As to his _liaisons_ with women, the handsome, brilliant Caesar,
surrounded by a halo of military glory, must have been a Paladin of
romance to any woman who had a capacity of admiration in her. His own
distaste for gluttony and hard drinking, and for the savage amusements in
which the male Romans so much delighted, may have made the society of
cultivated ladies more agreeable to him than that of men, and if he showed
any such preference the coarsest interpretation would be inevitably placed
upon it. These relations, perhaps, in so loose an age assumed occasionally
a more intimate form; but it is to be observed that the first public act
recorded of Caesar was his refusal to divorce his wife at Sylla's bidding;
that he was passionately attached to his sister; that his mother, Aurelia,
lived with him till she died, and that this mother was a Roman matron of
the strictest and severest type. Many names were mentioned in connection
with him, yet there is no record of any natural child save Brutus, and one
other whose claims were denied and disproved.
Two intrigues, it may be said, are beyond dispute. His connection with the
mother of Brutus was notorious. Cleopatra, in spite of Oppius, was living
with him in his house at the time of his murder. That it was so believed a
hundred years after his death is, of course, indisputable; but in both
these cases the story is entangled with legends which show how busily
imagination had been at work.
Pages:
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666