David Grace - Caesar

Julius Caesar entered the world at the home of his parents on July 13 in 100 B.C. It could have been 101 or 102; the year is not certain. His mother Aurelia was attended by a midwife and several family slaves. After his birth, his father was expected to decide, as Roman law allowed, whether to accept the baby and raise him. Pronounced healthy, Caesar was welcomed into the family.

The Julians traced their aristocratic stock back 600 years, into the time of myth, to the goddess Venus. As convention required, the baby was given three names: Gaius for his father and grandfather, Julius for his extended family, and Caesar for his immediate family.

The Rome that Caesar was born into was an amalgamation of many diverse countries, each with its own language, culture, and laws. Provincial governors had many powers. They collected taxes, enforced laws, and, operating with little oversight from Rome, frequently accepted bribes. Governors often returned from the provinces to Rome as wealthy men. Caesars father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, had prospered as a territorial governor in Asia.

One way for men to advance in Rome was to join the army. Whenever a war broke out on some distant border, officers clamored for a chance to fight. Field commanders enjoyed the spoils of war and the celebrations of a triumphant return to Rome and gained a power base from which to launch a political career. Intense rivalries developed, none more memorable than the one between general and statesman Gaius Marius, who was elected a consul of Rome seven times, and another consul named Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Gaius Marius was married to Caesars aunt Julia, and the ups and downs of Marius storied career had a profound impact on the young man. Marius was self-made. His family was of common stock, and he lived a modest life outside Rome, although he belonged to Romes equestrian class, a sub-aristocracy of military and political careerists who were neither patrician nor plebian.

Marius was unusually ambitious. In his youth, he had sought and won public office, not an easy accomplishment in that age when patrician families held tightly to the reins of power. The upper class disdained rising politicians like Marius, whom they derided as new men, and they strove to keep them out of office. But Marius was not deterred. He championed the commoners and won their loyalty when he opposed efforts in the Senate to limit their right to vote. He wanted more than popularity, though; he wanted the power of a patrician. He got it by marrying into the Julian family.

Marius formal education was slight, and he was, in his early career, a poor orator. He was never comfortable with his background or with being dismissed as a commoner. The marriage, calculated to improve his status, helped. With the Julian name behind him, he was elected consul, Romes highest office in 108 B.C.

As consul, he demonstrated his abilities in warfare when the Senate granted him control of the Roman army in Africa to quash a rebellion by the king of Numidia, present-day Algeria. The forces had been led by Quintus Metellus, to whom Marius had earlier served as a subordinate, and his appointment to succeed his former commander, whose army had bogged down in fighting what had become a scattered guerilla war, was seen by the Metellus family as a betrayal.

Marius proved a brilliant general. The years-long conflict in Africa was resolved quickly under his command, but at the close of the campaign, he was not on hand when the rebel king was captured, and the honor of accepting the kings surrender fell to a field officer named Lucius Sulla, a patrician commander of Romes cavalry, who was widely regarded as a dissolute aristocrat. For this slight, Marius held a grudge against Sulla, which escalated into a feud that eventually sparked a bloody civil war and led to a long period of exile for Marius. Given the momentous consequences of their rivalry - the worlds greatest power all but came apart in their struggle for supremacy - the feud between Marius and Sulla is considered by many historians as the most significant in world history.

What started as a personal rivalry between two ambitious men came to represent the conflict between Romes upper-class patricians and lower-class plebians, a widening divide that has echoed in every other civilization whose people have been given a voice in governing. Whereas Marius was favored by the plebian masses, Sulla rallied the more powerful aristocrats and elite citizens of Rome. But they rarely relied on the votes of their supporters in exercising their influence and might over Rome. They were warriors, and their power came from the armies they amassed to intimidate the Roman assemblies and exert their will. In their reckless struggles, the fierce combatants crushed any obstacle that dared stand in their path, and they destroyed mercilessly, each in his turn, all who opposed them.

In the immediate aftermath of his victory in Africa, Marius was, to all outward appearances, a champion. He galloped triumphantly into Rome, where a new challenge and glory awaited him. Twice, Roman forces had fallen in resisting a German invasion north of Italy, which now bore down on the city. The prideful Romans turned to Marius for justice and protection, and he rose to the occasion, driving out the would-be invaders.

Marius nephew, Caesar, took notice of his uncles military prowess and stature, but Caesars refined upbringing afforded him advantages and opportunities not available to Marius. Like all patrician men of his time, Caesar was educated and groomed for politics.

Despite the destiny laid out before him, Caesar, in his youth, gave no indication that he intended to follow it or to take advantage of his education in politics. Tall and handsome, with a joyous and lively disposition, Caesar was fun, outgoing, and agreeable to all he met on the streets of Rome. He took pleasure from the personable relationships he developed and in the admiration and wealth his stature afforded him. To those who observed him, he seemed content to live a life of leisure with little or no aspirations for greatness either on a battlefield or in government.

But Caesar was a diligent student, never neglectful of his studies; in fact, he took great pains to perfect himself in such intellectual pursuits. Caesar studied under Apollonius Molon, a celebrated philosopher and rhetorician from Rhodes, a Grecian island near the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. His studies focused on Greek and Latin literature and philosophy. In rhetoric, the art of persuasive argument, he was a natural. This made him even more dangerous to his future political enemies. The ability to write and speak well was a weapon wielded by some of Romes most powerful people, who employed the skill to hold sway over politicians and the people in the Senate and the public square. Caesar would eventually be heralded among the greatest orators and writers of his time.

Political influence also came from overhearing discussions between the men in his family, mostly politicians themselves. Much of the talk centered on the Senate and its actions, but Caesar was fascinated by reports from outside the capital. When he was twelve, he visited the Curia, the meeting house of the Senate house, and observed its orators and debaters.

At the heart of the city, the Forum, a stone-paved plaza, was where all of the affairs of Rome played out. People and politicians debated, held elections, and made speeches there. The Curia occupied a corner of this plaza. Goods were traded and bartered for in a two-story indoor market across the plaza. State treasurers operated from the Temple of Saturn, and records were kept in the Tabularium.