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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ancient coin hunter, post: 3872267, member: 87200&quot;]From the <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Tyranni_XXX*.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Tyranni_XXX*.html" rel="nofollow">Historia Augusta</a> and in the public domain. Almost certainly Marius reigned for a period of two to three months according to modern historians, and as one can tell from the incorrect chronology, this source is not to be trusted:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>&quot;After Victorinus, Lollianus and Postumus were slain, Marius, formerly a worker in iron, so it is said, held the imperial power, but only for three days. He who held the office as a substitute for six hours at midday was ridiculed by Cicero in the jest, &quot;We have had a consul so stern and severe that during his term of office no one has breakfasted, no one has dined, and no one has slept,&quot; so the same, it would seem, can be said of Marius, who on the first day was made emperor, on the second seemed to rule, and on the third was slain.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Because, forsooth, he was a worker in iron.&nbsp; But we have already said too much about this man, concerning whom it will be sufficient to add that there was no one whose hands were stronger, for either striking or thrusting, since he seemed to have not veins in his fingers, but sinews.&nbsp; For he is said to have thrust back on-coming wagons by means of his forefinger and with a single finger to have struck the strongest men so hard that they felt as much pain as though hit by a blow from wood or blunted iron; and he crushed many objects by the mere pressure of two of his fingers.&nbsp; He was slain by a soldier whom, because he had once been a worker in his smithy, he had treated with scorn either when he commanded troops or after he had taken the imperial power.&nbsp; His slayer is said to have added the words, &quot;This is a sword which you yourself have forged.&quot;</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i> His first public harangue, it is said, was as follows: &quot;I know well, fellow-soldiers, that I can be taunted with my former trade, of which all of you are my witnesses.&nbsp; However, let anyone say what he wishes. As for me, may I always labour with steel rather than ruin myself with wine and garlands and harlots and gluttony, as does Gallienus, unworthy of his father and the noble rank of his house.&nbsp; Let men taunt me with working with steel as long as foreign nations shall know from their losses that I have handled the steel.&nbsp; In short, I will strive to the utmost that all Alamannia and Germany and the nations round about shall deem the Roman people a steel-clad folk and that it shall be most of all the steel that they fear in us.&nbsp; But as for you, I wish you to rest assured that you have chosen as emperor one who will never know how to deal with aught but the steel.&nbsp; And this I say because I know that no charge can be brought against me by that pestiferous profligate save this, that I have been a forger of swords and armour.&quot;</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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