caused the seat of government to be transferred to Khabarovsk.
Since the loss (1905) of Port Arthur to the Japanese, Vladivostok
on Peter the Great Bay has again become the chief naval station
of Russia on the Pacific. The trade is in the hands of the Chinese,
who export stags’ horns, seaweed and mushrooms, and of the
Germans, who import groceries and spirits.
The total population was 209,516 in 1897, of whom 57.7% were Russians, the others being Tunguses, Golds, Orochons, Lamuts, Chuvantses, Chukchis, Koryaks, Ghilyaks and Kamchadales. Their chief occupations are hunting and fishing; the Russians carry on agriculture and trade in furs. Active measures were taken in 1883–1897 for increasing the Russian population in the South Usuri district, the result being that over 29,000 immigrants, chiefly Little Russian peasants, settled there; while Cossacks from the Don and Orenburg came to settle among the Usuri Cossacks. Agriculture is gradually developing in the South Usuri region. Gold-mining has been started on the Amguñ, a tributary of the Amur. Coal is found near Vladivostok, as well as in Kamchatka. Roads exist only in the South Usuri district. A railway runs from Vladivostok to Nikolsk (69 m.), and thence to Khabarovsk along the right bank of the Usuri (412 m.). At Nikolsk the Manchurian railway begins. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
MARITIME TERRITORY, a term used in international law
to denote coastal waters which are not Territorial Waters though
in immediate contact with the sea. In the case of Territorial Waters
(q.v.) the dominion of the adjacent state is subject to
a limitation. Dominion over maritime territory is not subject
to any limitation. Thus any strait through which the right of
passage of foreign vessels can be forbidden (as the Solent or
the Inland Sea of Japan), or bays so land-locked that they cannot
be held to form part of any ocean-highway, are maritime territory.
MARIUPOL, a seaport of Russia, on the north shore of the
Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Kalmius, in the government
of Ekaterinoslav, 67 m. W. of Taganrog. Pop. (1900), 52,770,
including the inhabitants of two suburbs, Mariinsk and Kara-su.
The place is said to have been inhabited in remote times under
the name of Adamakha; the present town was built only in
1779, by Greek emigrants from the Crimea. Its inhabitants
are engaged in agriculture, cattle-breeding, fishing, and the
manufacture of leather, agricultural implements, iron goods
and bricks. In export trade Mariupol ranks next to Taganrog
among the ports of the Sea of Azov; but its harbour is open
to the south-east and shallow, though it is being gradually
deepened by systematic dredging. The principal articles of
export are cereals, with some oilcake, phosphate and coal; but
the total value is only about £2,000,000 annually. The imports
do not reach a quarter of a million sterling.
MARIUS OF AVENCHES (or Aventicum) (d. 593 or 594),
chronicler and ecclesiastic, was born in the neighbourhood of
Autun probably in 530, and became bishop of Avenches about
573. In addition to being a good bishop, Marius was a clever
goldsmith; he was present at the council of Mâcon in 585, and
transferred the seat of his bishopric from Avenches to Lausanne.
He died on the 31st of December 593 or 594. As a continuation
of the Chronicon of Prosper of Aquitaine, Marius wrote a short
Chronicon dealing with the period from 455 to 581; and although
he borrowed from various sources his work has some importance
for the history of Burgundy. Regarding himself and his land
as still under the authority of the Roman empire, he dates his
Chronicon according to the years of the Roman consuls and of
the East Roman emperors.
The only extant manuscript of the Chronicon is in the British Museum. Among several editions may be mentioned the one in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, chronica minora, Band II. (1893), with introduction by T. Mommsen. See also W. Arndt, Bischof Marius von Aventicum (Leipzig, 1875); and W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Bd. I. (1904).
