)--Tacitus speaks on this
matter thus: “With our ancestors this magistracy (the questorship) was
the prize of merit only, for every citizen of ability had then the right
to aim at these honours; _even age was so little regarded, that extreme
youth did not exclude from either the consulship or the dictatorship_.
matter thus: “With our ancestors this magistracy (the questorship) was
the prize of merit only, for every citizen of ability had then the right
to aim at these honours; _even age was so little regarded, that extreme
youth did not exclude from either the consulship or the dictatorship_.
Napoleon - History of Julius Caesar - a
(Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LIV.
)
618. 317,933. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LVI. )
623. 318,823. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LIX. )
629. 394,726. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LX. )
639. 394,336. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXIII. )
667. 463,000. (Eusebius, Olymp. clxxiv. 1. )
684. 900,000. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, XCVIII. )--Dio Cassius (XLIII. 25)
relates that the census ordered by Cæsar after the civil
war had presented a frightful diminution of the number of
the population (δεινἡ ὁλιγανθροπἱα). Appian (II. 102) says
that this number had only reached about the half of the
previous census. According to Plutarch (_Cæsar_, 55), upon
320,000 citizens counted before the war, Cæsar had only
found 150,000. They confounded the registers of the distribution
of wheat with the lists of the census. (See Suetonius,
_Cæsar_, 41. )
Augustus says expressly that between the years 684 and
726 there was no census taken, _post annum alterum et quadragesimum_.
(_Monument of Ancyra_, tab. 2. )--The number
of citizens whom he found at that epoch, 4,063,000, is
about that which Cæsar might have declared. (Photius,
_Biblioth. _, cod. xcvii. --_Fragm. Histor. _, ed. Müller, III. 606. )
726. 4,063,000. Closing of the lustrum by Augustus on his sixth consulship,
with M. Agrippa for his colleague. (_Monument of Ancyra. _)
746. 4,233,000. Second closure of the lustrum by Augustus alone. (_Monument
of Ancyra_. )
767. 4,037,000. According to the _Monument of Ancyra_; 9,300,000 according
to the _Chronicle of Eusebius_; third closure of the lustrum
by Augustus and Tiberius Cæsar, his colleague, under
the consulate of Sex. Pompeius and Sex. Appuleius.
[695] These two words are found on the Italiote medals struck during the
war. A denarius in the Bibliothèque Impériale presents the legend ITALIA
in Latin characters, and, on the reverse, the name of Papius Mutilus in
Oscan characters: [Illustration Oscan symbols], _Gai_, PAAPI + G (_ai
fili_).
[696] This measure satisfied the Etruscans. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, I.
49. )
[697] Velleius Paterculus, II. 20. --Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 49.
[698] See Note (^1) to page 226.
[699] “P. Sulpicius had sought by his rectitude the popular esteem: his
eloquence, his activity, his mental superiority, and his fortune, made
of him a remarkable man. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 18. )
[700] Plutarch, _Marius_, 36.
[701] Plutarch, _Sylla_, 11.
[702] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 57.
[703] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 59. “Populus Romanus, Lucio Sylla
dictatore ferente, comitiis centuriatis, municipiis civitatem ademit. ”
(Cicero, _Speech for his House_, 30. )
[704] “In conferring upon the peoples of Italy the right of Roman city,
they had been distributed into eight tribes, in order that the strength
and number of these new citizens might not encroach upon the dignity of
the old ones, and that men admitted to this favour might not become more
powerful than those who had given it to them. But Cinna, following in
the steps of Marius and Sulpicius, announced that he should distribute
them in all the tribes; and, on this promise, they arrived in crowds
from all parts of Italy. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 20. )
[705] Velleius Paterculus, II. 20.
[706] Plutarch, _Pompeius_, 3.
[707] Plutarch, _Sertorius_, 5.
[708] “Cinna counted on that great multitude of new Romans, who
furnished him with more than three hundred cohorts, divided into thirty
legions. To give the necessary credit and authority to his faction, he
recalled the two Marii and the other exiles. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II.
20. )
[709] _Quod parcius telum recepisset. _ This expression appears to be
borrowed from the combats of gladiators, which derived their origin from
similar human sacrifices performed at the funerals. (See Cicero, _Speech
for Roscius Amerinus_, 12. --Valerius Maximus, IX. xi. 2. )
[710] Plutarch, _Sylla_, 6.
[711] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 77.
[712] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 79.
[713] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95.
