Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Gaius Caesar, while still a young man, in trying to escape from Sulla, fell into the hands of pirates. First of all, when demand was made upon him for a very large sum of money, he laughed at the robbers for their ignorance of the man they had in their power, and agreed to give double the sum. Later, being kept under guard while he was getting together the money, he enjoined upon the men that they should give him a quiet time for sleep and should not talk. He wrote speeches and poems, and read them to his captors, and those who did not speak very highly of them he called dull barbarians, and threatened laughingly to hang them. And this he actually did a little later. For when the ransom was brought, and he was set free, he got together men and ships from Asia Minor, seized the robbers, and crucified them. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chaps. i.-ii. (708 A-D); Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 4: Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, ii. 41; Valerius Maximus, vi. 9. 15.)

In Rome he entered into a contest against Catulus, the leading man among the Romans, for the office of Pontifex Maximus, [*](In 63 B.C.) and, as he was accompanied to the door by his mother, he said, To-day, mother, you shall have as your son a Pontifex Maximus or an exile. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chap. vii. (710 D); Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 13.)

He put away his wife Pompeia because her name was linked in gossip with Clodius, but later, when Clodius was brought to trial on this charge, and

While he was reading of the exploits of Alexander, he burst into tears, and said to his friends, When he was of my age he had conquered Darius, but, up to now, nothing has been accomplished by me. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chap. xi. (712 F) and Perrin’s note in vol. vii. of the L.C.L.; Dio Cassius, xxxvii. 52. 2: Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 7.)

As he was passing by a miserable little town in the Alps, his friends raised the question whether even here there were rival parties and contests for the first place. He stopped and becoming thoughtful said, I had rather be the first here than the second in Rome. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chap. xi. (712 F).)

He said that the venturesome and great deeds of daring call for action and not for thought.