Name: Marius
Date of Birth: Roman Empire after 49 B.C.E.
Place of Birth: The Roman Gallic City of Massilia
Date Brought into Darkness: Roman Empire after 49 B.C.E. at the age of 40, on the night of the great Feast of Samhain
Place Brought into Darkness: In the woods outside of his home city
Maker: God of the Grove
Chronicled Appearances: The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, Tale of the Body Thief, The Vampire Armand, Pandora
Fledglings: Pandora, Armand, Benji, and Sybelle
Description: With blue eyes and white-blond hair, Marius wears red velvet, no matter what the era. Marius seems to depict a pure image of human love. Gentle, vital, and noble, he eminates a god-like power, although he is more human than most vampires. Marius does have the ability to perform supernatural feats like levitation and mental telepathy, but he prefers to do things the human way. To him, human gestures are more elegant and require less energy. "There is wisdom in the flesh," he claims (The Vampire Lestat, p. 379). His goal is to not transcend human emotions but, rather, to refine and understand them. He also seems connected to everything around him - thus being the antithesis of Armand, who is connected to nothing. Marius is the keeper of Those Who Must Be Kept until Akasha is awakened in 1985.
Lestat first hears of Marius when Armand explains how he became a vampire. When Armand first knew him in the 15th century, Marius had been a Venecian nobleman and artist. He chose to work among mortals, have mortal apprentices, and make religious art. It was Marius who bought Armand from a brothel, and fell in love with him. He then painted The Temptation of Amadeo in an attempt to capture on campus Armand's qualities forever, and he made Armand a vampire so that he could join with another kindred soul. Marius desired their bond to be permanent, but their happiness became short-lived when, only 6 months later, Santino's coven put a torch to Marius and captured Armand. Marius managed to escape to his secret shrine in the mountains of northern Italy, where he healed himself by drinking the healing blood of Those Who Must Be Kept. He did not see Armand again until 1985 in Sonoma, although he had been aware that Armand was suffering through three centuries of loneliness.*
*Ramsland, Katherine. The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. Ballantine: New York. 1995. Pages 280-281.
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