On his statue there, according to Poseidonius, these verses are written: 

    “This monument, O stranger, doth enshrine
    Marcellus, of the famous Claudian line,
    Who seven times was consul, and in fight
    His country’s foes o’erthrew and put to flight.”

For the writer of this epitaph counted his two proconsulates as well as his five consulates.  His family remained one of the chief in Rome down to the time of Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus, who was the son of Octavia, Augustus’s sister, and Caius Marcellus.  He died in the office of aedile while yet a bridegroom, having just married Augustus’s daughter Julia.  In honour of his memory his mother Octavia established a library, and Augustus built a theatre, both of which bore his name.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 12:  Il. xiv. 86.]

[Footnote 13:  Civica corona.  The civic crown was made of oak leaves, and was given only to him who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war.]

[Footnote 14:  Interreges were appointed when there were no consuls, to hold comitia for the election of new ones.]

[Footnote 15:  Vessels of five banks of oars.]

[Footnote 16:  Hexapylon, the place with six gates.]

THE COMPARISON OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS.

I. The particulars which we thought worth extracting from the histories of Pelopidas and Marcellus are related above.  Their dispositions and habits were so nearly identical (for both were brave, laborious, and high-spirited) that the only point in which they differ appears to be that Marcellus put the inhabitants of several captured cities to the sword, whereas Epameinondas and Pelopidas never slew any one after they had conquered him, nor enslaved any captured city; indeed, had they been alive, it is said that the Thebans never would have so treated the town of Orchomenus.  As to their exploits, that of Marcellus against the Gauls was great and wonderful, when he drove before him with his little band of horsemen so great a multitude of horse and foot together, the like of which one cannot easily find to have been done by any other general, and the killing of the chief of the enemy.  The same thing was attempted by Pelopidas, but the despot was too quick for him, and he perished without succeeding in his effort.  Yet with these we may compare his deeds at Leuktra and Tegyra, the most important and glorious of all his feats of arms, while we have no exploit of Marcellus which corresponds to his management of the ambuscade by which he brought back the exiled popular party to Thebes, and destroyed the despots.  Indeed, of all deeds performed by secrecy and stratagem, this takes the van.  Hannibal, no doubt, was a terrible enemy to Rome, as were the Lacedaemonians to Thebes; yet it is an established fact that at Tegyra and at Leuktra they gave way before