[714] Velleius Paterculus, II. 27. The Samnites thus designated the
Romans, in allusion to the wolf, the nurse of the founder of Rome. A
Samnite medal represents the bull, the symbol of Italy, throwing the
wolf to the ground. It bears the name of C. Papius Mutilus, with the
title _Embratur_, [Illustration: symbols], an Oscan word corresponding
to the Latin _imperator_.
[715] “Thus terminated two most disastrous wars: the _Italic_, called
also the _Social War_, and the _Civil War_; they had lasted together ten
years; they had mown down more than a hundred and fifty thousand men, of
whom twenty-four had been consuls, seven prætors, sixty ediles, and
nearly two hundred senators. ” (Eutropius, V. 6. )
[716] “Sylla fomented these disorders by loading his troops with
largesses and profusions without bounds, in order to corrupt and draw to
him the soldiers of the opposite parties. ” (Plutarch, _Sylla_, 16. )
[717] Dio Cassius (XXXIV. cxxxvi. § 1) gives the number as 8,000; Appian
as 3,000. Valerius Maximus speaks of three legions (IX. 2, § 1).
[718] “A great number of allies and Latins were deprived by one man of
the right of city, which had been given to them for their numerous and
honourable services. ” (_Speech of Lepidus_, Sallust, _Fragm. _, I.
5. )--“We have seen the Roman people, at the proposal of the dictator
Sylla, take, in the comitia of centuries, the right of city from several
municipal towns; we have seen it also depriving them of the lands they
possessed. . . . As to the right of city, the interdiction did not last
even so long as the military despotism of the dictator. ” (Cicero,
_Speech for his House_, 30. )
[719] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95. --Velleius Paterculus, II. 28.
[720] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95.
[721] Strabo, V. iv. 207.
[722] Dio Cassius, XXXIV. 137, § 1.
[723] Dio Cassius, XXXIV. 137.
[724] Valerius Maximus, IX. ii. 1.
[725] Plutarch, _Cato of Utica_, 21.
[726] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 96. --Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[727] Appian, I. 100. --Velleius Paterculus, II. 31. --The _auxilium_ was
the protection accorded by the tribune of the people to whoever claimed
it.
[728] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100 _et seq. _
[729] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. (See, on an inscription raised by the
freedmen in honour of the dictator, and which has been discovered in
Italy, Mommsen, _Inscriptiones Latinæ Antiquissimæ_, p. 168. )
[730] Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[731] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100.
[732] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100. --In 574, the age required for the
different magistracies had already been fixed. (Titus Livius, XL. 44. )
[733] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 101. --Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[734] Aulus Gellius, II. 24.
[735] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, III. 6, 8, 10.
[736] Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX. --Tacitus, _Annals_, XI.
22. --Aurelius Victor, _Illustrious Men_, lxxv.
[737] Cicero, _De Oratore_, II. 39. --“A law which, among the ancients,
embraced different objects: treasons in the army, seditions at Rome,
diminution of the majesty of the Roman people by the bad administration
of a magistrate. ” (Tacitus, _Annals_, I. 72. )
[738] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 104.
[739] He waited the death of the dictator to rob the treasury of a sum
which he owed to the State. (Plutarch, _Sylla_, 46. )
[740] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 106.
[741] Sylla had taken the name of _Fortunate_ (_Felix_). (Mommsen,
_Inscriptiones Latinæ Antiquissimæ_, p. 168), or of _Faustus_, according
to Velleius Paterculus.
[742] “It cannot be denied that Sylla had then the power of a king,
although he had restored the Republic. ” (Cicero, _Speech on the Report
of the Aruspices_, 25. )
[743] The celebrated German author, Mommsen (_Roman History_, III. 15),
does not admit this date of 654. He proposes, under correction, the date
of 652, for the reason that the ages required for the higher offices of
State, since Sylla’s time, were thirty-seven for the edileship, forty
for the prætorship, forty-three for the consulship, and as Cæsar was
_curule ædile_ in 689, prætor in 692, consul in 695, he would, had he
been born in 654, have filled each of these offices two years before the
legal age.
This objection, certainly of some force, is dispelled by other
historical testimony. Besides, we know that at Rome they did not always
observe the laws when dealing with eminent men. Lucullus was raised to
be chief magistrate before the required age, and Pompey was consul at
thirty-four. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 14.
