Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/57

71 B.C.] so far as he showed himself in opposition; but much their ablest man and the one already marked out for their future chief was the young Caius Julius Cæsar. Wild and profligate and immersed in debt though he was, his native genius, his manly beauty and the charm of his manners and conversation already won the hearts of men and women and made him the most popular man in Rome. Though a patrician of the very bluest blood, claiming descent from Æneas and the kings of Alba, he was closely connected by family ties with the democratic party. Julia, Cæsar's aunt, was married to Marius, and he himself had taken to wife Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna. Cæsar, like Cicero, and under circumstances of greater danger, first showed his mettle by daring to oppose the will of Sulla; the threats of the Dictator failed to terrify the young man into divorcing Cornelia, and he was obliged to fly for his life. His powerful friends and relations afterwards extorted a reluctant pardon from Sulla, who warned them that "in that young dandy there lay hidden many Mariuses."

Young as he was, being four years junior to Cicero, Cæsar from the first judged and acted for himself. He saw that the movement of Lepidus in 78 B.C. was premature and destined to fail, and he refused to throw in his lot with it. He urged that the various provisions of the complicated constitution of Sulla should be assailed one by one, and that the rehabilitation of the tribunate was the first point