Gaius Marius
It remains unclear who this Pseudo-Marius was. According to Valerius Maximus, he was a former eye doctor called Herophilus, while Livy said he was a low born individual named Chamates. Finally, Appian called him Amatius or simply Pseudo-Marius. Modern scholarly opinion has largely followed the imperial historians' opinion, and declared that Pseudo-Marius was not the grandson of Gaius Marius, with suggestions including a runaway slave, or a freedman, or an illegitimate son of Gaius Marius the Younger. However, the only extant eyewitness, Cicero, has provided two very different accounts a year apart. In the first account, in the letter to Atticus in 45 BC, he casts no doubt on the identity of the so-called Marius - he explicitly names him as Gaius Marius, son of Gaius and grandson of Gaius. Then, in April 44 BC, when he hears of Pseudo-Marius' activities in Rome, he still refers to him as Marius, and on hearing of his death on April 13, explicitly names him the grandson of Lucius Licinius Crassus - the father-in-law of Gaius Marius the Younger.