MARCIAN (c. 390-457), emperor of the East (450-457), was born in Thrace or Illyria, and spent his early life as an obscure soldier. He subsequently served for nineteen years under Ardaburius and Aspar, and took part in the wars against the Persians and Vandals. Through the influence of these generals he became a captain of the guards, and was later raised to the rank of tribune and senator. On the death of Theodosius II. he was chosen as consort by the latter's sister and successor, Pulcheria, and called upon to govern an empire greatly humbled and impoverished by the ravages of the Huns. Marcian repudiated the payment of tribute to Attila; he reformed the finances, checked extravagance, and repeopled the devastated districts. He repelled attacks upon Syria and Egypt (452), and quelled disturbances on the Armenian frontier (456). The other notable event of his reign is the Council of Chalcedon (451), in which Marcian endeavoured to mediate between the rival schools of theology. See Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (ed. Bury, London, 1896), iii. 384, iv. 444-445; J. Bury, _The Later Roman Empire_ (London, 1889), i. 135-136. MARCIANUS (c. A.D. 400), Greek geographer, was born at Heraclea in Pontus. Two of his works have been preserved in a more or less mutilated condition. In the first, the _Periplus of the Outer Sea_, in two books, in which he proposed to give a complete description of the coasts of the eastern and western oceans, his chief authority is Ptolemy; the distances from one point to another are given in stades, with the object of rendering the work easier for the ordinary student. In this he follows Protagoras, who, according to Photius (cod. 188), wrote a sketch of geography in six books. The work contains nothing that cannot be learned from Ptolemy, whom he follows in calling the promontory of the Novantae (_Mull of Galloway_) the most northern point of Britain. Improving on Ptolemy, he makes the island of Taprobane (_Ceylon_) twenty times as large as it is in reality. The second, the _Periplus of the Inner Sea_ (the Mediterranean), is a meagre epitome of a similar work by Menippus of Pergamum, who lived during the times of Augustus and Tiberius. It contains a description of the southern coast of the Euxine from the Thracian Bosporus to the river Iris in Pontus. A few fragments remain of an epitome by Marcianus of the eleven books of the _Geographumena_ of Artemidorus of Ephesus. See J. Hudson, _Geographiae veteris scriptores graeci minores_, vol. i. (1698), with Dodwell's dissertation; C. W. Müller, _Geographici graeci minores_, vol. i. pp. cxxix., 515-573; E. Miller, _Périple de Marcien d'Héraclée_ (1839); S. F. G. Hoffmann, _Marciani Periplus_ (1841); E. H. Bunbury, _Hist. of Ancient Geography_ (1879), ii. 660; A. Forbiger, _Handbuch der alten Geographie_, vol. i. (1842).