Marius de Romanus was born in 30 BCE in Rome. He was an illegitimate child of a Roman patrician and a Celtic slave from the land of Gaul. In his mortal years, he travelled the Empire and much of the known world compiling a travelogue/history of the world. Contrary to his appearance in the movie Queen of the Damned (in which he was portrayed by Vincent Perez), he has white-blonde hair curled at the shoulders and cobalt blue eyes. Due to his age, his skin is often described as being as pale and hard as white marble; to seem normal to mortals, he often applies salves and oils to his skin as stated in Blood & Gold.When he was approximately 40 years old, he was abducted by druids who followed the religion of the Gods of the Groves. Marius was taken to the Grove where he was made into a vampire by the God of the Grove just before the yearly Feast of Samhain. He was instructed by the god to go and try, by any means possible, to find out why vampires all over the world (and the god himself) had been burned or destroyed, even though they had not been exposed to fire or the sun. Marius traveled to Egypt and became the caretaker of the original two vampires, Akasha and Enkil, Those Who Must Be Kept.