He next married Pompeia,granddaughter of Sulla and relative of Pompey the Great, and evidence indicates that hesupported important military assignments for Pompey in 67 and 66. As aedile in 65 BC, heachieved great popularity--and went into debt--by financing splendid games. He alsoprobably cooperated with Marcus Licinius Crassus in an attempt to annex Egypt, insupporting Catiline for the consulship, and in promoting the land-distribution bill ofPublius Servilius Rullus.In 64 BC, Caesar presided over trials of those who had committed murder duringSulla's proscriptions. The following year, he prosecuted Gaius Rabirius, and used that trialto attack the legality of the Senatus consultum ultimum, the Senate's decree of a state ofemergency. In the elections of that year, massive bribery helped him become PontifexMaximus. Caesar took no part in Catiline's conspiracy, but he courted popularity byopposing the execution of Catiline's accomplices and, as praetor in 62, by supportingmeasures favorable to Pompey. Soon after, however, he divorced Pompeia on suspicion ofinfidelity with Publius Clodius, although he refused to testify against the latter in the BonaDea affair. Caesar later married Calpurnia.Caesar became governor of Further Spain in 61 after Crassus had helped pacify hiscreditors. Military action in Spain restored Caesar's finances, and he outwitted his politicalenemies by forgoing a triumph (the traditional victor's procession in Rome) in order to winelection to the consulate with the support of Crassus and Pompey. Faced with increasedopposition from conservatives like Cato the Younger, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompeyformed the First Triumvirate to further their ambitions After obtaining a reduction of theAsian tax contracts for Crassus, ratification of Pompey's postwar arrangements in theEast, and land for Pompey's veterans, Caesar received the governorships of Illyricum,Cisalpine Gaul, and Transalpine Gaul. He was also given control o...
