[The History of Rome, Book V by Theodor Mommsen]@TWC D-Link bookThe History of Rome, Book V CHAPTER XII 63/260
In favour of this latter view we may moreover adduce the circumstance, which has been strangely brought forward in opposition to it, that Caesar "-paene puer-" was appointed by Marius and Cinna as Flamen of Jupiter (Veil.ii.
43); for Marius died in January 668, when Caesar was, according to the usual view, 13 years 6 months old, and therefore not "almost," as Velleius says, but actually still a boy, and most probably for this very reason not at all capable of holding such a priesthood.
If, again, he was born in July 652, he was at the death of Marius in his sixteenth year; and with this the expression in Velleius agrees, as well as the general rule that civil positions were not assumed before the expiry of the age of boyhood. Further, with this latter view alone accords the fact that the -denarii- struck by Caesar about the outbreak of the civil war are marked with the number LII, probably the year of his life; for when it began, Caesar's age was according to this view somewhat over 52 years.
Nor is it so rash as it appears to us who are accustomed to regular and official lists of births, to charge our authorities with an error in this respect.
Those four statements may very well be all traceable to a common source; nor can they at all lay claim to any very high credibility, seeing that for the earlier period before the commencement of the -acta diurna- the statements as to the natal years of even the best known and most prominent Romans, e.g.as to that of Pompeius, vary in the most surprising manner.
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