)--Tacitus speaks on this
matter thus: “With our ancestors this magistracy (the questorship) was
the prize of merit only, for every citizen of ability had then the right
to aim at these honours; _even age was so little regarded, that extreme
youth did not exclude from either the consulship or the dictatorship_. ”
(_Annals_, XI. 22. )--In any case, if the opinion of M. Mommsen be
adopted, the birth of Cæsar must be referred to 651, not 652. For, if he
was born in the month of July, 652, he could only be forty-three years
of age in the month of July, 695; and as the nomination of the consuls
preceded by six months their entering into office, it would be in the
month of July, 694, when he would have attained the legal age, which
would bring the date of his birth to the year 651. But Plutarch
(_Cæsar_, 69), Suetonius (_Cæsar_, 88), and Appian (_Civil Wars_, II.
149) all agree in saying that Cæsar was fifty-six when he was
assassinated on the 15th of March, 710, which fixes his birth in the
year 654. On the other hand, according to Velleius Paterculus (II. 43),
Cæsar was appointed flamen of Jupiter by Marius and Cinna when scarcely
out of infancy, and at Rome infancy ended at about fourteen; and the
consulship of Marius and Cinna being in 668, Cæsar, according to our
calculation, would then, in fact, have entered on his fourteenth year.
The same author adds that he was about eighteen in 672, when he left
Rome to escape the proscriptions of Sylla, a new reason for retaining
the preceding date.
Cæsar made his first campaign in Asia, at the taking of Mitylene, in 674
(Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX. ), which makes him twenty at the date
of his entrance into the service. According to Sallust (_Catilina_, 49),
when Cæsar was nominated grand pontiff in competition with Catulus, he
was almost a youth (_adolescentulus_); and Dio Cassius says the same, in
nearly the same terms. Doubtless they expressed themselves thus because
of the great disproportion in the age of the two candidates. The
expression of these authors, although unfitting, nevertheless agrees
better with our reckoning, which ascribes thirty-seven years of age to
Cæsar, than to the other, which gives him thirty-nine. Tacitus also, as
we shall see in a note to a subsequent page, when speaking of the
accusation against Dolabella, tends to make Cæsar too young rather than
too old.
[744] The family of the _Julii_ was very ancient, and we find personages
bearing this name from the third century of Rome. The first of whom
history makes mention was C. Julius Julus, consul in 265. There were
other consuls of the same family in 272, 281, 307, 324; consular
tribunes in 330, 351, 362, 367; and a dictator, C. Julius Julus, in 402;
but their filiation is little known. The genealogy of Cæsar begins in a
direct line only from Sextus Julius Cæsar, prætor in 546. We borrow the
genealogy of the family of the Julii from the _History of Rome by
Families_, by the learned professor W. Drumann (Vol. III. , page 120;
Kœnigsberg, 1837), introducing one variation only, explained in Note (4)
of page 290.
Sex. Jul. Cæsar, L. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 546. |
|
+-------------------------------+
| |
L. Jul. Cæsar, Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
prætor, 571. trib. mil. , 573.
|
+-------------------------------+
| |
L. J. Cæsar, Sex. J. Cæsar, C. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 588. Cos. , 597. |
| |
+----------------+ |
| | |
Sex. J. Cæsar, L. J. Cæsar. C. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 631. --Popillia. Marcia.
| |
+----------------+ +----------------------------------+
| | | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar, C. Jul. Cæsar. C. Jul. Cæsar, Julia. Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
Cos. , 664. Strabo. prætor. --C. Marius Cos. , 663.
Censor. ædil. cur. , 664. --Aurelia. |
--Fulvia. | |
| | |
+-------------+ +------------------------------+ |
| | | | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar, Julia. C. JUL. CÆSAR, Julia, maj. Julia, min. Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
Cos. , 690. --M. Antonius. Dictator. --L. Pinarius. M. A. Balbus. flam. Quirin.
| --P. Lentulus. --Cornelia. --+ --Q. Pedius. | |
| | | |
| | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar. Julia Atia Sex. Julius Cæsar.
--708. --Cn. Pomp. Mag. (moth. of Augustus). --708.
|
|
--Cn. Pompeius.
--Pompeia.
--Calpurnia.
The opinion most accredited with the ancients, on the origin of the name
of Cæsar, was that Julius slew an elephant in a fight. In the Punic
tongue _cæsar_ signifies “an elephant. ” The medals of Cæsar, as grand
pontiff, confirm this hypothesis; on the reverse is an elephant crushing
a serpent beneath its feet. (Cohen, _Consular Medals_, plate xx.
