108 Days to Opening Day 2008

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 108 days from today. This off-season, the countdown will be based on books. Each day between now and Opening Day 2008, I will pick a random book out of my library and excerpt a passage off the page number corresponding with the number of days remaining to the first pitch of the new season. I will try not to repeat a book during the countdown.

Today’s excerpt is from Caesar: A Biography by Christian Meier. This excerpt has to do with the education of Caesar as a young man.

Soon after this Caesar went to Rhodes to study rhetoric under the celebrated Apollonios Molon. He is said to have gone there not only to pursue his studies, but to avoid certain charges arising from his prosecution of Dolabella. It was not yet common to study in Greece. But Caesar attached particular importance to rhetoric, culture and style. Apollonios Molon was highly esteemed. When he had gone from Rhodes to Rome as ambassador in 81, he was the first person to be allowed to address the Senate in Greek. Cicero had studied under him in 78/77 and owed much to his teaching. But it is questionable whether all this would have been enough to draw Caesar away for any length of time from the political career to which he was so committed. Moreover, although such charges were common, was it not inevitable, when the restoration seemed so precarious, that the leading senators, and public opinion generally, should construe Caesar’s prosecution of prominent Sullans as an act of anti-Sullan policy? And had he really taken much trouble to conceal this aspect of his attack on the corrupt grandees. Another reason why Caesar may have gone into voluntary exile at this time becomes clear from the later course of his career.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.