Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/561

Rh M A R M A K 533 ta Liternum. After Pharsalus M. Marcellus retired to Mytilene. He long made no attempt to return, till in 46 the senate appealed to Ciesar. Marcellus accepted this favour reluctantly. Pressed by Cicero, he left Mytilene for Italy, but was murdered in May by Magius Cilo in the Piraeus. Marcellus was a thorough aristocrat, but free from the violence which disgraced many of his party. MARCELLUS, M. CLAUDIUS, son of C. Marcellus and Octavia, sister to Octavianus, was born about 43 B.C. Octavianus adopted him and made him pontifex and senator with praetorian rank. In 25 he married Julia, daughter of Octavianus, and was looked on as his future successor. Yet in a dangerous illness Augustus gave his signet to Agrippa. Differences arising, Agrippa was made proconsul of Syria to separate the rivals. In 23 Marcellus, while curule zedile, fell ill and died at Baia3. Livia was suspected of having poisoned him to get the empire for her sou Tiberius. Great hopes had been built on the youth, and he was celebrated by many writers, especially by Virgil, in a famous passage in JEn. vi. MAtxCELLUS L, pope, succeeded Marcellinus, after a considerable interval, most probably iu May 307 ; under Maxeutius he was banished from Rome in 309 on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances be had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Eusebius. MARCELLUS II. , Marcellus Cervini, cardinal of Santa Croce, a native of the Mark of Ancona, was elected pope in the room of Julius III. on April 9, 1555, but his feeble constitution succumbed to the fatigues of the conclave, the exhausting ceremonies connected with his accession, and the anxieties arising from his high office, on the twenty-first day after his election. He had a high reputation for integrity, tact, and ability. His successor was Paul IV. MARCH, the third month of our modern year, contains thirty-one days. As in the Roman year so in the English ecclesiastical calendar used till 1752 this was the first month, and the legal year commenced on the 25th of March. The Romans called this month Martins, from the god Mars ; and it received the name Illyd Monath, i.e., loud or stormy month, from the Anglo-Saxons. In France March was also generally reckoned the first month of the year until 1564, when, by an edict of Charles IX., January was decreed to be thenceforth the first month. Scotland followed the example of France in 1599 ; but in England the change did not take place before 1752. There is an old saying, common to both England and Scotland, which represents March as borrowing three days from April; thus the last three days of March are called the &quot;borrowing&quot; or the &quot;borrowed days.&quot; In the Complaynt of Scotland we find &quot; the borial blastis of the thre borouing dais of Marche lied chaisset the fragrant flureise of evyrie fruit- tree far athourt the feildis.&quot; An ancient popular rhyme sxys : March borrowit from Averill Three days, and they were ill ; &quot; aul then there is another rhyme which graphically characterizes those three &quot; ill &quot; days in detail : &quot; The first, it sail be wind and wcet, The next, it sail be snaw and sleet ; The third, it sail be sic a freeze, Sail gar the birds stick to the trees.&quot; There is an old proverb, &quot; A bushel of March dust is wirth a king s ransom.&quot; Dry weather in March is gene rally favourable to the production of grain on clay lands ; and hence a &quot; dusty March&quot; portended a plenteous season ; while, on the contrary, a &quot; wet March &quot; frequently proved d&quot;structive of both wheat and rye. The principal fixed days now observed and noted iu the course of this month are the following : March 1st, St David; March 12th, St Gregory ; March 17th, St Patrick; and March 25th, Lady Day, one of the established quarter- days in England. MARCHE, a former province of central France, was bounded on the N. by Berri, on the N. E. by Bourbonnais, on the E. by Auvergue, on the S. by Limousin, and on the W. by Angoumois and Poitou, embracing the greater part of the modern department of Creuse, a considerable portion of Haute-Vieune, and fragments of Charente and Indre. It derived its name from the circumstance of its being the &quot;mark&quot; or boundary between Poitou and Berri; it is sometimes referred to as Marche Limousine. It is first mentioned in history as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th century, when the countship of Marche was committed by Duke William III. of Aquitania to Boso L, count of Limoges and Charroux. MARCHENA, a town of Spain, in the province of Seville, lies in a sandy valley, not far from the Corbones, a tributary of the Guadalquivir, about 30 miles east- south-east from Seville. It is a station on the Jine by which Seville and Utrera are connected with Osuna and the Cordova-Malaga line. Formerly it was surrounded with walls and towers, of which some traces still remain. Among the principal buildings is the palace of the dukes of Arcos (descendants of Ponce de Leon), within the en closure of which is an ancient Moorish building, now the church of Santa Maria de la Mota, with a tower of con siderable architectural merit. The ancient parish church of San Juan, rebuilt in 1490, has five naves. At the eastern end of the town is a sulphur spring which is a place of considerable resort for the cure of cutaneous diseases. The manufactures of the place are unimportant ; there is some trade in the wheat, barley, olives, oil, and wine pro duced in the neighbourhood. The population in 1877 was 13,768. Marchena (the Castra Gemina of Pliny?) was taken from the Moors by St Ferdinand in 1240, and was presented to Ponce de Leon by Ferdinand IV. in 1309. MARCIAN (MARCIANUS), emperor of the East from 450 to 457, was born in a private station of life in Illyria or Thrace, about the year 391, and at an early age entered the army, where after a considerable term of obscurity he attracted the attention of Ardaburius and subsequently of Aspar, being made military secretary and a captain in the guards. He accompanied Aspar in the ill-fated expedition against Genseric, by whom he was taken prisoner, but soon released. In 450, having in the meantime become tribune and senator, he went through the form of marriage with Pulcheria, the sister and successor of Theodosius II., and was crowned on August 25. In 451 he assembled the oecumenical council of Chalcedon, at which the proceed ings of the &quot; robber-synod &quot; of Ephesus were annulled, and the Eutycliian heresy condemned, a service to ortho doxy which has greatly endeared his memory to the minds of Catholic historians. In 452 his generals Ardaburius and Maximin respectively gained victories of some import ance over the Arabs near Damascus and over the Blemmyes who had invaded the Thebuid; and after the death of Attila (453) he set about the task of repopulating the extensive tracts which had been devastated by the Huns. He main tained the peace of his dominions during the troubles which convulsed the Western empire in 455 ; and in 456 his arms were free to repress disturbances in Lazica which had been fomented by the Armenians and Persians. He died in 457, and was succeeded by Leo I. MARCION AND THE MARCIONITE CHURCHES. In the period between 130 and 180 A.D. the varied and compli cated Christian fellowships in the Roman empire crystallized into close and mutually exclusive societies churches with