History of Julius Caesar | Page 8

sky. In
this area and under these porticoes the people held their assemblies, and
here courts of justice were accustomed to sit. The Forum was
ornamented continually with new monuments, temples, statues, and
columns by successful generals returning in triumph from foreign
campaigns, and by proconsuls and praetors coming back enriched from
their provinces, until it was fairly choked up with its architectural
magnificence, and it had at last to be partially cleared again, as one
would thin out too dense a forest, in order to make room for the
assemblies which it was its main function to contain.
[Illustration: A ROMAN FORUM]
[Sidenote: Harangues and political discussions.]

The people of Rome had, of course, no printed books, and yet they
were mentally cultivated and refined, and were qualified for a very high
appreciation of intellectual pursuits and pleasures. In the absence,
therefore, of all facilities for private reading, the Forum became the
great central point of attraction. The same kind of interest which, in our
day, finds its gratification in reading volumes of printed history quietly
at home, or in silently perusing the columns of newspapers and
magazines in libraries and reading-rooms, where a whisper is seldom
heard, in Caesar's day brought every body to the Forum, to listen to
historical harangues, or political discussions, or forensic arguments in
the midst of noisy crowds. Here all tidings centered; here all questions
were discussed and all great elections held. Here were waged those
ceaseless conflicts of ambition and struggles of power on which the fate
of nations, and sometimes the welfare of almost half mankind
depended. Of course, every ambitious man who aspired to an
ascendency over his fellow-men, wished to make his voice heard in the
Forum. To calm the boisterous tumult there, and to hold, as some of the
Roman orators could do, the vast assemblies in silent and breathless
attention, was a power as delightful in its exercise as it was glorious in
its fame. Caesar had felt this ambition, and had devoted himself very
earnestly to the study of oratory.
[Sidenote: Apollonius.] [Sidenote: Caesar studies under him.]
His teacher was Apollonius, a philosopher and rhetorician from Rhodes.
Rhodes is a Grecian island, near the southwestern coast of Asia Minor
Apollonius was a teacher of great celebrity, and Caesar became a very
able writer and speaker under his instructions. His time and attention
were, in fact, strangely divided between the highest and noblest
intellectual avocations, and the lowest sensual pleasures of a gay and
dissipated life. The coming of Sylla had, however, interrupted all; and,
after receiving the dictator's command to give up his wife and abandon
the Marian faction, and determining to disobey it, he fled suddenly
from Rome, as was stated at the close of the last chapter, at midnight,
and in disguise.
[Sidenote: Caesar's wanderings.] [Sidenote: He is seized by a

centurion.]
He was sick, too, at the time, with an intermittent fever. The paroxysm
returned once in three or four days, leaving him in tolerable health
during the interval. He went first into the country of the Sabines,
northeast of Rome, where he wandered up and down, exposed
continually to great dangers from those who knew that he was an object
of the great dictator's displeasure, and who were sure of favor and of a
reward if they could carry his head to Sylla He had to change his
quarters every day, and to resort to every possible mode of concealment.
He was, however, at last discovered, and seized by a centurion. A
centurion was a commander of a hundred men; his rank and his
position therefore, corresponded somewhat with those of a captain in a
modern army. Caesar was not much disturbed at this accident. He
offered the centurion a bribe sufficient to induce him to give up his
prisoner, and so escaped.
[Sidenote: Caesar in Asia Minor.] [Sidenote: He joins the court of
Nicomedes.]
The two ancient historians, whose records contain nearly all the
particulars of the early life of Caesar which are now known, give
somewhat contradictory accounts of the adventures which befell him
during his subsequent wanderings. They relate, in general, the same
incidents, but in such different connections, that the precise
chronological order of the events which occurred can not now be
ascertained. At all events, Caesar, finding that he was no longer safe in
the vicinity of Rome, moved gradually to the eastward, attended by a
few followers, until he reached the sea, and there he embarked on board
a ship to leave his native land altogether. After various adventures and
wanderings, he found himself at length in Asia Minor, and he made his
way at last to the kingdom of Bithynia, on the northern shore. The
name of the king of Bithynia was Nicomedes. Caesar joined himself to