The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0001/00017.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 26KB | 406 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00017}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Julius Caesar
Chapter II: Caesar's Early Years}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{caesar
power
himself
rome
time
party
public
every
forum
pirates
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1900}
$Log{See Bust Of Julius Caesar*0001701.scf
See General View Of The Forum*0001702.scf
}
Title:       Julius Caesar
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1900

Chapter II: Caesar's Early Years

     Caesar does not seem to have been much disheartened and depressed by his
misfortunes.  He possessed in his early life more than the usual share of
buoyancy and light-heartedness of youth, and he went away from Rome to enter,
perhaps, upon years of exile and wandering, with a determination to face
boldly and to brave the evils and dangers which surrounded him, and not to
succumb to them.

     Sometimes they who become great in their maturer years are thoughtful,
grave, and sedate when young.  It was not so, however, with Caesar.  He was of
a very gay and lively disposition.  He was tall and handsome in his person,
fascinating in his manners, and fond of society, as people always are who know
or who suppose that they shine in it.  He had seemed, in a word, during his
residence at Rome, wholly intent upon the pleasures of a gay and joyous life,
and upon the personal observation which his rank, his wealth, his agreeable
manners, and his position in society secured for him.  In fact, they who
observed and studied his character in these early years, thought that,
although his situation was very favorable for acquiring power and renown, he
would never feel any strong degree of ambition to avail himself of its
advantages.  He was too much interested, they thought, in personal pleasures
ever to become great, either as a military commander or a statesman.

[See Bust Of Julius Caesar: He was tall and handsome in his person,
fascinating in his manners, and fond of society.]

     Sylla, however, thought differently.  He had penetration enough to
perceive, beneath all the gayety and love of pleasure which characterized
Caesar's youthful life, the germs of a sterner and more aspiring spirit,
which, he was very sorry to see, was likely to expend its future energies in
hostility to him.  By refusing to submit to Sylla's commands, Caesar had, in
effect, thrown himself entirely upon the other party, and would be, of course,
in future identified with them.  Sylla consequently looked upon him now as a
confirmed and settled enemy.  Some friends of Caesar among the patrician
families interceded in his behalf with Sylla again, after he had fled from
Rome.  They wished Sylla to pardon him, saying that he was a mere boy and
could do him no harm.  Sylla shook his head, saying that, young as he was, he
saw in him indications of a future power which he thought was more to be
dreaded than that of many Mariuses.

     One reason which led Sylla to form this opinion of Caesar was, that the
young nobleman, with all his love of gayety and pleasure, had not neglected
his studies, but had taken great pains to perfect himself in such intellectual
pursuits as ambitious men who looked forward to political influence and
ascendency were accustomed to prosecute in those days.  He had studied the
Greek language, and read the works of Greek historians; and he attended
lectures on philosophy and rhetoric, and was obviously interested deeply in
acquiring power as a public speaker.  To write and speak well gave a public
man great influence in those days.  Many of the measures of the government
were determined by the action of great assemblies of the free citizens, which
action was itself, in a great measure, controlled by the harangues of orators
who had such powers of voice and such qualities of mind as enabled them to
gain the attention and sway the opinions of large bodies of men.

     It must not be supposed, however, that this popular power was shared by
all the inhabitants of the city.  At one time, when the population of the city
was about three millions the number of free citizens was only three hundred
thousand.  The rest were laborers, artisans, and slaves, who had no voice in
public affairs.  The free citizens held very frequent public assemblies. There
were various squares and open spaces in the city where such assemblies were
convened, and where courts of justice were held.  The Roman name for such a
square was forum.  There was one which was distinguished above all the rest,
and was called emphatically The Forum.  It was a magnificent square,
surrounded by splendid edifices, and ornamented by sculptures and statues
without number.  There were ranges of porticoes along the sides, where the
people were sheltered from the weather when necessary, though it is seldom
that there is any necessity for shelter under an Italian 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.

[See General View Of The Forum: It was a magnificent square, surrounded by
splendid edifices.]

     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.

     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.

     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 dictat