But all these calculations were soon upset. Pompeius, rapidly elevated to greatness along a smooth road of easy gradients, trusted to his friends in Rome to overcome all the political obstacles in his way there. While he was still acclaimed the great military champion of the Roman Republic, he soon found himself face to face with a rival--a man who set himself forward purposefully to revive the popular platform of the Marian party. Caius Julius Cæsar, born July 12, 100 B.C., had no natural affiliations with the popular side of politics represented by Marius. So far as descent was concerned, he was an aristocrat of the aristocrats, belonging to an ancient patrician _gens_ which traced back its legendary origin to a divine being--the goddess Venus. Of the early years of Cæsar only a little is known; and that little is handed down in the form of anecdotes the value of which lies in the incidental light they throw on his travels in the eastern part of the Roman world. It would be more interesting to know something of Cæsar’s education than of his capture by pirates off the coast of Asia Minor--an accident used by his ancient biographers to prove what everybody knows--that he was a brave man even in the most hazardous circumstances. His early years could not have been spent carelessly, for he acquired a remarkably sound education. His literary tastes must have been the result of long discipline. His manysidedness and intellectual facility were fully recognized by his contemporaries. Even Cicero, who claimed to have spent his youth as a model “grind,” tacitly allows that Cæsar’s intellectual equipment was fully the equal of his own. The years of study were a necessity as well as a diversion. It was not safe even for a brilliant young man, while the truculent Sulla was dictator, to show practical interest in home politics, especially if his sympathies were with the Marian party.