GREAT HISTORY PAINTINGS: MARIUS MEDITATING ON THE RUINS OF CARTHAGE (1807)

Seven times consul of Rome, Marius was one of the greatest figures in Roman history -- and one of the most controversial. His career exemplified the growing chaos of the Roman class war, with Marius leading an increasingly unhinged Populist movement that reacted to and provoked an increasingly oppressive and parasitical Patrician party. 

Near the end of his career, he was forced to flee Rome by his patrician rival Sulla, and hit rock bottom as a fugitive outcast. This painting by the French artist Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret shows the moment when Marius (aged 70), having escaped from Italy, sits on the ruins of the city of Carthage, a mighty city that had been destroyed a few decades earlier by Roman armies. 

Ordered by the Roman Governor of Africa to leave the territory, Marius sent the famous reply, "Tell the Praetor that you have seen C. Marius a fugitive sitting on the ruins of Carthage."

Like the comment, the painting identifies the career of Marius with that of the once great city of Carthage. 

But unlike Carthage, which never rose again, Marius was to enjoy a brief taste of absolute power again. With Sulla in the East fighting against King Mithridates of Pontus, the Populists were once more able to assert themselves and seize control of Rome, where Marius presided over another bloodbath, dying the next year of pleurisy. 

Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret, the painter, was a student of the classicist Jacques-Louis David. The painting is now kept in  the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio.