Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 13, 100 BC. Although patrician descent, Caesar's family had not achieved real prominence. His father, also named Gaius Julius Caesar, was the brother-in-law of Gaius Marius and married Aurelia, who was connected with the prominent Aurelii family; he died about 85 BC, however, before reaching the consulship. In 84, Caesar married Cornelia, daughter of Marius's old partner Lucius Cornelius Cinna. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla ordered him to divorce her, he refused and escaped harm through the intervention of such people as his mother's relative, Gaius Aurelius Cotta. Caesar was then sent to collect a fleet from the Roman ally Nicomedes IV of Bithynia and was honored for conspicuous bravery at the siege of Mytilene. Returning home after Sulla's death , he unsuccessfully prosecuted two Sullans, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Gaius Antonius Hibrida. He then left Rome for studies in Rhodes but was captured by pirates. …
