He paid special attention to his person, carefully shaved or plucked out his beard, and artistically brought his hair forward to the front of his head, which, in more advanced age, served to conceal his bald forehead. He was reproached with the affectation of scratching his head with one finger only, so that he should not disarrange his hair.[773] His toilette was refined; his toga was generally ornamented with a laticlavia, fringed down to the hands, and fastened by a girdle carelessly tied about his loins; a costume which distinguished the elegant and effeminate youths of the period. But Sylla was not deceived by these appearances of frivolity, and repeated that they must take care of this young man with the loose girdle.[774] He had a taste for pictures, statues, and jewels; and, in memory of his origin, always wore on his finger a ring, on which was engraved the figure of an armed Venus.[775]
In fine, we discover in Cæsar, both physically and morally, two natures rarely united in the same person. He joined an aristocratic delicacy of body to the muscular constitution of the warrior; the love of luxury and the arts to a passion for military life, in all its simplicity and rudeness: in a word, he allied the elegance of manner which seduces with the energy of character which commands.
[Sidenote: Cæsar persecuted by Sylla (672).]
II. Such was Cæsar at the age of eighteen, when Sylla seized the dictatorship.[776] Already he attracted all eyes at Rome by his name, his intellect, his affable manners, which pleased men, and, perhaps, women still more.
The influence of his uncle Marius caused him to be nominated priest of Jupiter (_flamen dialis_) at the age of fourteen.[777] At sixteen, betrothed, doubtless against his will, to Cossutia, the daughter of a rich knight, he broke his engagement,[778] after the death of his father, to draw still closer his alliance with the popular party by marrying, a year after, in 671, Cornelia, daughter of L. Cornelius Cinna, the ancient colleague of Marius, and the representative of his cause. From this marriage was born, the following year, Julia, who became, in after time, the wife of Pompey.[779]
Sylla saw with displeasure this young man, who already occupied men’s thoughts, although, as yet, he had done nothing, linking himself more closely with those who were opposed to him. He wished to force him to divorce Cornelia, but he found him inflexible. When every one yielded to his will; when, by his orders, Piso separated from Annia, the widow of Cinna,[780] and Pompey ignominiously dismissed his wife, the daughter of Antistius, who died for his cause,[781] to marry Emilia, the daughter-in-law of the dictator, Cæsar maintained his independence at the price of his personal safety.