(From Photograph of Bust in Capitol, Rome.)] It is at this time that the young Julius Cæsar first becomes a prominent figure in that bloody drama. Although Julius Cæsar was a patrician by birth, he was favorable to the plebian party. The elder Marius had married his aunt, and Cæsar himself had married a daughter of Cinna, who was four times consul, and was a powerful and ardent partisan of the party of Marius. Julius Cæsar, although at this time a very young man, was too prominent a person to be overlooked by Sylla, in his vengeance against the plebian party. The friends of Julius Cæsar tried to plead his youth with Sylla, saying that surely such a mere boy could do no harm. But Sylla had marked the aspiring spirit of the young nobleman, who with all his love of gayety and pleasure had not neglected his studies, and who was already gaining the dangerous reputation of an eloquent orator. Sylla now demanded that Julius Cæsar should divorce his wife Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna. Cæsar absolutely refused, partly from devotion to his wife, and partly from a proud indomitable spirit, which thus early was a prominent trait in his character, and which made him brave any danger rather than allow himself to be controlled. Knowing that punishment for his refusal to comply with the commands of Sylla would be destruction, Cæsar fled from Rome. Sylla deprived him of his rank and titles, confiscated the property of his wife and his own estates, and placed his name on the list of public enemies.