History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

“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.

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