The Vampire Chronicles Wiki
Advertisement
This article is about Marius de Romanus from the novel. You may be looking for Marius de Romanus from the AMC adaptation.

Marius de Romanus is a powerful vampire as well as a Child of the Millennia, being over 2,000 years old.

Physical Appearance[]

Marius has white blond hair that comes down to his shoulders and breaks into small, lustrous curls with iridescent blue eyes lashed with gold. He is quite tall and splendid to look at. Most of the time he is seen wearing rich, red velvet coats.

Personality[]

Marius is an exceptionally sagacious, wise and optimistic vampire. He is one of the oldest known to still survive, a true Child of the Millennia. He has a great passion for the arts, is a master painter and great scholar. He loves to read and to write. Marius's interests include all manner of intellectual and artistic pursuits.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Marius was a citizen of the Roman Gallic city of Massilia, born in 30 B.C. He was the illegitimate child of a Keltic woman from the land of Gaul and a wealthy Roman.

Marius was a scholar and chronicler by the age of twenty, traveling quite a lot and visiting all the great European cities. During this time when he was twenty-five, he met a young ten year old girl by the name of Lydia. Marius did not want to marry at all, and he knew she was too young to marry, so he wished to become engaged to her so he would have several years of unmarried freedom left. He was denied by her father because he knew this was the reason.

At the age of forty, Marius was abducted by Druids to become the replacement for their dying God of the Grove. Mael, a Druid Priest, educates and prepares Marius to be their perfect God. During the night of the great Feast of Samhain, Marius is taken to an oak grove where the God of the Grove who is badly burnt when Akasha and Enkil were put into the sun, tells Marius lessons of the vampires. He urges Marius to escape the Druids and go to Egypt to find the answer as to why vampires were burnt or destroyed the world over. The God of the Grove (whose name is revealed to be Teskhamen in Prince Lestat) makes Marius a vampire, exchanging blood with Marius several times to ensure his strength.

Life As a Vampire[]

Marius escaped the Druids, and later found Akasha and Enkil in their inanimate state. He removes them from their keeper's clutches with Akasha's urging and consent, taking them to Antioch. There, he finds his love, Lydia, now known as Pandora, and makes her into a vampire when her life is threatened. Pandora enchanted and dazzled Marius and they live together for 200 years in Antioch, bringing flowers and singing hymns to Enkil and Akasha. Over the years, Marius and Pandora frequently quarreled which finally leads them to separate.

Much later, Marius moves from Antioch and becomes enamored with the famous painter, Botticelli. He is most tempted to give him the Dark Gift but his logic wins over. During this time, he opens his home to the public and paints the walls of his house. Much to Marius's surprise, he comes across Mael, who is now a vampire, and Mael's maker, Avicus. Marius feels much hatred towards Mael, for it was Mael's doings that Marius was now a vampire. Marius befriends Avicus, and the three live together in the same area without disturbing one another, until Mael discovers and demands to see Akasha and Enkil. At one point, Marius's home is destroyed. He goes to the temple of Akasha and Enkil and falls into a deep sleep for many, many years, with Mael and Avicus watching over him. He finally awakens due to Akasha's telepathic urgings once again, and he leaves with Mael and Avicus elsewhere. The hostility between Mael and Marius seemed to have dispersed. They live together for an amount of years when they finally part ways; Marius believing it safer and wiser if he was left alone with the knowledge of Those Who Must Be Kept's whereabouts. Moving to Venice in the 15th century, he resides in his home as a great painter and befriends the mortal Bianca. For the first time, he also meets a member of the Talamasca, Raymond Gallant. He questions Raymond on whether he has knowledge on Pandora's whereabouts, but not much is known.

During his time in Venice, Marius buys a mortal child, Andrei, whom he names Amadeo (later known as Armand). To Marius, Amadeo was a wounded boy whose blend of sadness and simplicity was too great to resist. He fell madly in love with him, the love rivaling that of the love he had for Pandora. Marius reluctantly makes Amadeo a vampire when Amadeo is poisoned and nearly dies. Marius and Amadeo's happiness is short-lived when Santino's coven, who believed themselves to be followers of Satan, capture Amadeo and set Marius and his home aflame, punishing Marius for living among mortals. Marius is badly injured to the point of near death and turns to Bianca for help.  With Bianca's blessing, Marius makes her a vampire. They manage to escape to Marius's secret shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept in the mountains of northern Italy where Marius spends centuries drinking from Akasha to restore his physical-self.

During Marius and Bianca's time together, Marius sees Amadeo, who has since been renamed by Santino's coven as Armand, but finds him much changed. Armand is now the leader of a Parisian coven and is no longer as innocent as when Marius last saw him.

Marius and Bianca move the shrine of Akasha and Enkil to Dresden. Unknown to Bianca, Marius's true purpose for moving to Dresden was he heard rumors of a woman who he believed to be Pandora to be there. In the late 1600s, he finds that it is indeed Pandora in the company of her fledgling, Arjun. Their meeting revitalizes the love Marius has for Pandora. Marius urgently requests that Pandora leave with him and to rid herself of Arjun as he is also willing to leave his companion Bianca, but Pandora adamantly refuses. Bianca overhears this and is distraught by how Marius was willing to leave her. In response, Bianca leaves Marius, who is left completely alone. Years later, Marius comes across a letter from Pandora left for him, telling him that despite her protests, she secretly wanted to leave Arjun and be with Marius again. In her letter she sets a time and location for them to meet and run away together soon after their last encounter. However, by then, it was well past the time she scheduled for them to meet.

Traveling the world, Marius hears the calling of a young vampire, Lestat de Lioncourt. He revives Lestat from his underground stupor, and takes him to his Greek island hideaway. Marius tells Lestat his version of the origins of the vampire race, of Akasha and Enkil, who sit as statues in a shrine on Marius's island. Marius is later forced to send Lestat away after Lestat boldly drinks from Akasha, stirring emotions from the ancient couple.

Marius moves Those Who Must Be Kept again, and is not heard of until 1984, when Akasha awakens and buries him in ice beneath his home, but not before he telepathically calls out to Lestat, warning him of the danger. Marius survives Akasha's slaughter of the immortals, and once again comes in contact with his beloved Pandora and Armand at Maharet's Sonoma compound as they prepare for their final encounter with Akasha. However, they go their separate ways after Akasha's death and Mekare is proclaimed the new Queen of the Damned.

After the events of Memnoch the Devil, Armand reappears with two young mortals, Sybelle and Benji. Knowing how much Armand loves these mortal children, Marius gives them the Dark Gift, much to their delight but doing so brings out Armand's anger.

In Blood and Gold, he tells his life's tale to Maharet's fledgling, Thorne. Thorne finds that Marius has taken Daniel Molloy under his wing, who has since lost much of his mind. The night after Marius finishes his tale, Thorne destroys Santino in revenge on Marius's behalf, disobeying Maharet's orders, spiting her for leaving him as her companion.

In the book Prince Lestat, Marius is part of the newly established Vampire governing group along with other ancient ones. Lestat asks Marius to turn his son Viktor into a vampire, to which he obliges. In Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis Marius is shown to be a vampire lawmaker and along with Lestat they negotiate with the Replimoids.

Image Gallery[]

Advertisement