He received the first proof of the good will

He received the first proof of the good will of the people towards him when he was a competitor against Caius Popilius for a military tribuneship, and was proclaimed before him. He received a second and more conspicuous evidence of popular favour on the occasion of the death of Julia the wife of Marius, when Cæsar, who was her nephew, pronounced over her a splendid funeral oration in the Forum, and at the funeral ventured to exhibit the images of Marius, which were then seen for the first time since the administration of Sulla, for Marius and his son had been adjudged enemies. Some voices were raised against Cæsar on account of this display, but the people responded by loud shouts, and received him with clapping of hands, and admiration, that he was bringing back as from the regions of Hades, after so long an interval, the glories of Marius to the city. Now it was an ancient Roman usage to pronounce funeral orations over elderly women, but it was not customary to do it in the case of young women, and Cæsar set the first example by pronouncing a funeral oration over his deceased wife, which brought him some popularity and won the many by sympathy to consider him a man of a kind disposition and full of feeling. After the funeral of his wife he went to Iberia as quæstor to the Prætor Vetus, for whom he always showed great respect, and whose son he made his own quæstor when he filled the office of Prætor. After his quæstorship he married for his third wife Pompeia he had by his wife Cornelia a daughter, who afterwards married Pompeius Magnus. Owing to his profuse expenditure (and indeed men generally supposed that he was buying at a great cost a short-lived popularity, though in fact he was purchasing things of the highest value at a low price) it is said that before he attained any public office he was in debt to the amount of thirteen hundred talents. Upon being appointed curator of the Appian Road, he laid out upon it a large sum of his own; and during his ædileship he exhibited three hundred and twenty pair of gladiators, and by his liberality and expenditure on the theatrical exhibitions, the processions, and the public entertainments, he completely drowned all previous displays, and put the people in such a humour, that every man was seeking for new offices and new honours to requite him with.

Plutarco. Vidas paralelas: César, 5.