10. )--We know that some symbols on the Roman medals are a species of
canting heraldry. Pliny gives another etymology of the name of Cæsar:
“Primusque Cæsarum a cæso matris utero dictus, qua de causa et _Cæsones_
appellati. ” (_Natural History_, VII. 9. )--Festus (p. 57) thus expresses
himself: “_Cæsar_ a _cæsarie_ dictus est; qui scilicet cum cæsarie natus
est;” and page 45: “_Cæsariati_ (comati). ”--Finally, Spartianus (_Life
of Ælius Verus_, ii. ) sums up in these words the greater part of the
etymologies: “_Cæsorem_ vel ab elephante (qui lingua Mauroram _cæsar_
dicitur) in prœlio cæso, cum qui primus sic appellatus est, doctissimi
et eruditissimi viri putant dictum; vel quia mortua matre, ventre cæso
sit natus; vel quod cum magnis crinibus sit utero parentis effusus; vel
quod oculis cæsiis et ultra humanum morem viguerit. ” (See Isidore,
_Origines_, IX. iii. 12. --Servius, _Commentary on the Æneid_, I. 290,
and Constantine Manasses, p. 71. )
[745] Pliny, _Natural History_, VII. 53. --“Cæsar was in his sixteenth
year when he lost his father. ” (Suetonius, I. )
[746] “He sprang from the noble family of the _Julii_, and, according to
an opinion long believed in, he derived his origin from Venus and
Anchises. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41. )
[747] In fact, the _gens_ Marcia, one of the most illustrious patrician
families in Rome, reckoned among its ancestors Numa Marcius, who married
Pompilia, the daughter of Numa Pompilius, by whom he had Ancus Marcius,
who was King of Rome after the death of Tullus Hostilius. (Plutarch,
_Coriolanus_, I; _Numa_, 26. )
[748] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, vi. This passage, as generally translated, is
unintelligible, because the translators render the words Martii Reges by
_the Kings Martius_, instead of the family of Marcius Rex.
[749] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 10.
[750] “So Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi; Aurelia, mother of Cæsar;
Atia, mother of Augustus, all presided over the education of their
children, we are told, and made them into great men. ” (Tacitus,
_Dialogue concerning Orators_, 28. )
[751] “Ingenii magni, memoriæ singularis, nec minus Græce quam Latine
doctus. ” (Suetonius, _On Illustrious Grammarians_, 7. )
[752] “A sermone Græco puerum incipere malo. ” (Quintilian, _Institution
of Oratory_, I. i. )
[753] Claudius, addressing a foreigner who spoke Greek and Latin, said,
“Since thou possessest our two languages. ” (Suetonius, _Claudius_, 42. )
[754] Καἱ σὑ, τἑκνον! (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 82. )
[755] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 56.
[756] “Still quite young, he seems to have attached himself to the kind
of eloquence adopted by Strabo Cæsar, and he has even given, in his
_Divination_, several passages, word for word, of the discourse of this
orator for the Sardinians. ” (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 55. )
[757] Aulus Gellius, IV. 16.
[758] “For Cæsar and Brutus have also made verses, and have placed them
in the public libraries. Poets as feeble as Cicero, but happier than he,
in that fewer people knew what they had done. ” (Tacitus, _Dialogue
concerning Orators_, 21. )
[759]
Tu quoque, tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander,
Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator.
Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis
Comica, ut æquato virtus polleret honore
Cum Græcis; neque in hac despectus parte jaceres!
Unum hoc maceror et doleo tibi deesse, Terenti.
(Suetonius, _Life of Terence_, 5. )
[760] “Liberal to prodigality, and of a courage above human nature and
even imagination. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41. )
[761] “He held, undeniably, the second rank among the orators of Rome. ”
(Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 3. )
[762] “Nam cui Hortensio, Lucullove, _vel Cæsari_, tam parata unquam
adfuit recordatio, quam tibi sacra mens tua loco momentoque, quo
jusseris, reddit omne depositum? ” (Latinus Pacatus, _Panegyricus in
Theodosium_, XVIII. 3. )--(Pliny, _Natural History_, VII. 25. )
[763] “Quamvis moderate soleret irasci, maluit tamen non posse. ”
(Seneca, _De Ira_, II. 23. )
[764] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 4.
[765] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 19.
[766] “To the external advantages which distinguished him from all the
other citizens, Cæsar joined an impetuous and powerful soul. ” (Velleius
Paterculus, II. 41. )
[767] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 15.
[768] “By his voice, his gesture, the grand and noble air of his person,
he had a certain brilliant manner of speech, without the least
artifice.
618. 317,933. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LVI. )
623. 318,823. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LIX. )
629. 394,726. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LX. )
639. 394,336. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXIII. )
667. 463,000. (Eusebius, Olymp. clxxiv. 1. )
684. 900,000. (Titus Livius, _Epitome_, XCVIII. )--Dio Cassius (XLIII. 25)
relates that the census ordered by Cæsar after the civil
war had presented a frightful diminution of the number of
the population (δεινἡ ὁλιγανθροπἱα). Appian (II. 102) says
that this number had only reached about the half of the
previous census. According to Plutarch (_Cæsar_, 55), upon
320,000 citizens counted before the war, Cæsar had only
found 150,000. They confounded the registers of the distribution
of wheat with the lists of the census. (See Suetonius,
_Cæsar_, 41. )
Augustus says expressly that between the years 684 and
726 there was no census taken, _post annum alterum et quadragesimum_.
(_Monument of Ancyra_, tab. 2. )--The number
of citizens whom he found at that epoch, 4,063,000, is
about that which Cæsar might have declared. (Photius,
_Biblioth. _, cod. xcvii. --_Fragm. Histor. _, ed. Müller, III. 606. )
726. 4,063,000. Closing of the lustrum by Augustus on his sixth consulship,
with M. Agrippa for his colleague. (_Monument of Ancyra. _)
746. 4,233,000. Second closure of the lustrum by Augustus alone. (_Monument
of Ancyra_. )
767. 4,037,000. According to the _Monument of Ancyra_; 9,300,000 according
to the _Chronicle of Eusebius_; third closure of the lustrum
by Augustus and Tiberius Cæsar, his colleague, under
the consulate of Sex. Pompeius and Sex. Appuleius.
[695] These two words are found on the Italiote medals struck during the
war. A denarius in the Bibliothèque Impériale presents the legend ITALIA
in Latin characters, and, on the reverse, the name of Papius Mutilus in
Oscan characters: [Illustration Oscan symbols], _Gai_, PAAPI + G (_ai
fili_).
[696] This measure satisfied the Etruscans. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, I.
49. )
[697] Velleius Paterculus, II. 20. --Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 49.
[698] See Note (^1) to page 226.
[699] “P. Sulpicius had sought by his rectitude the popular esteem: his
eloquence, his activity, his mental superiority, and his fortune, made
of him a remarkable man. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 18. )
[700] Plutarch, _Marius_, 36.
[701] Plutarch, _Sylla_, 11.
[702] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 57.
[703] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 59. “Populus Romanus, Lucio Sylla
dictatore ferente, comitiis centuriatis, municipiis civitatem ademit. ”
(Cicero, _Speech for his House_, 30. )
[704] “In conferring upon the peoples of Italy the right of Roman city,
they had been distributed into eight tribes, in order that the strength
and number of these new citizens might not encroach upon the dignity of
the old ones, and that men admitted to this favour might not become more
powerful than those who had given it to them. But Cinna, following in
the steps of Marius and Sulpicius, announced that he should distribute
them in all the tribes; and, on this promise, they arrived in crowds
from all parts of Italy. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 20. )
[705] Velleius Paterculus, II. 20.
[706] Plutarch, _Pompeius_, 3.
[707] Plutarch, _Sertorius_, 5.
[708] “Cinna counted on that great multitude of new Romans, who
furnished him with more than three hundred cohorts, divided into thirty
legions. To give the necessary credit and authority to his faction, he
recalled the two Marii and the other exiles. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II.
20. )
[709] _Quod parcius telum recepisset. _ This expression appears to be
borrowed from the combats of gladiators, which derived their origin from
similar human sacrifices performed at the funerals. (See Cicero, _Speech
for Roscius Amerinus_, 12. --Valerius Maximus, IX. xi. 2. )
[710] Plutarch, _Sylla_, 6.
[711] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 77.
[712] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 79.
[713] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95.
[714] Velleius Paterculus, II. 27. The Samnites thus designated the
Romans, in allusion to the wolf, the nurse of the founder of Rome. A
Samnite medal represents the bull, the symbol of Italy, throwing the
wolf to the ground. It bears the name of C. Papius Mutilus, with the
title _Embratur_, [Illustration: symbols], an Oscan word corresponding
to the Latin _imperator_.
[715] “Thus terminated two most disastrous wars: the _Italic_, called
also the _Social War_, and the _Civil War_; they had lasted together ten
years; they had mown down more than a hundred and fifty thousand men, of
whom twenty-four had been consuls, seven prætors, sixty ediles, and
nearly two hundred senators. ” (Eutropius, V. 6. )
[716] “Sylla fomented these disorders by loading his troops with
largesses and profusions without bounds, in order to corrupt and draw to
him the soldiers of the opposite parties. ” (Plutarch, _Sylla_, 16. )
[717] Dio Cassius (XXXIV. cxxxvi. § 1) gives the number as 8,000; Appian
as 3,000. Valerius Maximus speaks of three legions (IX. 2, § 1).
[718] “A great number of allies and Latins were deprived by one man of
the right of city, which had been given to them for their numerous and
honourable services. ” (_Speech of Lepidus_, Sallust, _Fragm. _, I.
5. )--“We have seen the Roman people, at the proposal of the dictator
Sylla, take, in the comitia of centuries, the right of city from several
municipal towns; we have seen it also depriving them of the lands they
possessed. . . . As to the right of city, the interdiction did not last
even so long as the military despotism of the dictator. ” (Cicero,
_Speech for his House_, 30. )
[719] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95. --Velleius Paterculus, II. 28.
[720] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95.
[721] Strabo, V. iv. 207.
[722] Dio Cassius, XXXIV. 137, § 1.
[723] Dio Cassius, XXXIV. 137.
[724] Valerius Maximus, IX. ii. 1.
[725] Plutarch, _Cato of Utica_, 21.
[726] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 96. --Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[727] Appian, I. 100. --Velleius Paterculus, II. 31. --The _auxilium_ was
the protection accorded by the tribune of the people to whoever claimed
it.
[728] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100 _et seq. _
[729] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. (See, on an inscription raised by the
freedmen in honour of the dictator, and which has been discovered in
Italy, Mommsen, _Inscriptiones Latinæ Antiquissimæ_, p. 168. )
[730] Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[731] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100.
[732] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100. --In 574, the age required for the
different magistracies had already been fixed. (Titus Livius, XL. 44. )
[733] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 101. --Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[734] Aulus Gellius, II. 24.
[735] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, III. 6, 8, 10.
[736] Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX. --Tacitus, _Annals_, XI.
22. --Aurelius Victor, _Illustrious Men_, lxxv.
[737] Cicero, _De Oratore_, II. 39. --“A law which, among the ancients,
embraced different objects: treasons in the army, seditions at Rome,
diminution of the majesty of the Roman people by the bad administration
of a magistrate. ” (Tacitus, _Annals_, I. 72. )
[738] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 104.
[739] He waited the death of the dictator to rob the treasury of a sum
which he owed to the State. (Plutarch, _Sylla_, 46. )
[740] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 106.
[741] Sylla had taken the name of _Fortunate_ (_Felix_). (Mommsen,
_Inscriptiones Latinæ Antiquissimæ_, p. 168), or of _Faustus_, according
to Velleius Paterculus.
[742] “It cannot be denied that Sylla had then the power of a king,
although he had restored the Republic. ” (Cicero, _Speech on the Report
of the Aruspices_, 25. )
[743] The celebrated German author, Mommsen (_Roman History_, III. 15),
does not admit this date of 654. He proposes, under correction, the date
of 652, for the reason that the ages required for the higher offices of
State, since Sylla’s time, were thirty-seven for the edileship, forty
for the prætorship, forty-three for the consulship, and as Cæsar was
_curule ædile_ in 689, prætor in 692, consul in 695, he would, had he
been born in 654, have filled each of these offices two years before the
legal age.
This objection, certainly of some force, is dispelled by other
historical testimony. Besides, we know that at Rome they did not always
observe the laws when dealing with eminent men. Lucullus was raised to
be chief magistrate before the required age, and Pompey was consul at
thirty-four. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 14.
)--Tacitus speaks on this
matter thus: “With our ancestors this magistracy (the questorship) was
the prize of merit only, for every citizen of ability had then the right
to aim at these honours; _even age was so little regarded, that extreme
youth did not exclude from either the consulship or the dictatorship_. ”
(_Annals_, XI. 22. )--In any case, if the opinion of M. Mommsen be
adopted, the birth of Cæsar must be referred to 651, not 652. For, if he
was born in the month of July, 652, he could only be forty-three years
of age in the month of July, 695; and as the nomination of the consuls
preceded by six months their entering into office, it would be in the
month of July, 694, when he would have attained the legal age, which
would bring the date of his birth to the year 651. But Plutarch
(_Cæsar_, 69), Suetonius (_Cæsar_, 88), and Appian (_Civil Wars_, II.
149) all agree in saying that Cæsar was fifty-six when he was
assassinated on the 15th of March, 710, which fixes his birth in the
year 654. On the other hand, according to Velleius Paterculus (II. 43),
Cæsar was appointed flamen of Jupiter by Marius and Cinna when scarcely
out of infancy, and at Rome infancy ended at about fourteen; and the
consulship of Marius and Cinna being in 668, Cæsar, according to our
calculation, would then, in fact, have entered on his fourteenth year.
The same author adds that he was about eighteen in 672, when he left
Rome to escape the proscriptions of Sylla, a new reason for retaining
the preceding date.
Cæsar made his first campaign in Asia, at the taking of Mitylene, in 674
(Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX. ), which makes him twenty at the date
of his entrance into the service. According to Sallust (_Catilina_, 49),
when Cæsar was nominated grand pontiff in competition with Catulus, he
was almost a youth (_adolescentulus_); and Dio Cassius says the same, in
nearly the same terms. Doubtless they expressed themselves thus because
of the great disproportion in the age of the two candidates. The
expression of these authors, although unfitting, nevertheless agrees
better with our reckoning, which ascribes thirty-seven years of age to
Cæsar, than to the other, which gives him thirty-nine. Tacitus also, as
we shall see in a note to a subsequent page, when speaking of the
accusation against Dolabella, tends to make Cæsar too young rather than
too old.
[744] The family of the _Julii_ was very ancient, and we find personages
bearing this name from the third century of Rome. The first of whom
history makes mention was C. Julius Julus, consul in 265. There were
other consuls of the same family in 272, 281, 307, 324; consular
tribunes in 330, 351, 362, 367; and a dictator, C. Julius Julus, in 402;
but their filiation is little known. The genealogy of Cæsar begins in a
direct line only from Sextus Julius Cæsar, prætor in 546. We borrow the
genealogy of the family of the Julii from the _History of Rome by
Families_, by the learned professor W. Drumann (Vol. III. , page 120;
Kœnigsberg, 1837), introducing one variation only, explained in Note (4)
of page 290.
Sex. Jul. Cæsar, L. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 546. |
|
+-------------------------------+
| |
L. Jul. Cæsar, Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
prætor, 571. trib. mil. , 573.
|
+-------------------------------+
| |
L. J. Cæsar, Sex. J. Cæsar, C. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 588. Cos. , 597. |
| |
+----------------+ |
| | |
Sex. J. Cæsar, L. J. Cæsar. C. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 631. --Popillia. Marcia.
| |
+----------------+ +----------------------------------+
| | | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar, C. Jul. Cæsar. C. Jul. Cæsar, Julia. Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
Cos. , 664. Strabo. prætor. --C. Marius Cos. , 663.
Censor. ædil. cur. , 664. --Aurelia. |
--Fulvia. | |
| | |
+-------------+ +------------------------------+ |
| | | | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar, Julia. C. JUL. CÆSAR, Julia, maj. Julia, min. Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
Cos. , 690. --M. Antonius. Dictator. --L. Pinarius. M. A. Balbus. flam. Quirin.
| --P. Lentulus. --Cornelia. --+ --Q. Pedius. | |
| | | |
| | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar. Julia Atia Sex. Julius Cæsar.
--708. --Cn. Pomp. Mag. (moth. of Augustus). --708.
|
|
--Cn. Pompeius.
--Pompeia.
--Calpurnia.
The opinion most accredited with the ancients, on the origin of the name
of Cæsar, was that Julius slew an elephant in a fight. In the Punic
tongue _cæsar_ signifies “an elephant. ” The medals of Cæsar, as grand
pontiff, confirm this hypothesis; on the reverse is an elephant crushing
a serpent beneath its feet. (Cohen, _Consular Medals_, plate xx.
