Note 435 — LIFE OF C. CÆSAR.

It has been remarked by Niebuhr (Lectures on the History of Rome, ii. 33) that the beginning of the Life of Cæsar is lost. He says, "Plutarch could not have passed over the ancestors, the father, and the whole family, together with the history of Cæsar's youth, &c." But the reasons for this opinion are not conclusive. The same reason would make us consider other lives imperfect, which are also deficient in such matters. Plutarch, after his fashion, gives incidental information about Cæsar's youth and his family. I conceive that he purposely avoided a formal beginning; and according to his plan of biography, he was right. Niebuhr also observes that the beginning of the Life of Cæsar in Suetonius is imperfect; "a fact well known, but it is only since the year 1812, that we know that the part which is wanting contained a dedication to the præfectus prætorio of the time, a fact which has not yet found its way into any history of Roman Literature." It is an old opinion that the Life of Cæsar in Suetonius is imperfect. The fact that the dedication alone is wanting, for so Niebuhr appears to mean, shows that the Life is not incomplete, and there is no reason for thinking that it is.

C. Julius Cæsar, the son of C. Julius Cæsar and Aurelia, was born on the twelfth of July, B.C. 100, in the sixth consulship of his uncle C. Marius. His father, who had been prætor, died suddenly at Pisa when his son was in his sixteenth year.