Thus Julius Caesar, though sprung from a great family, served first as contubernalis under the praetor, M.
Thermus, and later under Servilius the Isaurian.

(Suet.Jul.2, 5.

Plut.
in Par.p.516.Ed.

Froben.) The example of Horace, which Gibbon adduces to prove that young knights were made tribunes immediately on entering the service, proves nothing.

In the first place, Horace was not a knight; he was the son of a freedman of Venusia, in Apulia, who exercised the humble office of coactor exauctionum, (collector of payments at auctions.) (Sat.i.vi.45, or 86.) Moreover, when the poet was made tribune, Brutus, whose army was nearly entirely composed of Orientals, gave this title to all the Romans of consideration who joined him.