Marcia gens


The gens Marcia, occasionally written Martia, was one of the oldest and noblest houses at ancient Rome. They claimed descent from the second and fourth Roman Kings, and the first of the Marcii appearing in the history of the Republic would seem to have been patrician; but all of the families of the Marcii known in the later Republic were plebeian. The first to obtain the consulship was Gaius Marcius Rutilus in 357 BC, only a few years after the passage of the lex Licinia Sextia opened this office to the plebeians.

Origin

The Marcii are supposed to have been Sabines, descended from a certain Marcus Marcius of Cures, a kinsman of Numa Pompilius, and his son, Numa Marcius, a childhood friend of Pompilius, who accompanied him to Rome and served as his chief advisor. His son, the younger Numa Marcius, was urban prefect under Tullus Hostilius, and his grandson was Ancus Marcius, the fourth King of Rome.
Although the Roman monarchy was not strictly hereditary, tradition holds that the sons of Ancus Marcius hoped to succeed their father, but were prevented from doing so when his chief advisor, the Etruscan Lucius Tarquinius, took advantage of their absence at the time of the king's death to solicit support for his own claim, and was elected king.
After biding their time for many years, the sons of Marcius gained their revenge by engineering the assassination of Tarquin, but they were again prevented from claiming the throne by a ruse of Tanaquil, the Roman queen, who installed her stepson, Servius Tullius, as regent, until he had sufficient support to rule on his own. The later Marcii claimed descent from Ancus Marcius, but nothing further is recorded of his sons or the generations between them and the Marcii of the early Republic.
The nomen Marcius is a patronymic surname, based on the common praenomen Marcus. There is no reason to doubt that both names are in turn derived from the god Mars, although the precise linguistic process by which this occurred is complex and uncertain.

Praenomina

The Marcii were relatively conservative with respect to praenomina, with only three names accounting for nearly all of the Marcii of the Republic. Most branches of the family used Lucius, but preferred either Gaius or Quintus, seldom if ever using both in the same branch. There were isolated instances of Publius, Marcus, and perhaps one instance of Gnaeus, although this case is doubtful. All were very common names throughout Roman history; but there was also at least one Septimus, a praenomen that was quite rare at Rome.
The ancient praenomina Numa and Ancus evidently passed out of use some time before the establishment of the Republic. Both are likely Sabine or Oscan names, as were all of the persons known to have borne them. No attempt seems to have been made to revive either of them at Rome, either as praenomen or cognomen. Numa seems to be related to Numitor, the name of one of the ancient Kings of Alba Longa, and the grandfather of Romulus, and may share a common root with the praenomen Numerius, which remained in use at Rome for many centuries; Chase suggests a meaning related to "arranger" or "orderer", which would suit both Numa Pompilius and his kinsman, Numa Marcius. For Ancus, otherwise known only from the legendary founder of the Publician gens, he suggests the meaning of "servant", perhaps in the religious sense.

Branches and cognomina

The only surname associated with the patrician Marcii was Coriolanus, which does not seem to have represented a distinct family of the Marcian gens. During the time of the Republic, the plebeian Marcii bore the cognomina Censorinus, Crispus, Figulus, Libo, Philippus, Ralla, Rex, Rufus, Rutilus, Septimus, Sermo, and Tremulus. Those of Censorinus, Libo, and Philippus are found on coins.
Coriolanus, the earliest cognomen of the Marcii, and the only one generally believed to have belonged to any of the patrician Marcii, was the personal surname of Gaius Marcius, a young soldier whose brilliant charge through the gates of Corioli resulted in the capture of that town from the Volscians. We are told that he had two young sons, from whom one might imagine that the later Marcii were descended; but all of the later Marcii known to history were plebeians. If any of them were descendants of Coriolanus, then they must have stepped down or been removed from the patrician order. The surname Coriolanus does not appear to have been passed down to later generations of the Marcii.
The earliest family of the plebeian Marcii bore the surname of Rutilus, meaning "reddish", probably signifying that the first of this family had red hair. It is through this family that the Marcii emerged from obscurity, only a few years after the passage of the lex Licinia Sextia opened the consulship to the plebeians. The son of Gaius Marcius Rutilus, the first plebeian censor, was himself censor twice, and took the name Censorinus, which was thereafter passed down in this family for several centuries.
After this family, the next cognomen of the Marcii was Philippus, a Greek name, which first appears as the surname of Quintus Marcius, the consul of 281 BC; but this may anticipate the adoption of the name by his descendant, for a certain Lucius Marcius of this family is said to have had some connection with Philip V of Macedon; his son, Quintus Marcius Philippus, was consul in 186 BC, and it may therefore have been Lucius who was the first to obtain the cognomen. The initial cognomen of the family may have been Tremulus, since the filiations given in the Fasti link Quintus Marcius Tremulus, consul in 306, and his probable son Quintus Marcius Philippus, consul in 281. Philippus means "lover of horses", and the name had for centuries been associated with the Macedonian kings; Philip II was the father of Alexander the Great. So wide was the fame of this dynasty, that it is not entirely impossible that the name had reached Rome at an earlier date. The Philippi were proud of this association since Lucius Marcius Philippus, the consul of 91, even put the portrait of Philip V of Macedon on the denarii he minted.
Friedrich Münzer considers that the Marcii bearing the cognomen Figulus were linked to the Philippi; the first of that name might have been the second son of Quintus Marcius Philippus, the consul of 281. The Figuli flourished until the end of the Republic, and obtained two consulships.
Ralla seems to be the next surname of the Marcii, first appearing toward the close of the third century BC. It may mean "scraper", and Chase suggests a common origin with the radula, or "scraper", a standard carpentry tool. This family is only found in history for a brief period.
The cognomen Rex, meaning "king", is usually interpreted as an allusion to the family's traditional descent from Numa Pompilius and Ancus Marcius. However, another possibility is that the surname was borne by the descendants of a certain Marcus Marcius, Rex Sacrorum during the third century BC, and perhaps the first plebeian to hold that office.

Members

Early Marcii

Made from Münzer with corrections from Sumner. The nomen Marcius has been omitted for all the men named Tremulus, Philippus, or Figulus. All dates are BC, unless mentioned otherwise. Vertical dotted lines show adoptions.

Marcii Rallae