SVETONI TRANQVILII VITA DIVI IVLI - Suetonius' Life of The Divine Julius

[1] During Caesar's sixteenth year, he lost his father. In the following year, after he had been marked down to become a Flamen Dialis and thus broke off his engagement with Cossutia, a young woman who, though of an equestrian background, was quite wealthy, and to whom he had been betrothed, he married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who had been four-times Consul; she would soon bear him his daughter Julia and he was entirely unable to be forced by the dictator Sulla to divorce her.  And so, having been punished in respect to his priesthood, his wife's dowry, and his family's  inheritances, he was then held to be a member of the opposition party to the extent that he was forced to depart the city in the midst of all this. Though he suffered an attack of malarial fever which caused him to change his hiding place nearly every night, and he paid off bounty hunters until, through the intercession of Vestal Virgins, as well as Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, his relations and kin, he obtained a reprieve. It is commonly known that Sulla, when he had been long denied by beseeching hangers-on and well-coined men on Caesar's behalf and they had unceasingly opposed him, he at last gave way and shouted either divinely-inspired or by mere shrewdness that they successfully argued their side and were responsible for him as long as they kept in mind that the man whom they desired by such efforts to remain unharmed would be the death-knell of the Optimate Party which they had defended alongside him -- for within Caesar, there had been many Marii.

[2] His first military service was in Asia on the personal staff of Marcus Thermus. When Thermus sent Caesar to Bithynia to obtain a fleet, the young man tarried at Nicomedes' court such that he was rumored to have had improper relations with the king. He further raised eyebrows by making a return journey to Bithynia within a few days for the purpose of collecting on a loan which was owed him by some freed client of his.

The remainder of his service followed with more favorable renown, and he was awarded the civic crown by Thermus for his actions during the Sacking of Mytilene.

[3] He then served under Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia, but only for a short time -- for once news of Sulla's death got round, Caesar renewed his hopes for a counter-revolution which was being spear-headed by Marcus Lepidus, and so he returned with haste to Rome. But yet, he rejected an alliance with Lepidus, even though he was offered good terms, for he had lost confidence first with the man's capacity, and then the occasion for the event, which he had found less promising than he had imagined.

[4] Following the quieting of the civil uprising, Caesar brought a charge of extortion against Cornelius Dolabella, once-Consul and triumphant imperator, and, upon the latter's acquittal, the former withdrew to Rhodes, both to escape the ill-will he had incurred, and so that he might give some leisure and quiet-time to the most famous teacher of public-speaking at that time, Apollonius Molon. Hence while crossing during the winter months, he was taken by pirates around the island of Pharmacussa and remained in their company for nearly forty days, suffering indignity to the highest degree with only a single physician and two bodyslaves. For his companions and other slaves he had set off at the immediate outset in order to raise the funds by which he might be ransomed. Once fifty talents were paid, he was dropped on a seashore; but he wasted no time and at that very moment he set about gathering a fleet by which he might follow the fleeing pirates and, upon having them within his power, make good on his promise with which he had oft threatened when joking with them. Due to Mithridates laying waste to the neighboring territories, he left from Rhodes whither he had traveled and crossed into Asia; and, lest he be seen as sitting idle while his allies were at risk, gathered reinforcements, drove out the king's representative, and so kept the wavering and inconstant states loyal. 

[5] As Tribune of Soldiers, which was the first honor bestowed upon him by a vote of the people following his return to Rome, he most earnestly aided those lobbying for the restoration of tribunician power, the might of which Sulla had lessened. Because of a bill proposed by one Plotius, Caesar accomplished the return of his wife's brother, L. Cinna, as well as those who, after following Lepidus with him in his uprising against the state, had fled to Sertorius after the Consul's death; Caesar himself spoke in the bill's favor. 

[6] When he was Quaestor, he spoke from the Rostra in praise of his aunt and wife who had died. In particular, in the praising of his aunt, he related in the following fashion concerning hers and his own father's family history:

"The family of my aunt Julia is descended on her mother's side from the kings, and connected on her father's side to the deathless gods. For the Marcii Reges, her mother's family's name, were descended from King Ancus Marcius. From Venus are the Julii descended, of which family our branch is a member. Therefore, in her family lieth the sanctity of the kings who are the most powerful among humankind, as well as the reverential awe of the gods, under whose power are the kings themselves."

In Cornelia's place he married Pompeia, the daughter of Quintus Pompeius and the granddaughter of L. Sulla. He later divorced her when he thought her engaged in adultery with Publius Clodius. The report that he had met up with her during the state's religious ceremony while he was disguised in women's clothing was so widespread that the Senate ordered an investigation be carried out as to whether the rites had been desecrated.   

[7] It fell to his lot to serve his Quaestorship in Hinter-Spain. When he was making the rounds to conduct the assizes under the Praetor's standard, he came to Gades, and, upon noticing a statue of Alexander the Great in the temple of Hercules, he groaned. It was as if he were wearied at his own idleness, for he had achieved no great action worthy of remembrance while he was alive, whereas already in the same span of time had Alexander subdued the globe; therefore, he at once insisted on his discharge as soon as possible in order to take any opportunity of greater achievements in the city. When he relayed to seers that he had become disconcerted by a dream he had had some previous night -- for he dreamt that he had raped his mother -- the seers awoke in him his keenest hopes by interpreting that his would be the dominion of the world since it was his mother whom he had seen overpowered by him and she was no other than the earth, who is considered the common parent of all.