He is said to have been tall of stature, with a fair complexion, shapely limbs, a somewhat full face, and keen black eyes; sound of health, except that towards the end he was subject to sudden fainting fits and to nightmare as well. He was twice attacked by the falling sickness during his campaigns.1
Fuisse traditur excelsa statura, colore candido, teretibus membris, ore paulo pleniore, nigris vegetisque oculis, valitudine prospera, nisi quod tempore extremo repente animo linqui atque etiam per somnum exterreri solebat. Comitiali quoque morbo bis inter res agendas correptus est.
1Epilepsy, called morbus comitialis, because an attack was regarded as sufficient cause for the postponement of elections, or other public business. Sometimes a seizure was feigned for political reasons.
He was somewhat overnice in the care of his person, being not only carefully trimmed and shaved, but even having superfluous hair plucked out, as some have charged; while his baldness was a disfigurement which troubled him greatly, since he found that it was often the subject of the gibes of his detractors. Because of it he used to comb forward his scanty locks from the crown of his head, and of all the honours voted him by the senate and people there was none which he received or made use of more gladly than the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath at all times.
Circa corporis curam morosior, ut non solum tonderetur diligenter ac raderetur, sed velleretur etiam, ut quidam exprobraverunt, calvitii vero deformitatem iniquissime ferret, saepe obtrectatorum iocis obnoxiam expertus. Ideoque et deficientem capillum revocare a vertice adsueverat et ex omnibus decretis sibi a senatu populoque honoribus non aliud aut recepit aut usurpavit libentius quam ius laureae coronae perpetuo gestandae.
They say, too, that he was fantastic in his dress; that he wore a senator’s tunic with fringed sleeves reaching to the wrist, and always had a girdle over it, though rather a loose one;and this, they say, was the occasion of Sulla’s mot, when he often warned the nobles to keep an eye on the ill-girt boy.2
Etiam cultu notabilem ferunt; usum enim lato clavo ad manus fimbriato nec umquam aliter quam utut, supplied by Bentley; ΠQς insert after nec. super eum cingeretur, et quidem fluxiore cinctura; unde emanasse Sullae dictum optimates saepius admonentis, ut male praecinctum puerum caverent.
2Latus clavus, the broad purple stripe, is also applied to a tunic with the broad stripe. All senators had the right to wear this; the peculiarity in Caesar’s case consisted in the long fringed sleeves. · While a girdle was commonly worn with the ordinary tunic, it was not usual to wear one with the latus clavus; Quint. 2. 3. 138. The looseness of the girdle was an additional peculiarity.