[Sidenote: Caesar aet. 24.]
Caesar meanwhile felt his way, as Cicero was doing in the law-courts,
attacking the practical abuses which the Roman administration was
generating everywhere. Cornelius Dolabella had been placed by Sylla in
command of Macedonia. His father had been a friend of Saturninus, and had
fallen at his side. The son had gone over to the aristocracy, and for this
reason was perhaps an object of aversion to the younger liberals. The
Macedonians pursued him, when his government had expired, with a list of
grievances of the usual kind. Young Caesar took up their cause, and
prosecuted him. Dolabella was a favorite of the Senate; he had been
allowed a triumph for his services, and the aristocracy adopted his cause
as their own. The unpractised orator was opposed at the trial by his
kinsman Aurelius Cotta and the most celebrated pleaders in Rome. To have
crossed swords with such opponents was a dangerous honor for him; success
against them was not to be expected, and Caesar was not yet master of his
art. Dolabella was acquitted. Party feeling had perhaps entered into the
accusation. Caesar found it prudent to retire again from the scene. There
were but two roads to eminence in Rome--oratory and service in the army.
He had no prospect of public employment from the present administration,
and the platform alone was open to him.
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