page_title: Marcus Marius (quaestor)
section_title: Mission to the East
hierarchical_section_title: Marcus Marius (quaestor) / Mission to the East
caption_attribution_description: English: Mithradates_VI_of_Pontos
context_page_description: Marcus Marius was a quaestor of the Roman Republic in 76 BC and proquaestor under Quintus Sertorius's government in exile in Spain. Marius was sent by Sertorius to Mithradates of Pontus as an advisor and military commander in the Third Mithridatic War. He is named as or more likely confused with a Varius in Appian.
context_section_description: Sertorius sent Marcus Marius as a military advisor and his representative to Mithradates during the protracted negotiations between the two over an alliance. By 75 BC, Mithradates offered to recognize Sertorius as head of the Roman state, and sent aid in the form of 3,000 talents (72 million sesterces) and a fleet of 40 ships; in return, he asked that Sertorius recognize his claims in Anatolia. Sertorius reserved in his own name Rome's claim to Asia, already organized as a province and acquired — he insisted — legitimately, but he asserted no rights over Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Galatia; these, he said, "had nothing to do with the Romans." 
  Marius went East with troops. Bearing the fasces and axes, he entered at least two Asian cities and granted them and a number of others independent status and tax exemptions on behalf of the Sertorian government; in effect, he assumed possession of Asia with proconsular powers. His authority was held pro praetore, that is, under the auspices of Sertorius and without holding his own imperium. Plutarch calls him a stratêgos (στρατηγός), "general," rather than a praetor.
  In Plutarch's view, the province welcomed the new regime, because it had been oppressed by Rome's tax collectors and contractors (publicani) and by the "rapacity and insolence" of the soldiers stationed there. Marius's policy is consistent with that of Sertorius in cultivating the goodwill of the provincials under his government.
  Mithradates permitted Marius to assert Roman primacy as agreed. The treaty with the Pontic king was concluded in the summer of 74, in anticipation of what would become the Third Mithridatic War in the spring of 73.
  Sertorius and M. Marius were not the only Romans who preferred an alliance to a war with Mithradates. Two former officers of the notorious Fimbria, Lucius Magius and Lucius Fannius, joined the Pontic king, and both Appuleius Decianus and the senator Attidius were fixtures  of some longevity at the Pontic court. None of these men was a political moderate, and all had strong ties to vehement or even extremist populares.
caption: Coin of Mithradates VI
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