l 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