Arpinum. He was adopted by Marius's brother Marcus. An aunt married the Marcus Tullius Cicero who was the grandfather of the famous Cicero. Gratidianus may have had a particularly pungent relationship with one of his in-laws: his sister could have been the first wife of Sergius Catilina, who was accused by Cicero of participating in his torture and murder.

Gratidius, his natural father, was a close friend of Marcus Antonius the orator and consul of 99 BC. He was killed ca. 102–100 BC while serving as a prefect under Antonius in Cilicia. In 92 BC, Antonius deployed his famed oratorical skills in defending his friend's son when Gratidianus was sued by the oyster-breeder and real-estate speculator Sergius Orata in a civil case involving the sale of a property on the Lucrine Lake. Orata was not without his own high-powered speaker, in the person of Lucius Licinius Crassus. Cicero says Orata was trying to force Gratidianus to buy back the property when Orata's business plan for farm-raised oysters fell through, perhaps because of unforeseen complications arising from water rights or fishing rights. Sometime before 91 BC, a claim, probably also a civil suit, was filed against Gratidianus by Visellius Aculeo, supported again by Crassus. A Lucius Aelius Lamia spoke on behalf of Gratidianus, but the grounds for the suit are unknown.

In 87 BC, Gratidianus was a tribune of the plebs and thus among the six of the year's ten tribunes who left the city to take up arms when Cinna was banished. He was a legate that same year, probably the commander named Marius who was sent north by Cinna with the objective of seizing Ariminum and cutting off any reinforcements that might be sent to Sulla from Cisalpine Gaul. This Marius succeeded at defeating Servilius Vatia Isauricus and took over his army.

By the end of 87, Gratidianus had returned to Rome with Cinna and Marius. He took on the prosecution of Q. Lutatius Catulus, a move that was later to prove fateful. Catulus had been the consular colleague of Marius in 102 BC and had shared his triumph over the Cimbri, but had later broken with him. Rather than face the inevitable guilty verdict, Catulus committed suicide. The charge was probably perduellio, submitted to the judgment of the people (iudicium populi), for which the punishment was death by scourging at the stake.