SKILL INDIA

It was also not rich or influential or even distinguished.A Roman noblewon distinction for himself and his family by securing election to a series of public offices, whichculminated in the consulship, with the censorship possibly to follow. This was a difficult task foreven the ablest and most gifted noble unless he was backed by substantial family wealth andinfluence. Rome’s victory over Carthage in the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE) had madeRome the paramount power in the Mediterranean basin; an influential Roman noble family’sclients (that is, protégés who, in return, gave their patrons their political support) might includekings and even whole nations, besides numerous private individuals. The requirements and thecosts of a Roman political career in Caesar’s day were high, and the competition was severe;but the potential profits were of enormous magnitude.

One of the perquisites of the praetorshipand the consulship was the government of a province, which gave ample opportunity forplunder. The whole Mediterranean world was, in fact, at the mercy of the Roman nobility and ofa new class of Roman businessmen, the equites (“knights”), which had grown rich on militarycontracts and on tax farming.Military manpower was supplied by the Roman peasantry. This class had been partlydispossessed by an economic revolution following on the devastation caused by the SecondPunic War. The Roman governing class had consequently come to be hated and discredited athome and abroad. From 133 BCE onward there had been a series of alternate revolutionaryand counter-revolutionary paroxysms. It was evident that the misgovernment of the Romanstate and the Greco-Roman world by the Roman nobility could not continue indefinitely and itwas fairly clear that the most probable alternative was some form of military dictatorship backedby dispossessed Italian peasants who had turned to long-term military service.The traditionalcompetition among members of the Roman nobility for office and the spoils of office was thusthreatening to turn into a desperate race for seizing autocratic power. The Julii Caesares did notseem to be in the running. It was true that Sextus Caesar, who was perhaps the dictator’s uncle,had been one of the consuls for 91 BCE; and Lucius Caesar, one of the consuls for 90 BCE,was a distant cousin, whose son and namesake was consul for 64 BCE. In 90 BCE, Rome’sItalian allies had seceded from Rome because of the Roman government’s obstinate refusal togrant them Roman citizenship, and, as consul, Lucius Caesar had introduced emergencylegislation for granting citizenship to the citizens of all Italian ally states that had not taken uparms or that had returned to their allegiance.Whoever had been consul in this critical year would have had to initiate such legislation,whatever his personal political predilections. There is evidence, however, that the JuliiCaesares, though patricians, had already committed themselves to the antinobility party.

Anaunt of the future dictator had married Gaius Marius, a self-made man (novus homo) who hadforced his way up to the summit by his military ability and had made the momentous innovationof recruiting his armies from the dispossessed peasants. The date of Caesar the dictator’s birth has long been disputed. The day was July 12 or 13; thetraditional (and perhaps most probable) year is 100 BCE; but if this date is correct, Caesar musthave held each of his offices two years in advance of the legal minimum age. His father, GaiusCaesar, died when Caesar was but 16; his mother, Aurelia, was a notable woman, and it seemscertain that he owed much to her.In spite of the inadequacy of his resources, Caesar seems to have chosen a political career as amatter of course. From the beginning, he probably privately aimed at winning office, not just forthe sake of the honours but in order to achieve the power to put the misgoverned Roman stateand Greco-Roman world into better order in accordance with ideas of his own. It is improbablethat Caesar deliberately sought monarchical power until after he had crossed the Rubicon in 49BCE, though sufficient power to impose his will, as he was determined to do, proved to meanmonarchical power.In 84 BCE Caesar committed himself publicly to the radical side by marryingCornelia, a daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, a noble who was Marius’s associate inrevolution. In 83 BCE Lucius Cornelius Sulla returned to Italy from the East and led thesuccessful counter-revolution of 83–82 BCE; Sulla then ordered Caesar to divorce Cornelia.Caesar refused and came close to losing not only his property (such as it was) but his life aswell. He found it advisable to remove himself from Italy and to do military service, first in theprovince of Asia and then in Cilicia.In 78 BCE, after Sulla’s death, he returned to Rome and started on his political career in theconventional way, by acting as a prosecuting advocate—of course, in his case, againstprominent Sullan counter-revolutionaries. His first target, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, wasdefended by Quintus Hortensius, the leading advocate of the day, and was acquitted by theextortion-court jury, composed exclusively of senators.Caesar then went to Rhodes to study oratory under a famous professor, Molon. En route he wascaptured by pirates (one of the symptoms of the anarchy into which the Roman nobility hadallowed the Mediterranean world to fall). Caesar raised his ransom, raised a naval force,captured his captors, and had them crucified—all this as a private individual holding no publicoffice. In 74 BCE, when Mithradates VI Eupator, king of Pontus, renewed war on the Romans,Caesar raised a private army to combat him.