The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

men already on the list might use friends influential with Sulla to get their names off the list, the most famous case of this sort being nineteen-year-old Gaius Julius Caesar—the Gaius Julius Caesar. In addition to the crime of being Marius’s nephew, Caesar had also married Cinna’s daughter. Sulla ordered Caesar to divorce his wife, but Caesar refused. So Caesar’s name went on the proscription list and he was forced into hiding. But the young man had friends deep in Sulla’s inner circle, and after a few weeks they secured him a pardon. Sulla did not grant the pardon without reservation, however, and said, “Have your way and take him; only bear in mind that the man you are so eager to save will one day deal the death blow to the cause of the aristocracy, which you have joined with me in upholding; for in this Caesar there is more than one Marius.”