Home Introduction Persons Geogr. Sources Events Mijn blog(Nederlands)
Religion Subjects Images Queries Links Contact Do not fly Iberia
This is a non-commercial site. Any revenues from Google ads are used to improve the site.

Custom Search
Quote of the day: Urgulania's influence, however, was so f
Notes
Do not display Latin text
Twelve Emperors by Suetonius

Julius Caesar, Chapter 1: Julius Caesar and Cornelia.
Next chapter
Return to index
In the course of his sixteenth year [c. 85/84 B.C.] he lost his father. In the next consulate, having previously been nominated priest of Jupiter [by Marius and Cinna, Cos. 86], he broke his engagement with Cossutia, a lady of only equestrian rank but very wealthy, who had been betrothed to him before he assumed the gown of manhood, and married Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who was four times consul, by whom he afterwards had a daughter Julia; and the dictator Sulla could by no means force him to put away his wife. Therefore besides being punished by the loss of his priesthood, his wife's dowry, and his family inheritances, Caesar was held to be one of the opposite party. He was accordingly forced to go into hiding, and though suffering from a severe attack of Quartan Ague, to change from one covert to another almost every night, and save himself from Sulla's detectives by bribes. But at last, through the good offices of the Vestal Virgins and of his near kinsmen, Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, he obtained forgiveness. Everyone knows that when Sulla had long held out against the most devoted and eminent men of his party who interceded for Caesar, and they obstinately persisted, he at last gave way and cried, either by divine inspiration or a shrewd forecast: 'Have your way and take him; only bear in mind that the man you are so eager to save will one day deal the death blow to the cause of the aristocracy, which you have joined with me in upholding; for in this Caesar there is more than one Marius.'

Event: Julius Caesar and Cornelia

Annum agens sextum decimum patrem amisit; sequentibusque consulibus flamen Dialis destinatus dimissa Cossutia, quae familia equestri sed admodum diues praetextato desponsata fuerat, Corneliam Cinnae quater consulis filiam duxit uxorem, ex qua illi mox Iulia nata est; neque ut repudiaret compelli a dictatore Sulla ullo modo potuit. quare et sacerdotio et uxoris dote et gentilicis hereditatibus multatus diuersarum partium habebatur, ut etiam discedere e medio et quamquam morbo quartanae adgrauante prope per singulas noctes commutare latebras cogeretur seque ab inquisitoribus pecunia redimeret, donec per uirgines Vestales perque Mamercum Aemilium et Aurelium Cottam propinquos et adfines suos ueniam impetrauit. satis constat Sullam, cum deprecantibus amicissimis et ornatissimis uiris aliquamdiu denegasset atque illi pertinaciter contenderent, expugnatum tandem proclamasse siue diuinitus siue aliqua coniectura: uincerent ac sibi haberent, dum modo scirent eum, quem incolumem tanto opere cuperent, quandoque optimatium partibus, quas secum simul defendissent, exitio futurum; nam Caesari multos Marios inesse.