Gaius Aurelius Cotta

Who was Gaius Aurelius Cotta?

Gaius Aurelius Cotta was a Roman statesman and orator; not to be confused with Gaius Aurelius Cotta who was Consul in 252 with Publius Servilius Geminus.

He was the uncle to Julius Caesar through Caesar's mother, Aurelia Cotta. In 92 BC he defended his uncle Publius Rutilius Rufus, who had been unjustly accused of extortion in Asia. He was on intimate terms with the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus, who was murdered in 91 BC, and in the same year was an unsuccessful candidate for the tribunate. Shortly afterwards he was prosecuted under the lex Varia, the law proposed by Quintus Varius Severus which was directed against all who had in any way supported the Italians against Rome, and, in order to avoid condemnation, went into voluntary exile.

He did not return until 82 BC, during the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In 75 he was consul, and excited the hostility of the optimates by carrying a law that abolished the Sullan disqualification of the tribunes from holding higher magistracies; another law de judiciis privatis, of which nothing is known, was abrogated by his brother Lucius Cotta. Cotta obtained the province of Gaul, and was granted a triumph for some victory of which we possess no details; but on the very day before its celebration an old wound broke out, and he was injured suddenly.