Marcianus is a figure known only from the mention in 01-06. The name "Marcianus" (Μαρκιανός, Latin Marcianus) was widespread in the Roman empire of the second century, so the secure identification of the teacher mentioned by Marcus with any known bearer of the name cannot be made.

Possible candidates considered and rejected.

1. Aelius Marcianus — the famous Severan jurist (late second / early third century); anachronistic, chronologically unfit.
2. Marcianus of Heraclea (Marcianus Heracleensis) — the geographer of the periploi (third–fourth century); also too late.
3. Marcianus the apologist (Aristides) — a Christian apologist of the mid-second century; unlikely as a teacher to the imperial household.
4. Marcianus the Stoic — a conjectural figure without secure testimony.

The modern consensus (Farquharson, Hadot, Hard): the identification is not established; the Marcianus of 01-06 is a separate figure, not identifiable with any of the known homonyms.

The Gataker-Casaubon emendation. As with Bacchius and Tandasis, the seventeenth-century editorial tradition proposed identifying Marcianus with Maecianus (L. Volusius Maecianus) — the well-known Roman jurist, Marcus's teacher of law (mentioned in SHA Marcus 3.6). The emendation: (a) changes the name without manuscript ground; (b) transfers the figure from the philosophical sequence into the juristic one, which contradicts the context of 01-06 (οἰκειωθῆναι φιλοσοφίᾳ, διαλόγους ἐν παιδί). Modern editors reject the emendation; more in 01-06, the correction to Rogovin's footnote ¹⁰.

A separate card for Volusius Maecianus (the teacher of law) will be created when the corresponding paragraph is worked through — he is, apparently, mentioned by Marcus in the thanksgiving part of 01-17.

• 01-06 — the sole mention.

• A. S. L. Farquharson, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, Oxford 1944, vol. II, ad 1.6.
• A. Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, rev. ed., Routledge, 2000, ch. 3.
• R. Hard, Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, OWC, Oxford 2011, notes ad 1.6.