iage of a Roman noble was a
political act, and noteworthy; because a youth, or even a mature man,
connecting himself with certain families, came to assume more or less
fully the political responsibilities in which, for one cause or
another, they were involved. This was particularly true in the last
centuries of the republic,--that is, beginning from the Gracchi,--when
for the various reasons which I have set forth in my "Greatness and
Decline of Rome," the Roman aristocracy divided into two inimical
parties, one of which attempted to rouse against the other the
interests, the ambitions, and the cupidity, of the middle and lower
classes. The two parties then sought to reinforce themselves by
matrimonial alliances, and these followed the ups and downs of the
political struggle that covered Rome with blood. Of this fact the
story of Julius Caesar is a most curious proof.

The prime reason for Julius Caesar's becoming the chief of the popular
party is to be found neither in his ambitions nor in his temperament,
and even less in his political opinions, but in his relationship to
Marius. An aunt of Caesar had married Caius Marius, the modest
bankrupt farmer of revenues, who, having entered politics, had become
the first general of his time, had been elected consul six times, and
had conquered Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutons. The self-made man
had become famous and rich, and in the face of an aristocracy proud of
its ancestors, had tried to ennoble his obscure origin by taking his
wife from an ancient and most noble, albeit impoverished and decayed,
patrician family.

But when there broke out the revolution in which Marius placed himself
at the head of the popular party, and the revolution was overcome by
Sulla, the old aristocracy, which had conquered with Sulla, did not
forgive the patrician family of the Julii for having connected itself
with that bitter foe, who had made so much mischief. Consequently,
during the period of the reaction, all its members were looked upon
askance, and were suspected and persecuted, among them young Caesar,
who was in no way responsible for the deeds of his uncle, since he was
only a lad during the war between Sulla and Marius.

This explains how it was that the first wife of Caesar, Cossutia, was
the daughter of a knight; that is, of a financier and revenue-farmer.
For a young man belonging to a family of ancient senatorial nobility,
this marriage was little short of a _mesalli