He caught them, too, still lying at anchor off the island," Plutarch wrote, adding that Caesar "took the robbers out of prison, and crucified them all, just as he had often warned them." Caesar's growing influenceĬaesar's political career gradually took off after his return to Rome around 74 B.C., and he used his family's wealth and skills to help grow his power. After the ransom was paid and Caesar was released, he "immediately manned vessels and put to sea from the harbour of Miletus against the robbers. However, Caesar's threats to kill the pirates were no joke. The pirates were delighted at this, and attributed his boldness of speech to a certain simplicity and boyish mirth," Plutarch wrote. He "wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all. While the money was being collected, Caesar spent time with the pirates. How much a Roman talent could weigh at a given time is a subject of debate among historians but was likely somewhere between 60 to 100 pounds (27 to 45 kilograms) in Caesar's time. Plutarch doesn't say what the talents were made of, but silver is likely. "When the pirates demanded twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not knowing who their captive was, and of his own accord agreed to give them fifty," Plutarch wrote (translated by Bernadotte Perrin). At some point on his journey he was captured by pirates, who, at least according to several near-contemporary writers, fatally underestimated Caesar. (Image credit: imageBROKER/Mara Brandl via Getty images)Ĭaesar was able to return to Rome after Sulla died in 78 B.C., but he left soon after to study oratory on Rhodes, an island near modern-day Turkey. Caesar was en route to Rhodes when he was kidnapped by pirates and held for ransom. At one point he was captured by Sulla's soldiers but escaped by paying a bribe. Sulla was fond of having his opponents murdered, and the teenage Caesar was forced to flee Rome, Plutarch wrote. 116) in his book "Parallel Lives." One of Sulla's most prominent opponents, Gaius Marius, had married into Caesar's family, and this may have influenced Caesar's decision. While his family was not particularly powerful at the time Caesar was born, some of his ancestors had held positions as senior officials in the Roman Republic, Goldsworthy noted.Ĭaesar was politically active as a teenager, opposing Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who became dictator of Rome in 82 B.C., according to the ancient Greek author Plutarch (lived A.D.
Members of his family were "patricians, which meant that they were members of the oldest aristocratic class at Rome, who in the early Republic had monopolized power, ruling over the far more numerous plebeians," wrote Goldsworthy. Caesar was born into a wealthy family with a noble lineage.
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