The Women of the Caesars | Page 4

famous Roman personage how many
wives he had and of what family they were. The marriage 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 mésalliance; but Caesar had been engaged
to this girl when still a very young man, at the time when, the alliance
between Marius and the knights being still firm and strong, the

marriage of a rich knight's daughter would mean to the nephew of
Marius, not only a considerable fortune, but also the support of the
social class which at that moment was predominant. For reasons
unknown to us, Caesar soon repudiated Cossutia, and before the
downfall of the democratic party he was married to Cornelia, who was
the daughter of Cinna, the democratic consul and a most distinguished
member of the party of Marius. This second marriage, the causes of
which must be sought for in the political status of Caesar's family, was
the cause of his first political reverses. For Sulla tried to force Caesar to
repudiate Cornelia, and in consequence of his refusal, he came to be
considered an enemy by Sulla and his party and was treated
accordingly.
[Illustration: The Forum under the Caesars.]
It is known that Cornelia died when still very young, after only a few
years of married life, and that Caesar's third marriage in the year 68
B.C., was quite different from his first and second, since the third wife,
Pompeia, belonged to one of the noblest families of the conservative
aristocracy--was, in fact, a niece of Sulla. How could the nephew of
Marius, who had escaped as by miracle the proscriptions of Sulla, ever
have married the latter's niece? Because in the dozen years intervening
between 80 and 68, the political situation had gradually grown calmer,
and a new air of conciliation had begun to blow through the city,
troubled by so much confusion, burying in oblivion the bloodiest
records of the civil war, calling into fresh life admiration for Marius,
that hero who had conquered the Cimbri and the Teutons. In that
moment, to be a nephew of Marius was no longer a crime among any of
the great families; for some, on the contrary, it was coming to be the
beginning of glory. But that situation was short-lived. After a brief
truce, the two parties again took up a bitter war, and for his fourth wife
Caesar chose Calpurnia, the