Lucius Cornelius Cinna

So Caesar grew up as a nephew of the most famous soldier in the Republic, which was an advantage right up until the other side won.

Around 84 BC, he married Cornelia, the daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who was Marius' ally, and once Marius was dead, the most powerful man in Rome.

That marriage tied him to the Marian cause about as tightly as a young man could have been tied to anything.

Then Sulla came back from the East with his army, and everything that had protected Caesar turned into a liability more or less overnight.

Sulla's shadow loomed large, and those who opposed him did not live long.

Caesar's first marriage was to Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, another enemy of Sulla.

It was a union of politics and affection, a dangerous alliance in dangerous times.

When Sulla seized control of Rome and demanded that Caesar divorce her, the young man refused.

In Rome, that was how power was truly won.

At home, Aurelia continued to guide him.

She oversaw his marriage to Cornelia, daughter of the powerful Cinna, securing their place among the Populares, the faction of the people.

The wedding was simple but symbolic, a union of two families bound by shared ideals and shared risk.

And partner in his fury, Lentulus, and mad Cethegus with his naked arm.

Is such thy madness, Caesar? When the Fates with great Camillus' and Metellus' names might place thine own, dost thou prefer to rank with Marius and Cinna? Swift shall be thy fall, as Lepidus before the sword of Catulus, or, whom Miaxas felt, Carbo, now buried in Sicanian tomb, or who in exile roused Iberia's hordes, Sertorius.

Yet, witness Heaven, with these I hate to rank thee, hate the task that Rome has laid upon me to oppose thy rage.

Would that in safety from the Parthian war and Scythian steppes had conquering Crassus come! Then haply hadst thou fallen by the hand that smote vile Spartacus, the robber foe.

Yet shall we, since such merit though unsung lives by its own imperishable fame, give thee thy meed of praise.

Rome never bore another son who, had he right pursued, had so adorned her laws: but soon the times, their luxury, corruption, and the curse of too abundant wealth, in transverse stream swept o’er his wavering mind; and Curio changed, turned with his change the scale of human things.

True mighty Sulla, cruel Marius, and bloody Cinna, and the long descent of Caesar and of Caesar’s house became lords of our lives.

But who had power like him? All others bought the State—he sold alone.

For instance, they ignominiously rejected Nonius, his nephew, and Servius, who were his candidates for offices, and appointed others, whose preferment they thought would be most vexing to him.

But he pretended to be pleased at this, saying that the people, in doing as it pleased, enjoyed a freedom which was due to him, and out of deference to the hatred of the multitude, allowed Lucius Cinna, a man of the opposite faction, to be invested with the consulship, after binding him by solemn oaths to be favorable to his policies.

And Cinna went up to the Capitol with a stone in his hand, and took the oaths, and then, after praying that if he did not maintain his goodwill towards Sulla, he might be cast out of the city, as the stone from his hand, he threw the stone upon the ground in the sight of many people.

But as soon as he had entered upon his office, he tried to subvert the existing order of things, and had an impeachment prepared against Sulla, and appointed Virginius, a tribune of the people, to be his accuser.

But Sulla, ignoring alike accuser and court, set out against Mithridates.

And then, by purchasing the services of their soldiers with lavish sums to be spent on luxurious living, they unwittingly made their whole country a thing for sale, and themselves slaves of the basest men for the sake of ruling over the better.

This was what drove out Marius, and then brought him back again against Sulla.

This made Cinna the assassin of Octavius, and Fimbria of Flaccus.

The power of the decemvirs did not last beyond two years, nor was the consular jurisdiction of the military tribunes of long duration.

The despotisms of Cinna and Sulla were brief.

The rules of Pompeius and of Crassus soon yielded before Caesar.

The arms of Lepidus and Antonius before Augustus, who, when the world was wearied by civil strife, subjected it to empire under the title of prince.

The Samnites demanded as the price of their assistance that the prisoners, spoils, and deserters should be restored and that they and the Romans who had joined them should receive the franchise.

The Senate refused and the Samnites at once joined Cinna and Marius, who were pledged not only to give the franchise but also to enroll all the new voters in the new tribes, a measure which was ratified by the Senate in the year of Cinna's last consulship, 84 BC.

On Sulla's return to Italy, they with the Lucanians who had meanwhile been practically independent were the most eager supporters of Marius's son.

In 82, Pontius of Telesia, at the head of a Samnite force with the desperate hardihood inspired by centuries of hatred, marched straight on Rome and the city was saved only by Sulla's victory at the Colline Gate.

No doubt he coveted the glory and spoil of the Asiatic command, but it is absurd to suppose that he would have quitted Italy now of his own free will.

He had no choice in the matter.

He was bound hand and foot by his promises to the soldiers, and all that he could do was by plausible moderation to win as many friends, conciliate as many foes as possible, throw on Cinna, whom he could not hope to keep quiet, the guilt of perjury, and trust to fortune for the rest.

This is a probable and consistent view of what now took place at Rome, and every other account makes out Sulla to have been either inconsistent, which he never was, for he was always uniformly selfish, or patriotic, which he never was, if patriotism consists in sacrificing private to public considerations, or indifferent, which he was in principle but never in practice unless where his own interests were not threatened, and only the sufferings of others involved.