Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
and had Cicero for one of his scholars. Caesar is said to have
been admirably fitted by nature to make a great statesman and
orator, and to have taken such pains to improve his genius this
way, that without dispute he might challenge the second place.
More he did not aim at, as choosing to be first rather amongst
men of arms and power, and, therefore, never rose to that height
of eloquence to which nature would have carried him, his
attention being diverted to those expeditions and designs, which
at length gained him the empire. And he himself, in his answer
to Cicero's panegyric on Cato, desires his reader not to compare
the plain discourse of a soldier with the harangues of an orator
who had not only fine parts, but had employed his life in this
study.
When he was returned to Rome, he accused Dolabella of
maladministration, and many cities of Greece came in to attest
it. Dolabella was acquitted, and Caesar, in return for the
support he had received from the Greeks, assisted them in their
prosecution of Publius Antonius for corrupt practices, before
Marcus Lucullus, praetor of Macedonia. In this cause he so far
succeeded, that Antonius was forced to appeal to the tribunes
at Rome, alleging that in Greece he could not have fair play
against Grecians. In his pleadings at Rome, his eloquence soon
obtained him great credit and favor, and he won no less upon the
affections of the people by the affability of his manners and
address, in which he slowed a tact and consideration beyond what
could have been expected at his age; and the open house he kept,
the entertainments he gave, and the general splendor of his
manner of life contributed little by little to create and
increase his political influence. His enemies slighted the
growth of it at first, presuming it would soon fail when his
money was gone; whilst in the meantime it was growing up and
flourishing among the common people. When his power at last was
established and not to be overthrown, and now openly tended to
the altering of the whole constitution, they were aware too
late, that there is no beginning so mean, which continued
application will not make considerable, and that despising a
danger at first, will make it at last irresistible. Cicero was
the first who had any suspicions of his designs upon the
government, and, as a good pilot is apprehensive of a storm when
the sea is most smiling, saw the designing temper of the man
through this disguise of good-humor and affability, and said,
that in general, in all he did and undertook, he detected the
ambition for absolute power, "but when I see his hair so
carefully arranged, and observe him adjusting it with one
finger, I cannot imagine it should enter into such a man's
thoughts to subvert the Roman state." But of this more
hereafter.
The first proof he had of the people's good-will to him, was
when he received by their suffrages a tribuneship in the army,
and came out on the list with a higher place than Caius
Popilius. A second and clearer instance of their favor appeared
upon his making a magnificent oration in praise of his aunt
Julia, wife to Marius, publicly in the forum, at whose funeral
he was so bold as to bring forth the images of Marius, which
nobody had dared to produce since the government came into
Sylla's hands, Marius's party having from that time been
declared enemies of the State. When some who were present had
begun to raise a cry against Caesar, the people answered with
loud shouts and clapping in his favor, expressing their joyful
surprise and satisfaction at his having, as it were, brought up
again from the grave those honors of Marius, which for so long a
time had been lost to the city. It had always been the custom
at Rome to make funeral orations in praise of elderly matrons,
but there was no precedent of any upon young women till Caesar
first made one upon the death of his own wife. This also
procured him favor, and by this show of affection he won upon
the feelings of the people, who looked upon him as a man of
great tenderness and kindness of heart. After he had buried his
wife, he went as quaestor into Spain under one of the praetors,
named Vetus, whom he honored ever after, and made his son his
own quaestor, when he himself came to be praetor. After this
employment was ended, he married Pompeia, his third wife, having
then a daughter by Cornelia, his first wife, whom he afterwards
married to Pompey the Great. He was so profuse in his expenses,
that before he had any public employment, he was in debt
thirteen hundred talents, and many thought that by incurring
such expense to be popular, he changed a solid good for what
would prove but short and uncertain return; but in truth he was
purchasing what was of the greatest value at an inconsiderable
rate. When he was made surveyor of the Appian Way, he
disbursed, besides the public money, a great sum out of his
private purse; and when he was aedile, be provided such a number
of gladiators, that he entertained the people with three hundred
and twenty single combats, and by his great liberality and
magnificence in theatrical shows, in processions, and public
feastings, he threw into the shade all the attempts that had
been made before him, and gained so much upon the people, that
everyone was eager to find out new offices and new honors for
him in return for his munificence.
There being two factions in the city, one that of Sylla, which
was very powerful, the other that of Marius, which was then
broken and in a very low condition, he undertook to revive this
and to make it his own. And to this end, whilst he was in the
height of his repute with the people for the magnificent shows
he gave as aedile, he ordered images of Marius, and figures of
Victory, with trophies in their hands, to be carried privately
in the night and placed in the capitol. Next morning, when some
saw them bright with gold and beautifully made, with
inscriptions upon them, referring them to Marius's exploits over
the Cimbrians, they were surprised at the boldness of him who
had set them up, nor was it difficult to guess who it was. The
fame of this soon spread and brought together a great concourse
of people. Some cried out that it was an open attempt against
the established government thus to revive those honors which had
been buried by the laws and decrees of the senate; that Caesar
had done it to sound the temper of the people whom he had
prepared before, and to try whether they were tame enough to
bear his humor, and would quietly give way to his innovations.
