This made the fifth time that Sylla had wedded. Just previously to his thus romantically making the acquaintance of Valeria he had lost by death Caecilia Metella, to whom reference has heretofore been made, and who was one of the best women of her time. Kind and compassionate by nature, she often successfully interceded for the lives of men whom her relentless husband had foredoomed. At her death, though there is every indication that he held her in the highest regard, his action was peculiar and extremely characteristic of the man. Because the priest of Venus Victrix, to which goddess he was especially devoted, forbade him to allow his house to be polluted by mourning, while Metella was on her deathbed he sent her a bill of divorce and caused her to be removed to the home of one of her relatives. Yet, after her death he went so far as to transgress his own law against funeral expense, and provided the most elaborate obsequies in her honor. Sylla was absolutely without conscience in his employment of marriage and divorce for political ends. Metella's daughter by her first husband had been married to Glabrio the Censor. The dictator saw a more useful ally in young Cnæus Pompeius, who was already married to Antistia; therefore, he commanded Glabrio and Pompeius to divorce their wives, and the latter to take Æmilia, his stepdaughter. Piso, also at his suggestion, had divorced his wife Annia. But when Sylla attempted to employ the same tactics with Cæsar, he made the discovery that he had encountered a man of altogether different metal. The latter had married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna. They had one child, a little daughter named Julia, who afterward became the wife of Pompey. When Cæsar was ordered by the all-powerful dictator to divorce Cornelia, he absolutely refused, preferring death to subjection to such tyranny. There is every warrant for belief that Cornelia was worthy of the devotion of her husband, which she enjoyed to the day of her death.