Early life of Julius Caesar

Suetonius' book The Lives of the Twelve Caesars starts thus for Julius Caesar: "Annum agens sextum decimum patrem amisit", meaning Caesar lost his father when he was sixteen years old.  Caesar's life before he was sixteen is shrouded in mystery. Back in those days, there were no Amazon Cloud Drive or Facebook to record every moment of your daily life. Records of his early life are either irretrievably lost or were never written. Caesar was born in the poor neighborhood of Subura, so the latter makes sense. His father was also named Gaius Julius Caesar, and his mother was Aurelia Cotta. The cognomen Caesar means that one of his ancestors was born by Caesarian section, according to Pliny the Elder. Others believe that it was because of his ancestry- one of his ancestors may had a head of bushy hair, killed an elephant, or had bright gray eyes. (Praenomen, nomen and cognomen will be explained in a later post.)


The era in which Caesar grew up was a period of civil war. It was during the period when Lucius Cornelius Sulla reigned as dictator. Caesar's uncle, Gaius Marius, belonged to the Populares faction of the Senate, and worked for the welfare of the plebeians. The Optimates, on the other hand, were people who supported the wealthy patricians, and Sulla was one of them.  Most senators were Optimates. Sulla and Marius were political enemies, and Sulla targeted Marius' nephew.  After his father died, Caesar became a Flamen Dialis, the high priest of Jupiter.

Caesar was betrothed to Cossutia, but she was an equestrian, and a high priest of Jupiter could only marry patricians. Instead, he found love in Cornelia, the daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, another political enemy of Sulla.




When Sulla pressured Caesar to divorce his wife, he stubbornly refused. So Sulla removed Caesar from his high priest position, seized his inheritance, and his wife's dowry. Afraid for his life, Caesar left Rome and went into hiding. Eventually, his relatives were able to convince Sulla to bring him back to Rome. Sulla reluctantly accepted their entreaties, but he warned them that while they are concerned about Caesar's safety at that time, Caesar would ruin the nobles at some point in the future because he saw many Marius' in him.






References:

Suetonius: The Lives of Twelve Caesars
Julius Caesar