To his natural qualities, developed by a brilliant education, were added physical advantages. His tall stature, his rounded and well-proportioned limbs, stamped his person with a grace that distinguished him from all others.[766] He had black eyes, a piercing look, a pale complexion, a straight and high nose. His mouth, small and regular, but with rather thick lips, gave a kindly expression to the lower part of his face, whilst his breadth of brow betokened the development of the intellectual faculties. His face was full, at least, in his youth; for in his busts, doubtless made towards the end of his life, his features are thinner, and bear traces of fatigue.[767] He had a sonorous and penetrating voice, a noble gesture, and an air of dignity reigned over all his person.[768] His constitution, at first delicate, became robust by a frugal regimen and the habit of exposing himself to the inclemency of the weather.[769] Accustomed from his youth to all bodily exercises, he was a bold horseman,[770] and bore privations and fatigues without difficulty.[771] Habitually temperate, his health was impaired neither by excess of labour nor by excess of pleasure. However, on two occasions--the first at Corduba, the second at Thapsus--he was seized with nervous attacks, wrongly mistaken for epilepsy.[772] He paid special attention to his person, carefully shaved or plucked out his beard, and artistically brought his hair forward to the front of his head, which, in more advanced age, served to conceal his bald forehead. He was reproached with the affectation of scratching his head with one finger only, so that he should not disarrange his hair.[773] His toilette was refined; his toga was generally ornamented with a laticlavia, fringed down to the hands, and fastened by a girdle carelessly tied about his loins; a costume which distinguished the elegant and effeminate youths of the period. But Sylla was not deceived by these appearances of frivolity, and repeated that they must take care of this young man with the loose girdle.[774] He had a taste for pictures, statues, and jewels; and, in memory of his origin, always wore on his finger a ring, on which was engraved the figure of an armed Venus.[775] In fine, we discover in Cæsar, both physically and morally, two natures rarely united in the same person. He joined an aristocratic delicacy of body to the muscular constitution of the warrior; the love of luxury and the arts to a passion for military life, in all its simplicity and rudeness: in a word, he allied the elegance of manner which seduces with the energy of character which commands. [Sidenote: Cæsar persecuted by Sylla (672).] II. Such was Cæsar at the age of eighteen, when Sylla seized the dictatorship.[776] Already he attracted all eyes at Rome by his name, his intellect, his affable manners, which pleased men, and, perhaps, women still more.