Lepidus's side of the story was never told,
but another side it certainly had. Though one of Sylla's generals, he had
married the daughter of the tribune Saturninus. He had been elected consul
by a very large majority against the wishes of the Senate, and was
suspected of holding popular opinions. It may be that the prosecution was
an after-thought of revenge, and that Lepidus was to have been tried
before a senatorial jury already determined to find him guilty.
Among these men lay the fortunes of Rome when the departure of their chief
left the aristocrats masters of their own destiny.
During this time Caesar had been serving his apprenticeship as a soldier.
The motley forces which Mithridates had commanded had not all submitted on
the king's surrender to Sylla. Squadrons of pirates hung yet about the
smaller islands in the Aegean. Lesbos was occupied by adventurers who were
fighting for their own hand, and the praetor Minucius Thermus had been
sent to clear the seas and extirpate these nests of brigands. To Thermus
Caesar had attached himself. The praetor, finding that his fleet was not
strong enough for the work, found it necessary to apply to Nicomedes, the
allied sovereign of the adjoining kingdom of Bithynia, to supply him with
a few additional vessels; and Caesar, soon after his arrival, was
despatched on this commission to the Bithynian court.
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