I agree that there seems to be little sense in Caesar’s prosecution of Rabirius. I was simply trying to point out that all of this other stuff makes the whole thing even more obscure. One thing that may be significant is that Suetonius ties this in with the prosecutions of those who had benefited financially from Sulla’s proscriptions. The were supposed to be immune from prosecution for this thanks to the laws passed by Sulla during his dictatorship, but obviously the times had changed. Why Caesar tried to go back to even earlier events is beyond me. Maybe Caesar has just been tarred with this brush because of his harshness in the case and he didn’t have anything to do with the charges brought against Rabirius. Or maybe he just made a huge mistake; Suetonius certainly implies that he badly misjudged the mood of the people. It was early in his career; he is entitled to a few mistakes.

On the matter of the conflict in the accounts of Suetonius and Sallust, it certainly does seem significant that the more contemporary Sallust does not mention the incident at all. OTOH, we should also remember that Sallust was one of Caesar’s favorites and that he was writing under Augustus. Caesar doesn’t come out too well in this incident and Sallust may have simply ignored it. Suetonius had access to the governmental records when he wrote his lives of Caesar and Augustus. It does seem suspicious, but I rather like the idea of Caesar using one of Cato’s filibusters against him.