Gaius Aurelius Cotta (124–73 BC) was aRoman statesman,orator,priest, andAcademic Skeptic; he is not to be confused withGaius Aurelius Cotta who wasconsul twice in the 3rd century BCE.

Born in 124 BC,^[1] he was an uncle ofJulius Caesar through Caesar's mother,Aurelia. In 92 BC he defended his unclePublius Rutilius Rufus, who had been unjustly accused of extortion in Asia. He was on intimate terms with the tribuneMarcus 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 thelex Varia, the law proposed byQuintus 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.^[2]

He did not return until 82 BC, during thedictatorship ofLucius Cornelius Sulla. Perhaps he fought in 80 BC aspropraetor unsuccessfully againstQuintus Sertorius.^[3] In 75 he was consul, and excited the hostility of theoptimates by carrying alaw that abolished the Sullan disqualification of thetribunes of the plebs from holding higher magistracies; another lawde judiciis privatis, of which nothing is known, was abrogated by his brotherLucius Cotta. Cotta obtained the province ofGaul, and was granted atriumph for some victory of which we possess no details; but on the very day before its celebration an old wound broke out, and he died suddenly.^[2]

According toCicero,Publius Sulpicius Rufus and Cotta were the best speakers of the young men of their time. Physically incapable of rising to passionate heights of oratory, Cotta's successes were chiefly due to his searching investigation of facts; he kept strictly to the essentials of the case and avoided all irrelevant digressions. His style was pure and simple. He is introduced by Cicero as an interlocutor in theDe Oratore andDe Natura Deorum (iii.), as a supporter of the principles of theNew Academy. The fragments ofSallust contain the substance of a speech delivered by Cotta in order to calm the popular anger at a deficient corn supply.^[4]

• Aurelia gens

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cotta, Gaius Aurelius".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 251–252. This article in turn cites:
  • Cicero,De oratore,iii.3
  • Cicero,Brutus,49,55,90,92
  • Sallust,Hist. Frag.,2.47M
  • Appian,Bell. Civ.i.37
• Sumner, G.V. (1973).The Orators in Cicero'sBrutus: Prosopography and Chronology. University of Toronto Press.ISBN 0-8020-5281-9.

• 124 BC births
• 73 BC deaths
• 2nd-century BC Romans
• 1st-century BC Roman consuls
• Aurelii Cottae
• Family of Julius Caesar
• Senators of the Roman Republic
• Academic skeptics
• People of the Sertorian War

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica