Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/557

Rh CAESAR. Caesar, wlio was then at Ariminum, with some proposals for peace. Although these did not amount to much, Caesar availed himself of the opportu- nity to send back by L. Caesar the terms on which ho'would withdraw from Italy. Cicero saw L. Caesar at Mintumae on his way back to Pompey, and whether he was jealous at not having been employed himself, or for some other re.ason, he speaks with the utmost contempt of Lucius, and calls him a bundle of loose broom-sticks {scojkw Koluiac). Pompey sent him back again to the enemy with fresh proposals, but the negotiation, as is well known, came to nothing. (Caes. B. C. i. 8, 9, 10 ; Cic. ad Ait. vii. 13, 1 4, 1 6 ; Dion Cass. xli. 5.) In the course of the same year (b.c. 49), L. Cae- sar repaired to Africii, and had the command of Clupca entrusted to him, which he deserted, how- ever, on the approach of Curio from Sicily, who came with a large force to oppose the Pompeian party. (Caes. B. C. ii. 23; Dion Cass. xli. 41.) Three years afterwards (b. c. 46), we find L. Cae- sar serving as proquaestor to Cato in Utica. After the death of Cato, who committed his son to his care, he persuaded the inhabitants of Utica to sur- render the town to the dictator, and to throw them- selves upon his mercy. Lucius himself was par- doned by the dictator, according to the express statement of Hirtius, though other writers say that he was put to death by his order. It is certain that he was murdered shortly afterwards ; but it was probably not the dictator's doing, as such an act would hjive been quite opposed to Caesar's usual clemency, and not called for by any circum- stance. He probably fell a victim to the fury of the dictator's soldiers, who may have been exaspe- rated against him by the circumstance mentioned by Suetonius. (Hirt. B. Afr. 88, 89 ; Plut. Cat. Min. G6 ; Cic. ad Fam. ix. 7 ; Dion Cass, xliii. 1"2; Suet. Caes. 75.) 14. C. Ji'Lius Caesar, the grandfather of the dictator, as we learn from the Fasti. It is quite un- certain who the father of this Caius was. Drumann conjectures, that his father may have been a son of No. 4 and a brother of No. 6, and perhaps the C. .lulius, the senator, who is said to have written a Roman history in Greek, about b. c. 143. (Liv. Jtlpif. 53.) We know nothing more of the grand- father of the dictator, except that he married Mar- cia, whence his grandson traced his descent from the king Ancus Marcius. (Suet. Ccws. 6.) It is conjectured by some writers, that the praetor Cae- sar, who died suddenly at Rome, is the same as the subject of the present notice. (Plin. //. N. vii. 53. s. 54.) 15. C. Julius Caesar, the son of No. 14, and the father of the dictator, was praetor, though in what year is uncertain, and died suddenly at Pisae in B. c. 84, while dressing himself, when his son was sixteen years of age. The latter, in his cunile aedileship, b. c. 65, exhibited games in his father's honour. (Suet. Caes. 1 ; Plin. //. N. vii. 53. s. 54, xxxiii. 3. s. 1 6.) His wife was Aurelia. [ Aurelia.] 16. Julia, daughter of No. 14. [Julia.] 17. Sex. Julius C. f. Caesar, son of No. 14, and the uncle of the dictator, was consul in B.C. 91, just before the breaking out of the Social war. (Plin. H.N. ii. 83. 8. 85, xxxiii. 3. s. 17; Eutrop. v. 3 ; Flor. iii. 18; Oros. v. 18; Obsequ. 114.) The name of his grandfather is wanting in the Capito- line Fasti, through a break in the stone ; otherwise we might have been able to trace further back the CAESAR. ancestors of the dictator. This Sex. Caesar must not be confounded, as he is by Appian {B.C. i. 40), with L. Julius Caesar, who was consul in B. c. 90, in the first year of the Social war. [See No. 9.] The following coin, which represents on the ob- verse the head of Pallas winged, and on the reverse a woman driving a two-horse chariot, probably be- longs to this Caesar. 18. C. Julius C. f. C. n. Caesar, the dictator, son of No. 15 and Aurelia, was bom on the 12th of July, B. c. 100, in the consulship of C. Marius (VI.) and L. Valerius Fiaccus, and was consequently six years younger than Pompey and Cicero. He had nearly completed his fifty-sixth year at the time of his murder on the 15th of March, b. c. 44. Caesar was closely connected with the popular party by the marriage of his aunt Julia with the great Marius, who obtained the election of his nephew to the dignity of flamen dialis, when he was only thirteen years of age. (b. c. 87.) Marius died in the follow- ing year ; and, notwithstanding the murder of his own relations by the Marian party, and the for- midable forces with which Sulla w.is preparing to invade Italy, Caesar attached himself to the popu- lar side, and even married, in B. c 83, Cornelia, the daughter of L. Cinna, one of the chief oppo- nents of Sulla. He was then only seventeen years old, but had been already married to Cossutia, a wealthy heiress belonging to the equestrian order, to whom he had probably been betrothed by the wish of his father, who died in the preceding year. Caesar divorced Cossutia in order to marry Cinna's daughter ; but such an open declaration in favour of the popular party provoked the anger of Sulla, who had returned to Rome in B. c. 82, and who now commanded him to put away Cornelia, in the same way as he ordered Pompey to divorce An- tistia, and M. Piso his wife Annia, the widow of Cinna. Pompey and Piso obeyed, but the young Caesar refused to part with his wife, and was conse- quently proscribed, and deprived of his priesthood, his wife's dower, and his own fortune. His life was now in great danger, and he was obliged to conceal himself for some time in the country of the Sabines, till the Vestal virgins and his friends ob- tained his pardon from the dictator, who granted it with difficulty, and is said to have observed, when they pleaded his youth and insignificance, " that that boy would some day or another be the ruin of the aristocracy, for that there were many Mariuses- in him." This was the first proof which Caesar gave of the resolution and decision of character which dis- tinguished him throughout life. He now withdrew from Rome and went to Asia in B, c. 81, where he served his first campaign under M. Minucius Ther- mus, who was engaged in the siege of Mytilene, which was the only town in Asia that held out against the Romans after the conclusion of the first ^lithridatic war. Thennus sent him to Nico- medes III. in Bithynia to fetch his fleet, and, on his return to the camp, he took part in the capture
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