Marius de Romanus

Marius de Romanus is a fictional character in The Vampire Chronicles novels written by Anne Rice. He is the primary character in the novel Blood and Gold.

Fictional biography

Marius de Romanus was born in 30 BC in Rome. He was an illegitimate child of a Roman patrician and a Celtic slave from the land of Gaul. In his mortal years, he travelled the Empire and much of the known world compiling a travelogue/history of the world. Contrary to his appearance in the movie Queen of the Damned (in which he was portrayed by Vincent Perez), he has white-blonde hair curled at the shoulders and cobalt blue eyes. Due to his age, his skin is often described as being as pale and hard as white marble; to seem "normal" to mortals, he often applies salves and oils to his skin as stated in Blood and Gold.

When he was approximately 40 years old, he was abducted by druids who followed the religion of the Gods of the Groves. Marius was taken to the Grove where he was made into a vampire by the God of the Grove just before the yearly Feast of Samhain. He was instructed by the god to go and try, by any means possible, to find out why vampires all over the world (and the god himself) had been burned or destroyed, even though they had not been exposed to fire or the sun. Marius traveled to Egypt and became the caretaker of the original two vampires, Akasha and Enkil, Those Who Must Be Kept.

Marius has lived in many different places in his two thousand years of life. He lived in Antioch with Pandora for two centuries after becoming the caretaker of Those Who Must Be Kept. After separating from Pandora, he moved to Rome where he had the silent companionship of Avicus and Mael. He went into a coma-like sleep for "far more than half a century" before he was awakened by Avicus and Mael and the three set sail for Constantinople. It was there he came to know Zenobia. They lived there for a very short while before Marius went off on his own and visited many places while drifting through time before going into the ground again in the year 1200 AD.

He awoke again in 1482 and visited Rome and Florence briefly before settling in Venice as a rich, eccentric gentleman who painted for his own pleasure. Here, he opened a home for neglected and abused boys who had talent, fell in love with the Venetian courtesan Bianca Solderini, found the mortal Armand. In 1499, the Children of Darkness (led by Santino) destroyed his house, severely injured Marius, and took Armand (whom he had made a vampire by this time). After the ordeal, Marius and Bianca (who helped him in his recovery and whom he made a vampire to aid him), lived very briefly in many northern Europe towns before they settled for a while in Dresden. Here Marius found Pandora and begged her in vain to leave her companion, Arjun, and return to him. It was also here that Bianca left him after she heard Marius tell Pandora he would send her away if Pandora would be with him again. The last known places where Marius lived and kept the divine vampire parents was on an island in the Aegean Sea; in a large, bustling city in the early part of the 1900s; and in an unspecified, icy region of the far north in a secluded, underground dwelling. After the events of The Queen of the Damned (after living on the 'Night Island' in Miami), it is revealed in the novel Merrick, that Marius and Pandora had reunited in New Orleans. After New Orleans, in the novel Blood and Gold, Marius is living in a modern house in San Francisco with Daniel Molloy.

Personality and powers

Marius is an exceptionally sagacious, wise and optimistic vampire. He is one of the oldest known to still survive, a true Child of the Millennia. Because he has drunk so often from the vampire queen Akasha from whom the vampiric life fount originated, he is immensely powerful and possesses a number of advanced powers: with his mind, he can ignite objects (pyrokinesis-the "Fire Gift"), has the ability to fly (the "Cloud Gift"), very strong telekinesis, and can move with such speed that only other powerful blood drinkers are able to track his movements. He can read minds with ease and can block his own mind from being read by using the "Mind Gift". It is also implied in Blood and Gold that he has the ability to hypnotize/put mortals under his thrall (the "Spell Gift"). Another ability he possesses is the "Killing Gift" (killing by using telekinetic pressure/force). He has a great passion for the arts and is a master painter and great scholar. He loves to read and to write. Marius' interests include all manner of intellectual and artistic pursuits. He is bisexual, having had both male (e.g., Armand, Botticelli, Avicus) and female (e.g., Pandora, Akasha, Zenobia, Bianca) lovers.

Fledglings

Marius's fledglings include (in chronological order): Pandora, Armand, Bianca Solderini, Sybelle and Benji. The last two were made for Armand. The movie Queen of the Damned stated that Marius made Lestat into a vampire, but it was Magnus that created Lestat in the novel The Vampire Lestat.

Other relationships

Marius claims to have loved many over the course of his long life. His greatest loves as he claims them are: Pandora, Armand, Akasha, Bianca Solderini, Lestat, Zenobia and Botticelli. He has, however, lost both of his two greatest loves, Pandora and Armand. Pandora due to his temper and pride, and Armand's due to the drastic religion-driven actions of a Roman vampire, Santino. Marius does say however, that he sees Pandora and Armand "often".

Lestat the Musical

In the musical Lestat: The Musical, Marius was portrayed by Michael Genet.