Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/978

Rh 9R4 MARTIALTS. the younger Marsyas are fully discussed, and the extant fragments of their works collected, by Geier, A lexandri M. Historiar. Scripiores aetate suppares^ Lips. 1844, pp. 318—340. (See also Droysen, Hellenism, vol. i. pp. 679 — 682 ; Bernhardy, ad Suid. s.v. Mapavas.) [E. H. B.] MARTHA. [Marius, p. 95.3, b.] MA'RTIA and MA'RTIUS. [Marcia ; Marcius.] MARTIA'LIS (MapTiaios), a physician and anatomist at Rome, who was bom about the year 95 after Christ. Galen became personally ac- quainted with him during his first visit to Rome, about A. D. 165, and speaks of him as an envious and quarrelsome person. He was a follower or admirer of Erasistratus, and wrote some anatomi- cal works, which were in great repute for some years after his death (Galen, De Libris Fropriis, c. ], vol. xix. p. 13). He is probably the same per- son as the physician named Marcianus, though it is not quite certain which name is correct, [W. A. G.] MARTIA'LIS, CORNE'LIUS, was deprived of his rank as tribune, apparently in the praeto- rian guards, on the detection of Piso's conspiracy against Nero, in a. d. 66. He afterwards served in the army of Flavius Sabinus against the troops of Vitellius, and perished in the burning of the Capitol, A. D. 69. (Tac. ^ WW. xv. 71, Hist. iii. 70, 73.) MARTIA'LIS, GARGI'LIUS, is quoted as an authority for the private life and habits of Alex- ander Severus (Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 37), vi^ith whom he seems to have been contemporary, and is classed by Vopiscus (Prob. 2) along with Marius Maximus, Suetonius Tranquillus, Julius Capito- linus and Aelius Lampridius, historians of the second class, who recorded the truth, but without eloquence or philosophy. A short corrupt fragment on veterinary surgery, entitled " Curae Bourn ex Corpore Gargilii Mar- tialis," was transcribed under the inspection of Perizonius, at the request of Schoetgen, from a Leyden MS., and published by Gesner in his 4to. Lips. 1735), vol. ii. p. 1170, but it is im- possible to determine whether the compiler of this tract, the antiquity of which has been doubted by critics, is the same person with the historian. The MS. from which it was printed was comparatively recent, but had been copied from one of more ancient date, which once belonged to the monastery of Corvey on the Weser. (See Gesner, Fraef. p. xvii. and the dissertation of Schoetgen, p. xlii.) In the Divine Lections of Cassiodorus (c. 28) we read " De hortis scripsit pulcherrime Gargilius Martialis, qui et nutrimenta olerum et virtutes eorum diligenter exposuit." This work is fre- quently quoted by Palladius (e. g. iv. tit. 9. § 9), but not by any older writer, although Servius (ad Virg. Georg. iv. 147), speaks as if Virgil had dis- cerned him from afar with prophetic eye. No portion of it was known to exist until Angelo Mai in 1 826 discovered that a palimpsest in tlie royal library at Naples, which had originally belonged to tiie celebrated monastery of St. Columbanus at Bobbio, and which was known to contain the grammarian Charisius, fragments of Lucan, and some other pieces, all of which had been examined, contained also some chapters by a writer on rural affairs, treating of quinces {De Cydoneis peaches (De /'ersicis), almonds (De Ami/gdalis)^ and chestnuts (De Castaneis). Upon closer investigation it was MARTIALIS. found by comparing these with the references in Palladius to Martialis, that they must actually be regarded as a portion of his essay De Hortis. The remains themselves, together with a full account of the Codex Rescriptus to which they belong, are included in the first volume of the Classici Auctores e Vaticanis Codicibus editi, 8vo. Rom. 1828. Nor was this all. Not long afterwards, the same scholar detected among the treasures of the Vatican, two MSS., one of the tenth, the other of the twelfth century, containing tracts upon medical subjects, in both of which was a section headed Incipit Liber Tertius. De Pomis. Martialis, on the sanatory properties of various fruits, and in this the details with regard to the virtues of quinces were found to correspond almost verbatim with the remarks in the Neapolitan MS., thus removing the last shade of doubt with regard to the author. Whether, however, Gargilius Mar- tialis the historian, Gargilius Martialis the horti- culturist, and Gargilius Martialis the veterinarian, are all, or any two of them, the same, or all different personages, must in the absence of satis- factory evidence be considered as still an open question. (Mai published the Vatican fragment in the third volume of the collection named above (Rom. 1831), and the whole three pieces were printed together in Germany, under the title " Gar- gilii Martialis Gargilii quae supersunt. Editio in German ia prima. Lunaeburgi, 1832.") [W. R.] MARTIA'LIS, JU'LIUS, an evocatus, who, from private pique, joined the conspiracy against Caracalla. Having seized a convenient opportunity, he stabbed the emperor while on a journey from Edessa to Carrhae, and was himself slain upon the spot by one of the Scythian guards. The senate testified warm gratitude to their deliverer, and proposed to honour his memory by panegyrical orations and by statues. (Dion Cass. Ixxviii. 5, 18, comp. 8.) [W. R.] MARTIA'LIS, M. VALE'RIUS, the epigram- matist. Vl''hatever information we possess regard- ing the personal history of this writer is derived almost exclusively from his works ; for although he often boasts of his own far-spread popularity, and although Aelius Verus was wont to term him " his Virgil," he is not spoken of by any contem- porary author except the younger Pliny, nor by any of those who followed after him, except Spar- tianus, Lampridius, and perhaps Sidonius Apolli- naris, until we reach the period of the grammarians, by whom he is frequently quoted. By collecting and comparing the incidental notices scattered through his pages, we are enabled to determine that he was a native of Bilbilis in Spain, that he was born upon the first of March, in the third year of Claudius, a. d, 43, that he came to Rome in the thirteenth year of Nero, a. d. 66, that after residing in the metropolis for a space of thirty-five years, he again repaired to the j)lace of his birth, in the third year of Trajan, a. d. 100, and lived there for upwards of three years at least, on the property of his wife, a lady named Marcella, whom he seems to have married after his return to the banks of the Sale, and to whose graces and mental charms he pays a warm tribute. His death, which cannot have taken place before A. D. 104, is mentioned by the younger Pliny, but we are unable to fix the date of the epistle (iii. 20, al. 21) in which the event is recorded. His fiame was ex- tended and his books were eagerly sought for, not
 * ' Scriptores Rei Rusticae Veteres Latini" (2 vols.