During this period A. U. C. 702 he lost his
						mother, Aurelia whose death was followed by that
					of his daughter, Julia, the wife of Pompey, who died in
						childbirth and, not long afterwards, of his granddaughter. Meanwhile,
					the republic being in consternation at the murder of Publius Clodius, and the
					senate passing a vote that only one consul, namely, Cneius Pompeius, should be
					chosen for the ensuing year, he prevailed with the tribunes of the people, who
					intended joining him in nomination with Pompey, to propose to the people a bill,
					enabling him, though absent, to become a candidate for his second consulship,
					when the term of his command should be near expiring, that he might not be
					obliged on that account to quit his province too soon, and before the conclusion
					of the war. Having attained this object, carrying his views still higher, and
					animated with the hopes of success, he omitted no opportunity of gaining
					universal favour, by acts of liberality and kindness to individuals, both in
					public and private. With money raised from the spoils of the war, he began to
					construct a new forum, the ground-plot of which cost him above a hundred
					millions of sesterces. Conquest had so multiplied business
						at Rome , that the Roman forum
						became too little for transacting it, and could not be enlarged without
						clearing away the buildings with which it was surrounded. Hence the enormous
						sum which its site is said to have cost, amounting, it is calculated, to
						£807,291 sterling. It stood near the old forum, behind the temple of Romulus
						and Remus, but not a vestige of it remains. He promised the people a
					public entertainment of gladiators, and a feast in memory of his daughter, such
					as no one before him had ever given. The more to raise their expectations on
					this occasion, although he had agreed with victuallers of all denominations for
					his feast, he made yet farther preparations in private houses. He issued an
					order, that the most celebrated gladiators, if at any time during the combat
					they incurred the displeasure of the public, should be immediately carried off
					by force, and reserved for some future occasion. Young gladiators he trained up,
					not in the school, and by the masters, of defence, but in the houses of Roman
					knights, and even senators, skilled in the use of arms, earnestly requesting
					them, as appears from his letters, to undertake the discipline of those
					novitiates, and to give them the word during their exercises. He doubled the pay
					of the legions in perpetuity; allowing them likewise corn, when it was in
					plenty, without any restriction; and sometimes distributing to every soldier in
					his army a slave, and a portion of land. To maintain his alliance, and good understanding with Pompey, he offered him in
					marriage his sister's grand-daughter Octavia, who had been married to Caius
					Marcellus; and requested for himself his daughter, lately contracted to Faustus
					Sylla. Every person about him, and a great part likewise of the senate, he
					secured by loans of money at low interest, or none at all; and to all others who
					came to wait upon him, either by invitation or of their own accord, he made
					liberal presents; not neglecting even the freedmen and slaves, who were
					favourites with their masters and patrons. He offered also singular and ready
					aid to all who were under prosecution, or in debt, and to prodigal youths;
					excluding from his bounty those only who were so deeply plunged in guilt,
					poverty, or luxury, that it was impossible effectually to relieve them. These,
					he openly declared, could derive no benefit from any other means than a civil
					war. He endeavoured with equal assiduity to engage in his interest princes and
					provinces in every part of the world: presenting some with thousands of
					captives, and sending to others the assistance of troops, at whatever time and
					place they desired, without any authority from either the senate or people of
						 Rome . He likewise embellished with
					magnificent public buildings the most powerful cities not only of Italy , Gaul , and Spain , but
					of Greece and Asia ; until all people being now astonished,
					and speculating on the obvious tendency of these proceedings, Claudius
					Marcellus, the consul, declaring first by proclamation, that he intended to
					propose a measure of the utmost importance to the state, made a motion in the
					senate that some person should be appointed to succeed Caesar in his province,
					before the term of his command was expired; because the war being brought to a
					conclusion, peace was restored, and the victorious army ought to be disbanded.