On the other hand, Marius's party took courage, and it was
incredible how numerous they were suddenly seen to be, and what
a multitude of them appeared and came shouting into the capitol.
Many, when they saw Marius's likeness, cried for joy, and Caesar
was highly extolled as the one man, in the place of all others,
who was a relation worthy of Marius. Upon this the senate met,
and Catulus Lutatius, one of the most eminent Romans of that
time, stood up and inveighed against Caesar, closing his speech
with the remarkable saying, that Caesar was now not working
mines, but planting batteries to overthrow the state. But when
Caesar had made an apology for himself, and satisfied the
senate, his admirers were very much animated, and advised him
not to depart from his own thoughts for anyone, since with the
people's good favor he would erelong get the better of them all,
and be the first man in the commonwealth.
At this time, Metellus, the High-Priest, died, and Catulus and
Isauricus, persons of the highest reputation, and who had great
influence in the senate, were competitors for the office; yet
Caesar would not give way to them, but presented himself to the
people as a candidate against them. The several parties seeming
very equal, Catulus, who, because he had the most honor to lose,
was the most apprehensive of the event, sent to Caesar to buy
him off, with offers of a great sum of money. But his answer
was, that he was ready to borrow a larger sum than that, to
carry on the contest. Upon the day of election, as his mother
conducted him out of doors with tears, after embracing her, "My
mother," he said, "today you will see me either High-Priest, or
an exile." When the votes were taken, after a great struggle,
he carried it, and excited among the senate and nobility great
alarm lest he might now urge on the people to every kind of
insolence. And Piso and Catulus found fault with Cicero for
having let Caesar escape, when in the conspiracy of Catiline he
had given the government such advantage against him. For
Catiline, who had designed not only to change the present state
of affairs, but to subvert the whole empire and confound all,
had himself taken to flight, while the evidence was yet
incomplete against him, before his ultimate purposes had been
properly discovered. But he had left Lentulus and Cethegus in
the city to supply his place in the conspiracy, and whether they
received any secret encouragement and assistance from Caesar is
uncertain; all that is certain, is, that they were fully
convicted in the senate, and when Cicero, the consul, asked the
several opinions of the senators, how they would have them
punished, all who spoke before Caesar sentenced them to death;
but Caesar stood up and made a set speech, in which he told
them, that he thought it without precedent and not just to take
away the lives of persons of their birth and distinction before
they were fairly tried, unless there was an absolute necessity
for it; but that if they were kept confined in any towns of
Italy Cicero himself should choose, till Catiline was defeated,
then the senate might in peace and at their leisure determine
what was best to be done.
This sentence of his carried so much appearance of humanity, and
he gave it such advantage by the eloquence with which he urged
it, that not only those who spoke after him closed with it, but
even they who had before given a contrary opinion, now came over
to his, till it came about to Catulus's and Cato's turn to
speak. They warmly opposed it, and Cato intimated in his speech
the suspicion of Caesar himself, and pressed the matter so
strongly, that the criminals were given up to suffer execution.
As Caesar was going out of the senate, many of the young men who
at that time acted as guards to Cicero, ran in with their naked
swords to assault him. But Curio, it is said, threw his gown
over him, and conveyed him away, and Cicero himself, when the
young men looked up to see his wishes, gave a sign not to kill
him, either for fear of the people, or because he thought the
murder unjust and illegal. If this be true, I wonder how Cicero
came to omit all mention of it in his book about his consulship.
He was blamed, however, afterwards, for not having made use of
so fortunate an opportunity against Caesar, as if he had let it
escape him out of fear of the populace, who, indeed, showed
remarkable solicitude about Caesar, and some time after, when he
went into the senate to clear himself of the suspicions he lay
under, and found great clamors raised against him, upon the
senate in consequence sitting longer than ordinary, they went up
to the house in a tumult, and beset it, demanding Caesar, and
requiring them to dismiss him. Upon this, Cato, much fearing
some movement among the poor citizens, who were always the first
to kindle the flame among the people, and placed all their hopes
in Caesar, persuaded the senate to give them a monthly allowance
of corn, an expedient which put the commonwealth to the
extraordinary charge of seven million five hundred thousand
drachmas in the year, but quite succeeded in removing the great
cause of terror for the present, and very much weakened Caesar's