 His writings come in for adverse criticism from Jerome, Ammianus Marcellinus, and also the anonymous author of the "Historia Augusta", who nevertheless cites him directly at least 26 times (apparently in most cases quoting or summarizing passages from Marius's lost work) and probably uses him in many places elsewhere.Marius's intention seems to have been to follow and out-perform Suetonius in serving up gossip, spicy details of the Emperors’ private lives, cynical comments, scandalous anecdotes, and curiosa.He also quoted from letters, senatorial edicts and so on, but seems to have invented some of these – a practice which the "HA" author adopted with enormous enthusiasm and bravura.