10. )--We know that some symbols on the Roman medals are a species of
canting heraldry. Pliny gives another etymology of the name of Cæsar:
“Primusque Cæsarum a cæso matris utero dictus, qua de causa et _Cæsones_
appellati. ” (_Natural History_, VII. 9. )--Festus (p. 57) thus expresses
himself: “_Cæsar_ a _cæsarie_ dictus est; qui scilicet cum cæsarie natus
est;” and page 45: “_Cæsariati_ (comati). ”--Finally, Spartianus (_Life
of Ælius Verus_, ii. ) sums up in these words the greater part of the
etymologies: “_Cæsorem_ vel ab elephante (qui lingua Mauroram _cæsar_
dicitur) in prœlio cæso, cum qui primus sic appellatus est, doctissimi
et eruditissimi viri putant dictum; vel quia mortua matre, ventre cæso
sit natus; vel quod cum magnis crinibus sit utero parentis effusus; vel
quod oculis cæsiis et ultra humanum morem viguerit. ” (See Isidore,
_Origines_, IX. iii. 12. --Servius, _Commentary on the Æneid_, I. 290,
and Constantine Manasses, p. 71. )
[745] Pliny, _Natural History_, VII. 53. --“Cæsar was in his sixteenth
year when he lost his father. ” (Suetonius, I. )
[746] “He sprang from the noble family of the _Julii_, and, according to
an opinion long believed in, he derived his origin from Venus and
Anchises. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41. )
[747] In fact, the _gens_ Marcia, one of the most illustrious patrician
families in Rome, reckoned among its ancestors Numa Marcius, who married
Pompilia, the daughter of Numa Pompilius, by whom he had Ancus Marcius,
who was King of Rome after the death of Tullus Hostilius. (Plutarch,
_Coriolanus_, I; _Numa_, 26. )
[748] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, vi. This passage, as generally translated, is
unintelligible, because the translators render the words Martii Reges by
_the Kings Martius_, instead of the family of Marcius Rex.
[749] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 10.
[750] “So Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi; Aurelia, mother of Cæsar;
Atia, mother of Augustus, all presided over the education of their
children, we are told, and made them into great men. ” (Tacitus,
_Dialogue concerning Orators_, 28. )
[751] “Ingenii magni, memoriæ singularis, nec minus Græce quam Latine
doctus. ” (Suetonius, _On Illustrious Grammarians_, 7. )
[752] “A sermone Græco puerum incipere malo. ” (Quintilian, _Institution
of Oratory_, I. i. )
[753] Claudius, addressing a foreigner who spoke Greek and Latin, said,
“Since thou possessest our two languages. ” (Suetonius, _Claudius_, 42. )
[754] Καἱ σὑ, τἑκνον! (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 82. )
[755] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 56.
[756] “Still quite young, he seems to have attached himself to the kind
of eloquence adopted by Strabo Cæsar, and he has even given, in his
_Divination_, several passages, word for word, of the discourse of this
orator for the Sardinians. ” (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 55. )
[757] Aulus Gellius, IV. 16.
[758] “For Cæsar and Brutus have also made verses, and have placed them
in the public libraries. Poets as feeble as Cicero, but happier than he,
in that fewer people knew what they had done. ” (Tacitus, _Dialogue
concerning Orators_, 21. )
[759]
Tu quoque, tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander,
Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator.
Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis
Comica, ut æquato virtus polleret honore
Cum Græcis; neque in hac despectus parte jaceres!
Unum hoc maceror et doleo tibi deesse, Terenti.
(Suetonius, _Life of Terence_, 5. )
[760] “Liberal to prodigality, and of a courage above human nature and
even imagination. ” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41. )
[761] “He held, undeniably, the second rank among the orators of Rome. ”
(Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 3. )
[762] “Nam cui Hortensio, Lucullove, _vel Cæsari_, tam parata unquam
adfuit recordatio, quam tibi sacra mens tua loco momentoque, quo
jusseris, reddit omne depositum? ” (Latinus Pacatus, _Panegyricus in
Theodosium_, XVIII. 3. )--(Pliny, _Natural History_, VII. 25. )
[763] “Quamvis moderate soleret irasci, maluit tamen non posse. ”
(Seneca, _De Ira_, II. 23. )
[764] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 4.
[765] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 19.
[766] “To the external advantages which distinguished him from all the
other citizens, Cæsar joined an impetuous and powerful soul. ” (Velleius
Paterculus, II. 41. )
[767] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 15.
[768] “By his voice, his gesture, the grand and noble air of his person,
he had a certain brilliant manner of speech, without the least
artifice.
