He was Augustus' nephew and closest male relative, and began to enjoy an accelerated political career as a result.

Marcellus and Augustus' general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa were the two popular choices as heir to the empire.

Despite dying at a young age, Marcellus' position led to his celebration by Sextus Propertius, as well as by Virgil in the Aeneid.

[9][10][11][12] Marcellus and Tiberius either accompanied or followed Augustus to Hispania during his campaigns against the Cantabri and Astures in the Cantabrian Wars.

After the second campaign, Augustus discharged some of his soldiers and allowed them to found the city of Emerita Augusta in Lusitania (now Mérida, Spain).

The following year (24 BC) he was awarded extraordinary privileges by the Senate:[15][16] Tacitus writes that Marcellus was a member of the college of pontiffs and a curule aedile.

The model of imperial succession suggested that the closest male relative would succeed, despite the fact that Marcellus had held no office and lacked military experience.

Agrippa's absence from Rome served to protect him from personal attacks and to remove some of the perceived repression from republican-minded senators.

[note 2][22][23] He was cremated and his ashes were the first to be interred in the Mausoleum of Augustus on the Campus Martius beside the river Tiber.

[4] Virgil published Aeneid, his great epic of the foundation of Rome, four or five years after the death of Marcellus.

In book six, the protagonist Aeneas is taken to the Underworld in one of the prophecy scenes where he encounters the spirit of Marcellus.

[29] Due to his close relation to the leading member of Roman politics, he is depicted in many works of art.