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43Such was his gift to Rome. For himself, he wore the triumphal garb, by decree, at all the games, and was adorned with the laurel crown always and everywhere alike. The excuse that he gave for it was that his forehead was bald; yet he gave occasion for talk by this very circumstance that at that time, though well past youth, he still bestowed attention upon his appearance. 2He used to show among all men his pride in rather loose clothing, and the footwear which he used later on was sometimes high and of a reddish colour, after the style of the kings who had once reigned in Alba, for he claimed that he was related to them through Iulus. 3In general he was absolutely devoted to Venus, and was anxious to persuade everybody that he had received from her a kind of bloom of youth. Accordingly he used also to wear a carven image of her in full armour on his ring and he made her name his watchword in almost all the greatest dangers. 4Sulla had looked askance at the looseness of his girdle, so much so that he had wished to kill him, and declared to those who begged him off: “Well, I will grant him to you; but be thoroughly on your guard against this ill-girt fellow.” And Cicero could not comprehend it, 5but even in the moment of defeat said: “I should never have expected one so ill-girt to conquer Pompey.”
This I have written by way of digression from my history, so that no one might be ignorant of any of the stories told about Caesar.
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