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Excerpt from The Commentaries of Cæzar: Translated Into English; To Which Is Prefixed, a Discourse Concerning the Roman Art of War Caius Julius Cæsar, the son of C. Julius Cæsar and Aurelia, was born B.C. 100, on the twelfth of Quintilis, afterward called Julius in honour of this Cæsar. His aunt Julia was the wife of Caius Marius. In his seventeenth year he married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, by whom he had a daughter, Julia. This connection with Marius and Cinna, the two great opponents of the dictator Sulla, exposed him to the resentment of the opposite faction. Sulla is said to have spared his life with great reluctance. He first served under M. Thermus in Asia, and distinguished himself at the capture of Mitylene (B.C. 80 or 79). In the following year he served under P. Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia. The news of Sulla's death brought him back to Rome, B.C. 78. After his unsuccessful impeachment of Dolabella for maladministration in his province, he retired to Rhodes, and for a time became the pupil of the rhetorician Molo, whose instruction Cicero had attended, probably a year or two before Cæsar's visit, B.C. 75. About B.C. 69, being elected one of the military tribunes, he procured an enactment for the restoration of L. Cinna, his wife's brother, and of those partisans of M. Lepidus who after his death had joined Sertorius in Spain. The following year he was quæstor in Spain, and on his return to Rome, he was elected curule ædile for B.C. 65. The office of ædile gave Cæsar an opportunity of indulging his taste for magnificence and display, by which he secured the favour of the people. Cæsar, who was now five-and-thirty years of age, had enjoyed no opportunity of distinguishing himself in a military capacity; while Cn. Pompeius, who was only six years older, was spreading his name and the terror of the Roman arms throughout the East. By a judicious application of money among the poorer voters, and of personal influence among all classes, he