THE WIVES OF THE CJESARS. 



When Septimius Severus, with the designs of a reformer, succeeded 

 to the empire, he was daunted in his salutary projects by three 

 thousand cases of adultery inscribed upon the rolls of criminal im- 

 peachment. To this depraved condition were the morals of the Ro- 

 man females rapidly advancing, immediately anterior to the dictator- 

 ship of Caesar ; a change, indeed, from that austere simplicity, when 

 the elder Cato struck from the list of senators the man who had in- 

 vaded modesty so far as to kiss his wife in presence of his daughter. 

 Julius Caesar had four wives. We know but little of the first of 

 them, Cossutia, who was rich and of equestrian family. Caesar was 

 affianced to her in his boyhood, when predilection had but little part, 

 on either side, with the alliance. Accordingly he repudiated her 

 before cohabitation, and espoused Cornelia, Cinna's daughter. By 

 this connection Caesar made himself obnoxious to the power and 

 enmity of Sylla, whose ascendant, at the moment, was of paramount 

 authority in Rome. As he was the mortal enemy of Cinna, he neg- 

 lected neither menace nor persuasion to dissolve an union so repug- 

 nant to his politics and personal objections. But Caesar, indepen- 

 dently of the inflexible spirit which strengthened his persistence, had 

 been educated by his aunt,* the wife of Marius, and had conse- 

 quently the additional incentive of party hatred to confirm him in a 

 step, at once evincing his affection for Cornelia, and his resolute de- 

 votion to the Marian cause. Besides, if neither pride nor conjugal 

 fidelity had influenced his conduct, the power of Cinna was exten- 

 sive ; and his character f was too emphatically known, by its vindic- 

 tive violence, for Caesar to imagine he would calmly acquiesce in the 

 dishonour of his daughter. His resolute demeanour was, however, 

 visited by Sylla with extreme severity. He deprived him of the 

 priesthood, of his own and of his wife's estate ; annulled his right of 

 family succession ; and would probably have carried his resentment to 

 the last extremity, but for the momentous crisis of his fortune, which 

 led him to postpone the punishment of Caesar's contumacy, to the 

 prosecution of more comprehensive measures, and the ruin of more 

 formidable adversaries. The vestal virgins, too, had joined their 

 supplications with certain of the most distinguished citizens of Rome 

 in behalf of the unyielding Caesar ; and Sylla was accordingly con- 

 tent to yield a cold concession to the prayers, which it was impolitic, 

 perhaps, and even dangerous to deny. At the same time, his pene- 

 trating mind foresaw the future grandeur of his enemy, and foretold 

 the evils he would one day bring on the republic ; and though he 



* Educatus luim Caesar apud Aureliam matrem, C. Cottoe filiam, et Juliam 

 amitam, Marii conjugem. Unde illi, patricio, amor plebeise factionis, quse Ma- 

 riana dicta, et odium Syllanae, quae ab optimatibus erat. Comm. Bern, in Sueton. 



f- " Lucius Cornelius Cinna flagitiosissimus, Rempub. summa crudelitate 

 vastavit." S. Aur. Victor, de Vir. Illust. 69. " Cinna, seditione orta, ub exer- 

 citu interemtus est, vir dignior, qui arbitrio victorum moreretur, quam iracun- 

 dia militum ; de quo vere dici potest, ausum eum, quse nemo, auderet bonus, 

 perfecisse, quae a nullo, nisi fortissimo, perfici possent, et fuisse cum in consul- 

 tando temerarium in exequendo virum." Veil. Paterc. 1, 2. c. 24. 



" Neque ut repudiaret a Dictatore Sylla ullo modo potuit. Quare et 

 sacerdotio, et uxoris dote, et gentilitiis hsereditatibus multatus, diversarium 

 partium habebatur." Sueton. in Jul. COBS. 



