Marcus

Also known as: Marcus Andronicus / old Marcus · Family: Andronicus · Role: tribune · First appears: Titus Andronicus · Act I, Scene I

At Rome, when Saturninus was elected emperor on Titus Andronicus’s advice, Marcus was present as the family buried Mutius in the tomb after Titus Andronicus relented. In Act II, Scene IV, he recognized that Lavinia had been raped and silenced to hide the crime: “But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee, And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.” He is her elder-kin, and later a friend to her, Titus Andronicus, and Young Lucius.

In Act III, Scene I, Marcus is named as Titus Andronicus’s brother and as the brother of Lucius, offering brotherly love and seeking to ransom his nephews Quintus and Martius. In the same act, he kills a fly with a knife, then receives Titus Andronicus’s pardon when he explains that it resembled the Moor. In Act IV, he joins Titus Andronicus, Lavinia, and Young Lucius in swearing mortal revenge against the traitors, and appears with his son Publius and other kinsmen as they shoot petition-bearing arrows into Saturnine’s court.

In Act V, Scene I, Lucius requires pledges to Titus Andronicus and Marcus before agreeing to meet the emperor. Marcus is then sent by Titus Andronicus to summon his nephew Lucius and the leading Goth princes to the house: “Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius; Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.”