Numa Marcius
1. The son of Marcus, is described in the legend of Numa Pompilius as the most intimate friend of that king. Marcius urged Numa to accept the Roman throne, accompanied hint from his Sabine country to Rome, there became a member of the senate, and was chosen by his royal friend to be the first Pontifex Maximus, and the depository of all his religious and ecclesiastical enactments. It is related that Marcius aspired to the kingly dignity on the death of Pompilius, and that he starved himself to death on the election of Tullus Hostilius. (Plut. Num. 5, 6, 21; Liv. 1.20.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.