Is Caesar's birth year more certain now than it was when disputed by Mommsen?

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Accepted answer

No new evidence on Caesar himself has emerged and it is unlikely that any direct evidence will emerge. However, historians have been writing a lot since Mommsen's time, with contributions about this particular question in 1914 and in 1917 (Mommsen died in 1903). The upshot is that Mommsen was probably wrong.

Note that Mommsen already had plenty of evidence and chose not to believe that evidence. In your quote, he cites three independent sources all saying Caesar was born in 100 BCE, but suggests they may have copied from a common source. All three lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, so 100-200 years after Caesar died (about as close in time to Caesar as we are to Mommsen), and likely had very good sources on the dates of Caesar's life. Now, while it is possible that they were wrong nevertheless, a historian claiming this should provide very strong evidence supporting that claim. Mommsen does not. His only point is that Caesar took certain offices 2 years earlier than the official age.

It turns out, however, that this was not uncommon in Caesar's time. Lily Ross Taylor, writing in 1941, summarizes the evidence as follows:

His quaestorship should be assigned to the year 69. The general opinion of scholars that the office should be placed in 68 is based on a misconception of the provincial quaestor's term of service. If the ancient sources are right in indicating that Caesar was born in 100 B.C., this was the year when Caesar became eligible for the office. Since a man of his ambition would hardly have delayed his candidacy for the magistracy which brought with it admission to the senate, the year of Caesar's quaestorship is in itself an argument for accepting 100 B.C. as the date of Caesar's birth. After his quaestorship (here I follow a suggestion of Deutsch) I believe that Caesar received a dispensation from the laws which enabled him to sue for the three higher offices two years before the legal age. I have argued that such dispensations were commoner in the Republic than has been generally believed and that the legislation of Cornelius in 67 made it easier for Caesar, who was now a vigorous opponent of the ruling nobility, to secure such a privilege.

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