One slight and
evanescent sketch of the relations which subsisted between Caesar and his
mother, caught from the wrecks of time, is preserved both by Plutarch and
Suetonius. We see in the early dawn the young patrician standing upon the
steps of his paternal portico, his mother with her arms wreathed about his
neck, looking up to his noble countenance, sometimes drawing auguries of
hope from features so fitted for command, sometimes boding an early blight
to promises so prematurely magnificent. That she had something of her
son's aspiring character, or that he presumed so much in a mother of his,
we learn from the few words which survive of their conversation. He
addressed to her no language that could tranquillize her fears. On the
contrary, to any but a Roman mother his valedictory words, taken in
connection with the known determination of his character, were of a nature
to consummate her depression, as they tended to confirm the very worst of
her fears. He was then going to stand his chance in a popular election for
an office of dignity, and to launch himself upon the storms of the Campus
Martius.
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