And Cæsar was from the first a partisan of Marius. He was pledged to this political faction by family ties as well as by personal conviction. Marius’s wife was Cæsar’s aunt, and Cæsar himself had made the alliance with the Marians closer by taking as his wife the daughter of Cinna, one of the most active of Marius’s supporters. During the Reign of Terror caused by the proscriptions of Sulla, Cæsar, because of his relations with the democratic party, had with difficulty escaped the dictator’s vengeance, and while Sulla continued to control the Republic Cæsar found it prudent to withdraw into obscurity, from which he only emerged when the revival of the democratic tradition could be safely undertaken. Then he took the first opportunity that offered itself to make a declaration of loyalty to Marius, the old leader of the democracy. It was at the death of his aunt, Marius’s widow, that he delivered a funeral address in which he praised Marius’s principles and achievements. (68 B.C.) This challenge made to the dominant party by the young politician was a bold stroke. His speech was the sensation of the hour, and the glowing words which expressed his purpose of working for the restoration of the Marian democracy won for him the warm approval of the popular party. Not long after this Cæsar was chosen to his first elective office, that of Ædile, in 65 B.C., a somewhat irregular proceeding, for he was two years short of the legal age. He used his term of service in order to increase his favor with the democracy, and he showed a keen political scent in discovering ways and means by which he could keep himself constantly in the foreground as the champion of popular rights, earning a reputation for lavish expenditure of money by giving public games, fairs, and gladiatorial shows. It was not difficult at this time to win the favor of the Roman democracy. Pompeius, who controlled the army and through his position as commander-in-chief exerted a preponderating influence on the government, was on the point of completing the destruction of the upstart empire of Mithridates and bringing the Asiatic provinces with firm hand again under the sway of Rome. There stood in Cæsar’s way as a competitor for political honors only the second-rate personality of Crassus, the richest man in Rome, who, somehow, despite his belief in the venality of the populace and his readiness to act upon his belief, seemed never to have struck the popular imagination powerfully enough to acquire the momentum of the genuine demagogue.