the extraordinary ability which
he evinced in his mode of conducting it. He became, in fact, at once one
of the most conspicuous and prominent men in the city.

[Sidenote: Caesar's increasing power.]

Encouraged by his success, and the applauses which he received, and
feeling every day a greater and greater consciousness of power, he
began to assume more and more openly the character of the leader of the
popular party. He devoted himself to public speaking in the Forum, both
before popular assemblies and in the courts of justice, where he was
employed a great deal as an advocate to defend those who were accused of
political crimes. The people, considering him as their rising champion,
were predisposed to regard every thing that he did with favor, and there
was really a great intellectual power displayed in his orations and
harangues. He acquired, in a word, great celebrity by his boldness and
energy, and his boldness and energy were themselves increased in their
turn as he felt the strength of his position increase with his growing
celebrity.

[Sidenote: Death of Marius's wife.]
[Sidenote: Caesar's panegyric on Marius's wife.]
[Sidenote: Its success.]

At length the wife of Marius, who was Caesar's aunt, died. She had lived
in obscurity since her husband's proscription and death, his party
having been put down so effectually that it was dangerous to appear to
be her friend. Caesar, however, made preparations for a magnificent
funeral for her. There was a place in the Forum, a sort of pulpit, where
public orators were accustomed to stand in addressing the assembly on
great occasions. This pulpit was adorned with the brazen beaks of ships
which had been taken by the Romans in former wars The name of such a
beak was _rostrum_; in the plural, _rostra_. The pulpit was itself,
therefore, called the _Rostra_, that is, The Beaks; and the people were
addressed from it on great public occasions.[2] Caesar pronounced a
splendid panegyric upon the wife of Marius, at this her funeral, from
the Rostra, in the presence of a vast concourse of spectators, and he
had the boldness to bring out and display to the people certain
household images of Marius, which had been concealed from view ever
since his death. Producing them again on such an occasion was annulling,
so far as a public orator could do it, the sentence of condemnation
which Sylla and the patrician party had pronounced against him, and
bringing him forward again as entit