I. Julius Caesar, the Divine [3], lost his father
[4] when he was in the sixteenth year of his age [5];
and the year following, being nominated to the office
of high-priest of Jupiter [6], he repudiated Cossutia,
who was very wealthy, although her family belonged
only to the equestrian order, and to whom he had been
contracted when he was a mere boy. He then married
(2) Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who was four times
consul; and had by her, shortly afterwards, a daughter
named Julia. Resisting all the efforts of the
dictator Sylla to induce him to divorce Cornelia,
he suffered the penalty of being stripped of his sacerdotal
office, his wife’s dowry, and his own patrimonial
estates; and, being identified with the adverse faction
[7], was compelled to withdraw from Rome. After
changing his place of concealment nearly every night
[8], although he was suffering from a quartan ague,
and having effected his release by bribing the officers
who had tracked his footsteps, he at length obtained
a pardon through the intercession of the vestal virgins,
and of Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, his near
relatives. We are assured that when Sylla, having
withstood for a while the entreaties of his own best
friends, persons of distinguished rank, at last yielded
to their importunity, he exclaimed—either
by a divine impulse, or from a shrewd conjecture:
“Your suit is granted, and you may take him among
you; but know,” he added, “that this man,
for whose safety you are so extremely anxious, will,
some day or other, be the ruin of the party of the
nobles, in defence of which you are leagued with me;
for in this one Caesar, you will find many a Marius.”
II. His first campaign was served in Asia, on
the staff of the praetor, M. Thermus; and being dispatched
into Bithynia [9], to bring thence a fleet, he loitered
so long at the court of Nicomedes, as to give occasion
to reports of a criminal intercourse between him and
that prince; which received additional credit from
his hasty return to Bithynia, under the pretext of
recovering a debt due to a freed-man, his client.
The rest of his service was more favourable to his
reputation; and (3) when Mitylene [10] was taken by
storm, he was presented by Thermus with the civic
crown. [11]
III. He served also in Cilicia [12], under Servilius
Isauricus, but only for a short time; as upon receiving
intelligence of Sylla’s death, he returned with
all speed to Rome, in expectation of what might follow
from a fresh agitation set on foot by Marcus Lepidus.
Distrusting, however, the abilities of this leader,
and finding the times less favourable for the execution
of this project than he had at first imagined, he abandoned
all thoughts of joining Lepidus, although he received
the most tempting offers.
Copyrights
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
