The Historians' History of the World 05

The same authors inform us that he constantly kept two tables in the provinces, one for the officers of the army, or the gentlemen of the provinces, and the other for such of the Roman gentry as had no commission in the troops, and provincials of the first distinction. He was so very exact in the management of his domestic affairs, both small and great, that he once put a baker in fetters, for serving him with a finer sort of bread than his guests; and put to death a freedman, and a particular favourite, for debauching the lady of a Roman knight, though no complaint had been made to him of the affair.

It is admitted by all that he was much addicted to women, as well as very expensive in his intrigues with them, and that he debauched many ladies of the highest quality; among whom were Postumia the wife of Servius Sulpicius, Lollia the wife of Aulus Gabinius, Tertulla the wife of M. Crassus, and likewise Mucia the wife of Cn. Pompeius. For it is certain that the Curios, father and son, and many others, objected to Pompey in reproach, “that to gratify his ambition, he married the daughter of a man upon whose account he had divorced his wife, after having had three children by her, and whom he used, with a heavy sigh, to call Ægisthus.” But the mistress whom of all he most loved was Servilia, the mother of M. Brutus; for whom he purchased in his consulship, next after the commencement of their intrigue, a pearl which cost him six millions of sesterces; and in the Civil War, besides other presents, consigned to her, for a trifling consideration, some valuable estates in land, which were exposed to public auction. When many persons wondered at the lowness of the price, Cicero facetiously observed, “To let you know how much better a purchase this is than ye imagine, Tertia is deducted”; for Servilia was supposed to have prostituted her daughter Tertia to Cæsar.

That he had intrigues likewise with married women in the provinces appears from a distich, which was much repeated in the Gallic triumph.

In the number of his mistresses were also some queens, such as Eunoe, a Moor, the wife of Bogudes, to whom and her husband he made, as Naso reports, many large presents. But his greatest favourite was Cleopatra, with whom he often revelled all night till daybreak, and would have gone with her through Egypt in a pleasure-boat, as far as Ethiopia, had not the army refused to follow him. He afterwards invited her to Rome, whence he sent her back loaded with honours and presents, and gave her permission to call by his name a son, who, according to the testimony of some Greek historians, resembled Cæsar both in person and gait. Mark Antony declared in the senate that Cæsar had acknowledged the child as his own; and that C. Matius, C. Oppius, and the rest of Cæsar’s friends knew it to be true. On which occasion Oppius, as if it had been an imputation which he was called upon to refute, published a book to show that the child which Cleopatra fathered upon Cæsar was not his. Helvius Cinna, tribune of the commons, told several persons as a fact that he had a bill ready drawn up, which Cæsar had ordered him to get enacted in his absence, that, with the view of procuring issue, he might contract marriage with any one female, or as many as he pleased.

It is acknowledged even by his enemies that in respect of wine he was abstemious. A remark is ascribed to M. Cato, “that he was the only sober man amongst all those who were engaged in a design to subvert the government.” For in regard to diet, C. Oppius informs us, he was so indifferent for his own part, that when a person in whose house he was entertained had served him, instead of fresh oil, with oil which had some sort of seasoning in it, and which the rest of the company would not touch, he alone ate very heartily of it, that he might not seem to tax the master of the house with inelegance or want of attention.