The Young Caesar by Rex Warner

Author:Rex Warner [Warner, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 1957-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Funeral Speeches

As it was, my own career, as i was unhappily conscious, was only just beginning. At the elections which took place in the year after the consulship of Pompey and Crassus I stood for the position of quaestor and was duly elected. I would now be able to take my place in the senate and, after the proper intervals, to stand for the higher offices of aedile, praetor and consul. In other words I was proceeding, at the normal age and in the conventional way, along the ordinary road to political advancement. Neither the conventionality nor the slowness of this progress pleased me in the least. I was now thirty-three years old. At this age Pompey had already commanded great armies and Alexander had conquered the world. As for me, I had been, it seemed, frustrated partly by events outside my own control, but partly also by deficiencies in my own character. I now began to feel both with regard to myself and to the world around me an almost overwhelming dissatisfaction, which, while perhaps unreasonable, was not unnatural.

In a sense, I had been unlucky. If Sulla had been defeated in the civil war, I, the nephew of Marius and the son-in-law of Cinna, should have been near the center of power and certainly would have had some opportunity for exercising those abilities which I thought myself to possess. Yet I was bound to reflect that, even with regard to the limited opportunities which had come my way so far, my achievements had not been remarkable. I had, with no difficulty at all, won the affection and esteem of the late King of Bithynia; I had carried out a daring and successful action against a pirate fleet; I was popular in social gatherings; I had shown a certain skill in the management of political clubs and was, indeed, already something of a favorite with the people; I had a fairly high reputation as an orator and as a literary man; I was notoriously extravagant and, in spite of my deep affection for my wife and daughter, had engaged in a number of love affairs. The record was that of a brilliant wastrel, and it could encourage, in. itself, no hopes whatever for the future. To have compared myself with Pompey at this time would have been, as I knew, ludicrous. Even Cicero, who had started life with none of my advantages, had by sheer hard work and the consistent cultivation of his talents by now become the leading barrister of the day and carried more weight in politics than I.

When I considered what my assets were, I found them to be very few. I had a respectable place in the College of Pontiffs and I was known as a somewhat eccentric demagogue. The work I had done with Licinius Macer in agitating for the restoration of full powers to the tribunes had had its effect, yet the whole credit for it had gone to Pompey. It seemed to

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