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Among the first uses to which he addressed his influence was to obtain the pardon of his brother-in-law, the younger Cinna, who had been exiled since the failure of the attempt of Lepidus. In B.C. 68, being then thirty-two, he gained his first step on the ladder of high office. He was made quaestor, which gave him a place in the Senate.
Thus supported, they made their appearance at the army besieging Nola, The armies of this period were democratic and revolutionary in their views, wherever the general did not attach them to himself by the weight of his personal influence; the speeches of the fugitive magistrates, some of whom, especially Cinna and Sertorius, were favourably remembered by the soldiers in connection with the last campaigns, made a deep impression; the unconstitutional deposition of the popular consul and the interference of the senate with the rights of the sovereign people told on the common soldier, and the gold of the consul or rather of the new burgesses made the breach of the constitution clear to the officers.
The outlaws fled to the camp before Nola. The Campanian army, democratic and revolutionary, recognized Cinna as the leader of the republic. Gaius Marius, then an exile in Numidia, brought six thousand men, whom he had rallied to his standard, to the disposal of the consul, and was placed by Cinna in supreme command at Etruria. A storm gathered around the capitol.
At the representation of Cinna, the Emperor feared that the Czar, who was placed by his side in a box facing the stage, and on the first tier, might not hear very well, as he was somewhat deaf; and consequently gave orders to M. de Remusat, first chamberlain, that a platform should be raised on the floor of the orchestra, and armchairs placed there for Alexander and himself; and on the right and left four handsomely decorated chairs for the King of Saxony and the other sovereigns of the Confederation, while the princes took possession of the box abandoned by their Majesties.
The years, however, which had gone before that restoration, the dreadful massacres and yet more dreadful proscriptions of Cinna and Marius, had left indelible and sanguinary traces on the ancestral tree of many a noble house; and on none deeper than on that of Hortensia’s family.
There was however a kind of poet, one Cinna, not at all concerned in the guilt of the conspiracy, but on the contrary one of Caesar's friends.
"Horace, condemned by the decemvirs, was acquitted by the people," said Corneille. The same year Cinna came to give the finishing touch to the reputation of the great poet: "To the persecuted Cid the Cinna owed its birth."
But none of the conspirators came in their way, and they were all well protected. One Cinna, however, a friend of Cæsar, happened, as it is said, to have had a strange dream the night before; for he dreamed that he was invited by Cæsar to sup with him, and when he excused himself, he was dragged along by Cæsar by the hand, against his will and making resistance the while.
His uncle Marius, in the height of his power, marked him out for promotion, and made him a priest of Jupiter when he was fourteen years old. On the death of his father, a man of praetorian rank, and therefore a senator, at the age of seventeen Caesar married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, which connected him still more closely with the popular party.
VI. But when Marius had died, and Cinna shortly after was cut off, and the younger Marius, contrary to the wish of Sertorius, and by illegal means, obtained the consulship, and the Carbos and the Norbani and Scipios were unsuccessfully contending against Sulla on his march to Rome, and affairs were being ruined, partly through the cowardice and laziness of the commanders, and partly through treachery; and there was no use in his staying to see things still go on badly, owing to the want of judgment in those who had more power than himself; and finally, when Sulla, after encamping near Scipio, and holding out friendly proposals, as if peace was going to be made, had corrupted the army, though Sertorius had warned Scipio of this, and given his advice, but without effect altogether despairing about the city, Sertorius set out for Iberia, in order that if he should anticipate his enemies in strengthening his power there, he might offer protection to such of his friends as were unfortunate at Rome.
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