Ceasers Early Life

Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus.[5] The cognomen "Caesar" originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarean section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedere, caes-).[6] The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle.[7] Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favoured this interpretation of his name. Despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential. Caesar's father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia,[8] while his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesar's childhood.[9] Caesar's formative years were a time of turmoil. There were several wars from 91 BC to 82 BC, although from 82 BC to 80 BC, the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla was purging Rome of his political enemies. Domestically, Roman politics was bitterly divided. In 85 BC Caesar's father died suddenly[10] so at sixteen Caesar was the head of the family. The following year he was nominated to be the new high priest of Jupiter.[11] Since the holder of that position not only had to be a patrician but also be married to a patrician, he broke off his engagement to a plebeian girl he had been betrothed to since boyhood, and married Lucius Cinna's daughter Cornelia.[12] Then, having brought Mithridates to terms, Sulla returned to Rome and had himself appointed to the revived office of dictator.[13] Sulla's proscriptions saw hundreds of his political enemies killed or exiled. Caesar, as the nephew of Marius and son-in-law of Cinna, was targeted. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding. The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins. Sulla gave in reluctantly, and is said to have declared that he saw many a Marius in Caesar.[9]

Caesar left Rome and joined the army, where he won the Civic Crown for his part in an important siege. On a mission to Bithynia to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes's fleet, he spent so long at his court that rumours of an affair with the king arose, which Caesar would vehemently deny for the rest of his life.[14] Ironically, the loss of his priesthood had allowed him to pursue a military career: the high priest of Jupiter was not permitted to touch a horse, sleep three nights outside his own bed or one night outside Rome, or look upon an army.[15] Hearing of Sulla's death in 78 BC, Caesar felt safe enough to

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