ST.--THE CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE. B.C. 69-61.

Notwithstanding the restoration of the Tribunate and the alteration in
the judicial power in Pompey's Consulship, the popular party had
received such a severe blow during Sulla's supremacy, that the
aristocracy still retained the chief political influence during Pompey's
absence in the East. But meantime a new leader of the popular party had
been rapidly rising into notice, who was destined not only to crush the
aristocracy, but to overthrow the Republic and become the undisputed
master of the Roman world.

C. JULIUS CAESAR, who was descended from an old Patrician family, was six
years younger than Pompey, having been born in B.C. 100. He was closely
connected with the popular party by the marriage of his aunt Julia with
the great Marius, and he himself married, at an early age, Cornelia, the
daughter of Cinna, the most distinguished of the Marian leaders. Sulla
commanded him to divorce his wife, and on his refusal he was included in
the list of the proscription. The Vestal virgins and his friends with
difficulty obtained his pardon from the Dictator, who observed, when
they pleaded his youth and insignificance, "that that boy would some day
or another be the ruin of the aristocracy, for that there were many
Mariuses in him."

This was the first proof which Caesar gave of the resolution and decision
of character which distinguished him throughout life. He went to Asia in
B.C. 81, where he served his first campaign under M. Minucius Thermus,
and was rewarded, at the siege of Mitylene, with a civic crown for
saving the life of a fellow-soldier. On his return to Rome he accused
(B.C. 77) Cn. Dolabella of extortion in his province of Macedonia.
Dolabella was acquitted by the senatorial judges; but Caesar gained great
reputation by this prosecution, and showed that he possessed powers of
oratory which bade fair to place him among the foremost speakers at
Rome. To render himself still more perfect in oratory, he went to
Rhodes, which was then celebrated for its school of rhetoric, but in his
voyage thither he was captured by pirates, with whom the seas of the
Mediterranean then swarmed. In this island he was detained by them till
he could obtain fifty talents from the neighboring cities for his
ransom. Immediately on obtaining his liberty, he manned some Milesian
vessels, overpowered the pirates, and conducted them as prisoners to
Pergamus, where he shortly afterward crucified