The opinion most accredited with the ancients, on the origin of the name of Cæsar, was that Julius slew an elephant in a fight. In the Punic tongue cæsar signifies “an elephant.” The medals of Cæsar, as grand pontiff, confirm this hypothesis; on the reverse is an elephant crushing a serpent beneath its feet. (Cohen, Consular Medals, plate xx. 10.)—We know that some symbols on the Roman medals are a species of canting heraldry. Pliny gives another etymology of the name of Cæsar: “Primusque Cæsarum a cæso matris utero dictus, qua de causa et Cæsones appellati.” (Natural History, VII. 9.)—Festus (p. 57) thus expresses himself: “Cæsar a cæsarie dictus est; qui scilicet cum cæsarie natus est;” and page 45: “Cæsariati (comati).”—Finally, Spartianus (Life of Ælius Verus, ii.) sums up in these words the greater part of the etymologies: “Cæsorem vel ab elephante (qui lingua Mauroram cæsar dicitur) in prœlio cæso, cum qui primus sic appellatus est, doctissimi et eruditissimi viri putant dictum; vel quia mortua matre, ventre cæso sit natus; vel quod cum magnis crinibus sit utero parentis effusus; vel quod oculis cæsiis et ultra humanum morem viguerit.” (See Isidore, Origines, IX. iii. 12.—Servius, Commentary on the Æneid, I. 290, and Constantine Manasses, p. 71.)
[745] Pliny, Natural History, VII. 53.—“Cæsar was in his sixteenth year when he lost his father.” (Suetonius, I.)
[746] “He sprang from the noble family of the Julii, and, according to an opinion long believed in, he derived his origin from Venus and Anchises.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.)
[747] In fact, the gens Marcia, one of the most illustrious patrician families in Rome, reckoned among its ancestors Numa Marcius, who married Pompilia, the daughter of Numa Pompilius, by whom he had Ancus Marcius, who was King of Rome after the death of Tullus Hostilius. (Plutarch, Coriolanus, I; Numa, 26.)
[748] Suetonius, Cæsar, vi. This passage, as generally translated, is unintelligible, because the translators render the words Martii Reges by the Kings Martius, instead of the family of Marcius Rex.
[749] Plutarch, Cæsar, 10.