eat orator like Cicero, or successful
general like Marius or Sulla; and it was difficult to get popularity
except as a lawyer and orator, or as a general.

Caesar, like Cicero and Hortensius, chose the law as a means of rising
in the world; for, though of ancient family, he was not rich. He must
make money by his profession, or he must borrow it, if he would secure
office. It seems he borrowed it. How he contrived to borrow such vast
sums as he spent on elections, I do not know. He probably made friends
of rich men like Crassus, who became security for him. He was in debt to
the amount of $1,500,000 of our money before he held office. He was a
bold political gambler, and played for high stakes. It would seem that
he had very winning and courteous manners, though he was not
distinguished for popular oratory. His terse and pregnant sentences,
however, won the admiration of his friend Cicero, a brother lawyer, and
he was very social and hospitable. He was on the liberal side in
politics, and attacked the abuses of the day, which won him popular
favor. At first he lived in a modest house with his wife and mother, in
the Subarra, without attracting much notice. The first office to which
he was elected was that of a Military Tribune, soon after his sojourn of
two years in Rhodes to learn from Apollonius the arts of oratory. His
next office was that of Quaestor, which enabled him to enter the Senate,
at the age of thirty-two; and his third office, that of Aedile, which
gave him the control of the public buildings: the Aediles were expected
to decorate the city, and this gave him opportunities of cultivating
popularity by splendor and display. The first thing which brought him
into notice as an orator was a funeral oration he pronounced on his Aunt
Julia, the widow of Marius. The next fortunate event of his life was his
marriage with Pompeia, a cousin of Pompey, who was then the foremost man
in Rome, having distinguished himself in Spain and in putting down the
slave insurrection under Spartacus; but Pompey's great career in the
East had not yet commenced, so that the future rivals at that time were
friends. Caesar glorified Pompey in the Senate, which by virtue of his
office he had lately entered. The next step to greatness was his
election by the people--through the use of immense amounts of borrowed
money--to the great office of Pontifex Maximus, which made him the pagan
Pope of Rome for life, with a grand palace to live in.