This may be considered a very brave or a very foolish action, but in any case the effect was the same—he was forced to flee into hiding. At the same time, all the dowry that his wife had brought him and other legacies due to her from her family were confiscated. Caesar became a fugitive in the Sabine country of central Italy. It can hardly have been political wisdom that led to his refusal of the dictator’s offer, and it certainly seems that a young man’s love for his wife put him in such peril. Some evidence of this is that Cornelia was to remain his wife until her death in 69.

Caesar now learned to live as a fugitive. For the first time, in the life of a comfortable, even spoiled young aristocrat, he knew hardship and fear. Suffering from malaria, carried from one hiding place to another, he was captured in the end by one of Sulla’s proscription police, who were combing every district of Italy for those who had been put on the lists of wanted men. As must have happened so many times during that tortured period, he was forced to buy his life from the leader of the patrol who had discovered him with a large bribe. Had he been a poorer man his head would have secured for his captor the bounty hunter’s reward. But Caesar was able to offer more, and resumed his life as a fugitive. No doubt he would have been caught yet again, and this time with no possible redress, but the intercession of his noble relatives at the court of the dictator, and even of the Vestal Virgins, finally prevailed on Sulla to remove him from the death list—although perhaps it was intimated that he would do well to leave Italy. Sulla revealed that he had observed Caesar closely and had disapproved of much that he saw. As Dio Cassius records it, he remarked: “Beware of this youth who wears his girdle so loosely fastened.” This was a comment on the fact that Caesar affected what was considered a rather effeminate style of dressing with a loose belt, and fringed sleeves to his wrists. Then, as always, he paid a great deal of attention to his appearance, having superfluous hair removed with tweezers and the hair on his head elaborately arranged. Possibly apocryphal is Suetonius’ story that Sulla, granting his pardon, remarked to the suppliants: “Keep him since you so wish, but I would have you know that this young man who is so precious to you will one day overthrow the aristocratic party, which you and I have fought so hard to defend. There are many Mariuses in him.”

It was clearly prudent for Caesar to remove himself as far as possible from Rome, and an appointment was found for him on the staff of M. Minucius Thermus, the propraetor of Asia. At that time it was customary for Roman generals stationed away from Italy to have on their staff a number of well-bred young men, without any special military knowledge, who could provide some cultured company while at the same time seeing for themselves something of the world, of action, and the governance of foreign provinces. They were also sometimes used on diplomatic and other missions in connection with the work of Empire. In 81, when Caesar joined his staff, the propraetor was engaged on the task of punishing the citizens of Mitylene, capital of the island of Lesbos, for their rebellion against the Romans in the wars inspired by Mithridates the Great. The aim of this famous king of Pontus, the northeastern district of Asia Minor, was—and was to remain for many years—the expulsion of the Romans from all Asia. (Mithridates was to remain a thorn in the Roman side for much of Caesar’s life.) The young man’s first mission from his general was to travel to the kingdom of Bithynia, part of which bordered on the Black Sea, and ask its ruler to expedite the dispatch of his fleet, which he had promised for the Mitylene blockade.

Nicomedes IV of Bithynia had given his allegiance to Rome when he came to power and remained faithful to his masters during all the intrigues and power struggles initiated by Mithridates. Since his kingdom controlled the Asiatic shores of the Bosphorus, Nicomedes with his powerful fleet had a tight hold on all the traffic and shipping in the Dardanelles. His court was one of extreme luxury, and since he profited by the protection of Rome he had no desire to see any trouble in Asia. He may have poisoned his father, not an uncommon practice in the East when heirs felt they had waited too long for the throne, and he was renowned as a sodomite, again not uncommon in the East.

The propraetor’s aristocratic young messenger was naturally given an effusive welcome by Nicomedes, sensible that he had been dilatory in dispatching the promised fleet and eager to curry favor with his Roman protectors. On learning Caesar’s mission, the King immediately offered him his own sleeping quarters so that he could refresh himself after his tiring journey. There was nothing to this in itself—but Caesar’s enemies were to make much of it in the years to come. “The King’s guards,” Cicero was to say, “escorted him there, and he slept on a bed of gold with a purple covering.” On the following day, while the fleet was being rapidly readied for dispatch southward, an elaborate feast was given in the King’s palace to do honor to the propraetor’s emissary, as well as to a delegation of Roman merchants who happened to be in Bithynia. Caesar, forgetful perhaps of the dignity of his mission, joined in the mood of the moment and performed the role of cup-bearer to Nicomedes during the banquet. In doing so he put himself in the same company as a number of elegant and effeminate youths who formed part of the well-known seraglio of the King.