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Page 5
But when there broke out the revolution in which Marius placed himself
at the head of the popular party, and the revolution was overcome by
Sulla, the old aristocracy, which had conquered with Sulla, did not
forgive the patrician family of the Julii for having connected itself
with that bitter foe, who had made so much mischief. Consequently,
during the period of the reaction, all its members were looked upon
askance, and were suspected and persecuted, among them young Caesar,
who was in no way responsible for the deeds of his uncle, since he was
only a lad during the war between Sulla and Marius.
This explains how it was that the first wife of Caesar, Cossutia, was
the daughter of a knight; that is, of a financier and revenue-farmer.
For a young man belonging to a family of ancient senatorial nobility,
this marriage was little short of a _m�salliance_; but Caesar had been
engaged to this girl when still a very young man, at the time when, the
alliance between Marius and the knights being still firm and strong,
the marriage of a rich knight's daughter would mean to the nephew of
Marius, not only a considerable fortune, but also the support of the
social class which at that moment was predominant. For reasons unknown
to us, Caesar soon repudiated Cossutia, and before the downfall of the
democratic party he was married to Cornelia, who was the daughter of
Cinna, the democratic consul and a most distinguished member of the
party of Marius. This second marriage, the causes of which must be
sought for in the political status of Caesar's family, was the cause of
his first political reverses. For Sulla tried to force Caesar to
repudiate Cornelia, and in consequence of his refusal, he came to be
considered an enemy by Sulla and his party and was treated accordingly.
[Illustration: The Forum under the Caesars.]
It is known that Cornelia died when still very young, after only a few
years of married life, and that Caesar's third marriage in the year 68
B.C., was quite different from his first and second, since the third
wife, Pompeia, belonged to one of the noblest families of the
conservative aristocracy--was, in fact, a niece of Sulla. How could
the nephew of Marius, who had escaped as by miracle the proscriptions
of Sulla, ever have married the latter's niece? Because in the dozen
years intervening between 80 and 68, the political situation had
gradually grown calmer, and a new air of conciliation had begun to blow
through the city, troubled by so much confusion, burying in oblivion
the bloodiest records of the civil war, calling into fresh life
admiration for Marius, that hero who had conquered the Cimbri and the
Teutons. In that moment, to be a nephew of Marius was no longer a
crime among any of the great families; for some, on the contrary, it
was coming to be the beginning of glory. But that situation was
short-lived. After a brief truce, the two parties again took up a
bitter war, and for his fourth wife Caesar chose Calpurnia, the
daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, consul in 58, and a most
influential senator of the popular party.
Whoever studies the history of the influential personages of Caesar's
time, will find that their marriages follow the fortunes of the
political situation. Where a purely political reason was wanting,
there was the economic. A woman could aid powerfully a political
career in two ways: by ably administering the household and by
contributing to its expenses her dower or her personal fortune.
Although the Romans gave their daughters an education relatively
advanced, they never forgot to inculcate in them the idea that it was
the duty of a woman, especially if she was nobly born, to know all the
arts of good housewifery, and especially, as most important, spinning
and weaving. The reason for this lay in the fact that for the
aristocratic families, who were in possession of vast lands and many
flocks, it was easy to provide themselves from their own estates with
the wool necessary to clothe all their household, from masters to the
numerous retinue of slaves. If the _materfamilias_ knew sufficiently
well the arts of spinning and weaving to be able to organize in the
home a small "factory" of slaves engaged in such tasks, and knew how to
direct and survey them, to make them work with zeal and without theft,
she could provide the clothing for the whole household, thus saving the
heavy expense of buying the stuffs from a merchant--notable economy in
times when money was scarce and every family tried to make as little
use of it as possible. The _materfamilias_ held, then, in every home,
a prime industrial office, that of clothing the entire household, and
in proportion to her usefulness in this office was she able to aid or
injure the family.
More important still were the woman's dower and her personal fortune.
The Romans not only considered it perfectly honorable, sagacious, and
praiseworthy for a member of the political aristocracy to marry a rich
woman for her wealth, the better to maintain the luster of his rank, or
the more easily to fulfil his particular political and social duties,
but they also believed there could be no better luck or greater honor
for a rich woman than for this reason to marry a prominent man. They
exacted only that she be of respectable habits, and even in this regard
it appears that, during certain tumultuous periods, they sometimes shut
one eye.
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