MARIUS, GAIUS (155–86 B.C.), Roman general, of plebeian
descent, the son of a small farmer of Cereatae (mod. Casamare,
“home of Marius”) near Arpinum. He served first in Spain
under the great Scipio Africanus, and rose from the ranks to
be an officer. In 119 as tribune he proposed a law intended
to limit the influence of the nobles at elections. This brought
him into conflict with the aristocratic party, who prevented
him from obtaining the aedileship. When about forty years
of age he married a lady of patrician rank, Julia, the aunt of
Julius Caesar. This gave him a new social status, and being
at the same time a popular favourite and a brave, energetic
soldier, he was in 115 elected praetor, in which capacity he
effected the subjugation of the troublesome province of Further
Spain. In the war with Jugurtha (109–106) he came to the
front as lieutenant of the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus
Numidicus. When he had already achieved some important
successes over Jugurtha (q.v.), in 107 he was elected consul for
the first time (an almost unheard-of honour for a “new man”),
his popularity with the army and people being sufficient to
bear down all opposition. In the following year, in conjunction
with Sulla, he brought the war to a triumphant issue, and passed
two years in his province of Numidia, which he thoroughly
subdued and annexed. The surrender of the person of Jugurtha
to Sulla gave rise to the view that he, not Marius, had really
ended the war, and so laid the foundation of the subsequent
enmity between the two leaders.
By this time Marius was generally recognized as the ablest general of the day, and was appointed to the chief command against the Cimbri and Teutones. Two Roman armies had been destroyed near the Lake of Geneva, and it seemed as if a repetition of the disaster of the Allia and the capture of Rome itself might not be impossible. Marius, out of unpromising materials and a demoralized soldiery, organized a well-disciplined army, with which he inflicted on the invaders two decisive defeats, the first in 102 at Aquae Sextiae (Aix), 18 m. north of Marseilles, and the second in the following year on the Raudian plain near Vercellae (Vercelli), about midway between Turin and Milan. For some centuries afterwards Rome remained unmolested by northern barbarians. In 101 Marius was elected consul a fifth time (previously in 107, 104, 103, 102), hailed as the “saviour of his country,” and honoured with a triumph of unprecedented splendour.
The glorious part of his career was now over. Though a very able soldier, he was without the intellectual culture which the Gracchi, his political ancestors, possessed. As a politician he on the whole failed, though he retained the confidence of the popular party almost to the last. But he unfortunately associated himself with the demagogues Saturninus (q.v.) and Glaucia, in order to secure the consulship for the sixth time (100). The manner in which he turned against his former associates (although he probably had no choice in the matter) alienated the sympathies of the plebs; and Marius, feeling that his only chance of rehabilitation lay in war, left Rome for Asia, where he endeavoured to provoke Mithradates to hostilities. On his return he served as legate in the Social War (90), and defeated the Marsi on two occasions. In 88 war broke out with Mithradates, and Sulla was appointed by the senate to the chief command, which was eagerly desired by Marius. This led to a rupture. With the assistance of the tribune Sulpicius Rufus, Marius succeeded in getting the command transferred to himself. Sulla marched upon Rome and defeated Marius, who fled to the marshes of Minturnae in Latium. He was discovered and taken prisoner; and the local magistrates, in accordance with Sulla’s proclamation, resolved to put him to death. The Gallic trooper sent to strike off the old man’s head quailed, it is said, before the fire of his eyes, and fled exclaiming, “I cannot kill Gaius Marius.” The inhabitants out of compassion then allowed Marius to depart, and put him on board a ship which conveyed him to Carthage. When forbidden to land, he told the messenger to inform the governor that he had seen Marius sitting as a fugitive among the ruins of Carthage. Having been joined by his son, he took refuge in the island of Cercina. Meantime, Sulla having left Italy for the Mithradatic war, Cinna’s sudden and violent revolution put the senate at the mercy of the popular leaders, and Marius greedily caught at the opportunity of a bloody vengeance, which became in fact a reign of terror in which senators and nobles were slaughtered wholesale. He had himself elected consul for the seventh time, in fulfilment of a prophecy given to him in early manhood. Less than three weeks afterwards he died of fever, on the 13th of January 86.
