678 



MARATHON MARBLE- 



liy the prosecutions of the authorities, and encouraged 

 by the increasing strength of his party. During the 

 existence of the legislative assembly, lie continued 

 his outrages, figured among the actors of the 10th of 

 August (see France), and in the assassinations of 

 September (1792). He was a member of the terrible 

 committee of public safety, then formed, although 

 without any official capacity, and signed the circular 

 to the departments, recommending a similar massacre 

 in each. Marat was chosen a member of the con- 

 vention ; and in spite of the contempt and abhorrence 

 with which he was received in that body, particularly 

 by the Girondists, who endeavoured, at first, to pre- 

 vent his taking his seat, and, afterwards, to effect his 

 expulsion, soon found encouragement to proceed with 

 his sanguinary denunciations. The ministers, general 

 Dumouriez, and the Girondists, whom lie contemptu- 

 ously called hommes d'etat, were the objects of his 

 attack. Being charged, in the convention, with 

 demanding in his journal 270,000 heads, he openly 

 avowed and boasted of that demand, and declared 

 that he should call for many more if those were not 

 yielded to him. During the long struggle of the 

 Mountain party and the Girondists, his conduct was 

 that of a maniac. The establishment of the revolu- 

 tionary tribunal, and of the committee for arresting 

 the suspected, was adopted on his motions. On the 

 approach of May 31 (see Jacobins), as president of 

 the Jacobin club, he signed an address instigating the 

 people to an insurrection, and to massacre all traitors. 

 Even the Mountain party denounced this measure, 

 and Marat was delivered over to the revolutionary 

 tribunal, which acquitted him ; the people received 

 him in triumph, covered him with civic wreaths, and 

 conducted him to the hall of the convention. July 

 13, 171)3, Iiis bloody career was closed by assassina- 

 tion. (See Cor day, Charlotte. ) Proclaimed the mar- 

 tyr of liberty, he received the honours of an apothe- 

 osis, and his remains were placed in the Pantheon. 

 It was not till some time after the dispersion of the 

 Jacobins, that the busts of this monstrous divinity 

 were broken, and his ashes removed, and then it was 

 as a royalist that he suffered this disgrace. 



MARATHON; a village of Greece, in Attica, 

 about fifteen miles N. E. of Athens, celebrated by 

 the victory gained over the Persians by Miltiades, 

 490 B. C. See Miltiades. 



MARATTAS. See Mahrattas. 



MARATTI, CARLO, painter and engraver, was 

 born at Camerino, in the marquisate of Ancona, in 

 1626, and while a child, amused himself with paint- 

 ing all sorts of figures drawn by himself on the walls 

 of his father's house. In his eleventh year, he went 

 to Rome, studied the works of Raphael, of the Car- 

 acci, and of Guido Reni, in the school of Sacchi, and 

 formed himself on their manner. His Madonnas 

 were particularly admired. Louis XIV. employed 

 him to paint his celebrated picture of Daphne. Cle- 

 ment IX., whose portrait he painted, appointed him 

 overseer of the Vatican gallery. He died at Rome 

 in 1713. We are much indebted to him for the pre- 

 servation of the works of Raphael, in the Vatican, 

 and of the Caracci in the Famese palace. He also 

 erected monuments to those masters in the church 

 delta Rotonda. As an artist, Maratti deserves the 

 title given him by Richardson, of the last painter of 

 the Roman school. His design was correct, and al- 

 though he was not a creative genius, he showed him- 

 self a successful imitator of his great predecessors. 

 His composition was good, his expression pleasing, 

 his touch judicious, and his colouring agreeable. He 

 was acquainted with history, architecture, and per- 

 spective, and used his knowledge skilfully in his 

 pictures. The good taste which prevails in all his 

 works is remarkable. His chief works are in Rome. 



lie also etched successfully, among other things, t!ie 

 life of Mary, in ten parts. Chiari, Berettoiii, and 

 Passori, were his pupils. 



MARBLE, in common language, is the naiiie 

 applied to all sorts of polished stones, employed in 

 the decoration of monuments and public edifices, or 

 in the construction of private houses; but among 

 the materials thus made use of, it is necessary to 

 distinguish the true marbles from those stones which 

 have no just title to such a designation. In giving 

 a short but universal character of marble, it may be 

 said, that it effervesces with dilute nitric acid, and is 

 capable of being scratched with floor, while it easily 

 marks gypsum. These properties will separate it, 

 at once, from the granites, porphyries, and silicious 

 pudding-stones, with which it has been confounded, 

 on one side, and from the gypseous alabaster on the 

 other. From the hard rocks having been formerly 

 included under the marbles, comes the adage, " hard 

 as marble." Marbles have been treated of, under 

 various divisions, by different writers. The most 

 frequent division has been that of two great sections 

 primitive marbles, which have a brilliant or shining 

 fracture, and secondary marbles, or those which are 

 possessed of a dull fracture. This classification has 

 grown out of the idea that the former class was 

 more anciently created an opinion which the deduc- 

 tions of geology, for the most part, sufficiently con- 

 firm, though occasionally we find a marble of a com- 

 pact and close texture, in old rocks, and, on the 

 other hand, those which are highly crystalline, in 

 very recent formations. Daubenton has founded a 

 classification of marbles upon the colours which they 

 present; those of a uniform colour forming one class; 

 those with two colours, another; those with three 

 shades, a third; and so on. The best classification 

 of these substances, however, is that of M. Brard, 

 which divides all marbles into seven varieties or 

 classes, viz. 1. marbles of a uniform colour, gompre- 

 hending solely those which are either white or black : 

 2. variegated marbles, or those in which the spots 

 and veins are interlaced and disposed without re- 

 gularity; occasionally, this variety embraces traces 

 of organic remains; when these are disposed in star- 

 like masses, they are sometimes called madrepore 

 marbles : 3. shell marbles, or those which are, in 

 part, made up of shells : 4. himachelli marbles, or 

 those which are, apparently, wholly formed of shells : 

 5. cipolin marbles, or those whicli are veined with 

 green talc : 6. breccia marbles, or those which are 

 formed of angular fragments of different marbles, 

 united by a cement of some different colour : 7. pud- 

 ding-stone marbles, or those which are formed of re- 

 united fragments, like the breccia marbles, only with 

 the difference of having the pebbles rounded, in 

 place of being angular. By ancient or antique 

 marbles, is understood those kinds made use of by 

 the ancients, the quarries of which are now, for the 

 most part, exhausted or unknown. Of these we may 

 mention the following : 



Parian marble. Its colour is snow-white, inclin- 

 ing to yellowish-white; it is fine, granular, and, when 

 polished, has somewhat of a waxy appearance. It 

 hardens by exposure to the air, which enables it to 

 resist decomposition for ages. Dipcenus, Scyllis, 

 Malas, and Micciades, employed this marble, and 

 were imitated by their successors. It receives, with 

 accuracy, the most delicate touches of the chisel, 

 and retains for ages, with all the softness of wax, the 

 mild lustre even of the original polish. The finest 

 Grecian sculpture which has been preserved to the 

 present time, is generally of Parian marble; as the 

 Medicean Venus, the Diana Venatrix, the colossal 

 Minerva (called Pallas of Velletri], Ariadne (called 

 Cleopatra), and Juno (called Capitolim}, It is also 



