an after-thought of revenge, and that Lepidus was to have been tried
before a senatorial jury already determined to find him guilty.

Among these men lay the fortunes of Rome when the departure of their chief
left the aristocrats masters of their own destiny.

During this time Caesar had been serving his apprenticeship as a soldier.
The motley forces which Mithridates had commanded had not all submitted on
the king's surrender to Sylla. Squadrons of pirates hung yet about the
smaller islands in the Aegean. Lesbos was occupied by adventurers who were
fighting for their own hand, and the praetor Minucius Thermus had been
sent to clear the seas and extirpate these nests of brigands. To Thermus
Caesar had attached himself. The praetor, finding that his fleet was not
strong enough for the work, found it necessary to apply to Nicomedes, the
allied sovereign of the adjoining kingdom of Bithynia, to supply him with
a few additional vessels; and Caesar, soon after his arrival, was
despatched on this commission to the Bithynian court.

Long afterward, when Roman cultivated society had come to hate Caesar, and
any scandal was welcome to them which would make him odious, it was
reported that on this occasion he entered into certain relations with
Nicomedes of a kind indisputably common at the time in the highest
patrician circles. The value of such a charge in political controversy was
considerable, for whether true or false it was certain to be believed; and
similar accusations were flung indiscriminately, so Cicero says, at the
reputation of every eminent person whom it was desirable to stain, if his
personal appearance gave the story any air of probability.[2]

The disposition to believe evil of men who have risen a few degrees above
their contemporaries is a feature of human nature as common as it is base;