t, when, having
collected some ships [16], he lost no time in putting to sea in pursuit
of the pirates, and having captured them, inflicted upon them the
punishment with which he had often threatened them in jest. At that time
Mithridates was ravaging the neighbouring districts, and on Caesar's
arrival at Rhodes, that he might not appear to lie idle while danger
threatened the allies of Rome, he passed over into Asia, and having
collected some auxiliary forces, and driven the king's governor out of
the province, retained in their allegiance the cities which were
wavering, and ready to revolt.

V. Having been elected military tribune, the first honour he received
from the suffrages of the people after his return to Rome, he zealously
assisted those who took measures for restoring the tribunitian authority,
which had been greatly diminished during the usurpation of Sylla. He
likewise, by an act, which Plotius at his suggestion propounded to the
people, obtained the recall of Lucius Cinna, his wife's brother, and
others with him, who having been the adherents of Lepidus in the civil
disturbances, had after that consul's death fled to Sertorius [17]; which
law he supported by a speech.

VI. During his quaestorship he pronounced funeral orations from the
rostra, according to custom, in praise of his aunt (5) Julia, and his
wife Cornelia. In the panegyric on his aunt, he gives the following
account of her own and his father's genealogy, on both sides: "My aunt
Julia derived her descent, by the mother, from a race of kings, and by
her father, from the Immortal Gods. For the Marcii Reges [18], her
mother's family, deduce their pedigree from Ancus Marcius, and the Julii,
her father's, from Venus; of which stock we are a branch. We therefore
unite in our descent the sacred majesty of kings, the chiefest among men,
and the divine majesty of Gods, to whom kings themselves are subject."
To supply the place of Cornelia, he married Pompeia, the daughter of
Quintus Pompeius, and grand-daughter of Lucius Sylla; but he afterwards
divorced her, upon suspicion of her having been debauched by Publius
Clodius. For so current was the report, that Clodius had found access to
her disguised as a woman, during the celebration of a religious solemnity
[19], that the senate instituted an enquiry respecting the profanation of
the sacred rites.

VII. Farther-Spain [20] fell to his lot as quaestor; when there, as he
was going the circuit o