The man Caesar. ‘We may picture him as a man the dignity of whose bodily presence was in due proportion to the greatness of his mental powers.’—Warde Fowler.
GAIUS IULIUS CAESAR (2)
Captured by Pirates.
Studies Oratory at Rhodes, 76-75 B.C.
Composita seditione civili Cornelium Dolabellam consularem et triumphalem repetundarum postulavit; absolutoque Rhodum secedere statuit, et ad declinandam invidiam et ut per otium ac requiem Apollonio Moloni clarissimo tunc dicendi magistro 5 operam daret. Huc dum hibernis iam mensibus traicit, circa Pharmacussam insulam a praedonibus captus est, mansitque apud eos, non sine summa indignatione, prope quadraginta dies cum uno medico et cubicularis duobus. Nam comites servosque 10 ceteros initio statim ad expediendas pecunias, quibus redimeretur, dimiserat. Numeratis deinde quinquaginta talentis, expositus in litore non distulit quin e vestigio classe deducta persequeretur abeuntis, ac redactos in potestatem supplicio, quod saepe illis 15 minatus inter iocum fuerat, adficeret. Vastante regiones proximas Mithridate ne desidere in discrimine sociorum videretur, ab Rhodio quo pertenderat, transiit in Asiam, auxiliisque contractis et praefecto regis provincia expulso, nutantes ac dubias civitates 20 retinuit in fide.
Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 4.
1 Composita seditione civili, i.e. after the abortive attempt of Lepidus to make himself master of the state 77 B.C.
C. Dolabellam, impeached for illegal extortion during his government of Macedonia.
Repetundarum (sc. pecuniarum), post-Aug. for de repetundis (pecuniis), used i. of money extorted by an official and to be returned, ii. of money extorted as a bribe. Caesar lost his case, but succeeded in showing that Sulla’s senatorial judges were corrupt.
4 Apollonio Moloni, the famous rhetorician, whose pupil Cicero was both at Rome and at Rhodes. Very possibly Caesar took this step by the advice of Cicero.