					He further moved, that Caesar being absent, his claims to be a candidate at the
					next election of consuls, should not be admitted, as Pompey himself had
					afterwards abrogated that privilege by a decree of the people. The fact was,
					that Pompey, in his law relating to the choice of chief magistrates, had forgot
					to except Caesar, in the article in which he declared all such as were not
					present incapable of being candidates for any office; but soon afterwards, when
					the law was inscribed on brass, and deposited in the treasury, he corrected his
					mistake. Marcellus, not content with depriving Caesar of his provinces, and the
					privilege intended him by Pompey, likewise moved the senate, that the freedom of
					the city should be taken from those colonists whom, by the Vatinian law, he had
					settled at New Como; Comum was a town of the Orobii, of ancient standing, and
						formerly powerful. Julius Csesar added to it five thousand new colonists;
						whence it was generally called Novocomum. But in time it recovered its
						ancient name, Comum ; Pliny the
						younger, who was a native of this place, calling it by no other name.
					 because it had been conferred upon them with ambitious views, and by a
					stretch of the laws. Roused by these proceedings, and thinking, as he was often heard to say, that it
					would be a more difficult enterprise to reduce him, now that he was the chief
					man in the state, from the first rank of citizens to the second, than from the
					second to the lowest of all, Caesar made a vigorous opposition to the measure,
					partly by means of the tribunes, who interposed in his behalf, and partly
					through Servius Sulpicius, the other consul. The following year likewise, when
					Caius Marcellus, who succeeded his cousin Marcus in the consulship, pursued the
					same course, Caesar, by means of an immense bribe, engaged in his defence
					AEmilius Paulus, the other consul, and Caius Curio, the most violent of the
					tribunes. But finding the opposition obstinately bent against him, and that the
					consuls-elect were also of that party, he wrote a letter to the senate,
					requesting that they would not deprive him of the privilege kindly granted him
					by the people; or else that the other generals should resign the command of
					their armies as well as himself; fully persuaded, as it is thought, that he
					could more easily collect his veteran soldiers, whenever he pleased, than Pompey
					could his new-raised troops. At the same time, he made his adversaries an offer
					to disband eight of his legions and give up Transalpine-Gaul, on condition that
					he might retain two legions, with the Cisalpine province, or but one legion with
						 Illyricum , until he should be
					elected consul. But as the senate declined to interpose in the business, and his enemies declared
					that they would enter into no compromise where the safety of the republic was at
					stake, he advanced into Hither-Gaul, A.U.C. 705. 
					and, having gone to the circuit for the administration of justice, made a halt
					at Ravenna , resolved to have
					recourse to arms if the senate should proceed to extremity against the tribunes
					of the people who had espoused his cause. This was indeed his pretext for the
					civil war; but it is supposed that there were other motives for his conduct.
					Cneius Pompey used frequently to say, that he sought to throw every thing into
					confusion, because he was unable, with all his private wealth, to complete the
					works he had begun, and answer, at his return, the vast expectations which he
					had excited in the people. Others pretend that he was apprehensive of being
					called to account for what he had done in his protests of the tribunes; Marcus
					Cato having sometimes declared, and that, too, with an oath, that he would
					prefer an impeachment against him, as soon as he disbanded his ·army. A report
					likewise prevailed, that if he returned as a private person, he would, like
						 Milo , have to plead his cause
					before the judges, surrounded by armed men. This conjecture is rendered highly
					probable by Asinius Pollio, who informs us that Caesar, upon viewing the
					vanquished and slaughtered enemy in the field of Pharsalia, expressed himself in
					these very words: " This was their intention: I, Caius Caesar, after all the
					great achievements I had performed, must have been condemned, had I not summoned
					the army to my aid !" Some think, that having contracted from long habit an
					extraordinary love of power, and having weighed his own and his enemies'
					strength, he embraced that occasion of usurping the supreme power; which indeed
					he had coveted from the time of his youth. This seems to have been the opinion
					entertained by Cicero, who tells us, in the third book of his Offices, that
					Caesar used to have frequently in his mouth two verses of Euripides, which he
					thus translates: Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi
							gratia Violandum est: aiis rebus pietatem colas. 
					 Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws, For sovereign power alone can justify the cause. 
					 εἴπερ γὰρ ἀδικεῖν χρή, τυραννίδος ἀδίκημα: τὰ δ' ἄλλα εὐσεβεῖν χρεώ Eurip. Phoeniss. Act II, where
						Eteocles aspires to become the tyrant of Thebes .