After his quaestorship he married for his third wife
Pompeia[456] he had by his wife Cornelia a daughter, who afterwards
married Pompeius Magnus. Owing to his profuse expenditure (and indeed
men generally supposed that he was buying at a great cost a
short-lived popularity, though in fact he was purchasing things of the
highest value at a low price) it is said that before he attained any
public office he was in debt to the amount of thirteen hundred
talents. Upon being appointed curator of the Appian Road,[457] he laid
out upon it a large sum of his own; and during his aedileship[458] he
exhibited three hundred and twenty pair of gladiators, and by his
liberality and expenditure on the theatrical exhibitions, the
processions, and the public entertainments, he completely drowned all
previous displays, and put the people in such a humour, that every man
was seeking for new offices and new honours to requite him with.
VI. There were at this time two parties in the State, that of Sulla,
which was all-powerful, and that of Marius, which was cowed and
divided and very feeble. It was Caesar's object to strengthen and gain
over the party of Marius, and accordingly, when the ambitious
splendour of his aedileship was at its height, he had images of Marius
secretly made, and triumphal Victories, which he took by night and set
up on the Capitol. At daybreak the people seeing the images glittering
with gold, and exquisitely laboured by art (and there were
inscriptions also which declared the Cimbrian victories of Marius),
were in admiration at the boldness of him who had placed them there,
for it was no secret who it was, and the report quickly circulating
through the city, brought everybody to the spot to see.
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