of that which is uncertain:  and it is natural that they should; for before reason and education have enabled them to put a foundation and basement under external goods, they get and they heap them together, and are never able to fill the insatiate appetite of their soul.  Now Marius[145] died, having held for seventeen days his seventh consulship.  And immediately there were great rejoicings in Rome, and good hope that there was a release from a cruel tyranny; but in a few days men found that they had exchanged an old master for a young one who was in the fulness of his vigour; such cruelty and severity did the son of Marius exhibit in putting to death the noblest and best citizens.  He gained the reputation of a man of courage, and one who loved danger in his wars against his enemies, and was named a son of Mars:  but his acts speedily showed his real character, and he received instead the name of a son of Venus.  Finally, being shut up in Praeneste by Sulla, and having in vain tried all ways of saving his life, he killed himself when he saw that the city was captured and all escape was hopeless.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 51:  When Plutarch wrote, the system of naming persons among the Romans had undergone some changes, or at least the old fashion was not strictly observed, and this will explain his remark at the end of the chapter.  A Roman had usually three names, as Caius Julius Caesar.  The first name, which was called the Praenomen, denoted the individual:  the most common names of this class were Quintus, Caius, Marcus, Lucius, and so on.  The second name denoted the gens, and was called the Gentile name, as Cornelius, Julius, Licinius, Mucius, Sempronius, and so on.  The same gens often contained different families; thus there were Licinii Crassi, Licinii Luculli, and so on.  This third name was called the Cognomen, and was given to the founder of the family or to some member of the gens in respect of some personal peculiarity or other accidental circumstance, as Scipio, Cicero, Crassus, Lucullus, Gracchus.  A fourth name, or Agnomen, was sometimes added, as in the case of Publius Cornelius Scipio, the elder, who received the name of Africanus from his conquest of Africa.  This agnomen might be the third name, when there was no cognomen, as in the case of Lucius Mummius, who received the name of Achaicus because he overthrew the Achaean League in that war, of which the concluding event was the destruction of Corinth, which belonged to the League.  Poseidonius means that the praenomen (Quintus, Marcus, &c.) was more used in speaking of or to an individual; but in Plutarch’s time the cognomen or agnomen was most used.  We speak of the three Caesars, Vespasianus and his two sons Titus and Domitianus, yet the gentile name of all of them was Flavius.  The complete names of the first two were Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and of the third Titus Flavius Domitianus.

Women had usually one name, derived from their gens; thus all the women of the Cornelii, Julii, Licinii, were called Cornelia, Julia, Licinia; and if there were several daughters in a family, they were distinguished by the names First, Second, and so on.  If there were two daughters only, they were called respectively Major and Minor.  Sulla called one of his daughters Fausta. (See Cicero, Ad Div. viii. 7, Paula Valeria; and the note of P. Manutius.)]