Publius Clodius Pulcher
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Publius Clodius Pulcher (born around 92 BC, died January 18, 52 BC), was a Roman politician, chiefly remembered for his feuds with Titus Annius Milo and Marcus Tullius Cicero and introducing the grain dole.
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[edit] Life
[edit] Military career
Born as Publius Claudius Pulcher, his military career was generally undistinguished. He took part in the Third Mithridatic War under his brother-in-law, Lucullus. However, considering himself treated with insufficient respect, he stirred up a revolt. Another brother-in-law, Q. Marcius Rex, governor of Cilicia, gave him the command of his fleet, but he was captured by pirates. On his release he repaired to Syria, where he nearly lost his life during a mutiny he was accused of instigating.
[edit] Political life
Returning to Rome in 65 BC, Clodius entered the cursus honorum, the normal career path of elected Roman offices. He prosecuted Catiline for extortion, but was bribed by him to procure acquittal. There seems no reason to believe that Clodius was involved in the Catilinarian conspiracy; indeed, according to Plutarch (Cicero, 29), he rendered Cicero every assistance and acted as one of his bodyguards.
The affair of the mysteries of the Bona Dea, however, caused a breach between Cicero and Clodius in December, 62 BC. Clodius, dressed as a woman (men were not admitted to the mysteries), entered the house of Julius Caesar (at the time pontifex maximus), where the mysteries were being celebrated. It was suggested at the time that Clodius wore the disguise in order to carry on an intrigue with Pompeia, Caesar's wife. (Whether or not the allegation was true of Clodius' seeking an affair with Pompeia, Caesar divorced her in short order to avoid even the hint of impropriety in his spouse.) He was detected and brought to trial, but escaped condemnation by bribing the jury. Cicero's violent public statements on this occasion may have led Clodius to seek revenge.
[edit] Renunciation of Patrician rank
On his return from Sicily (where he had been quaestor in 61 BC), Clodius chose to renounce his patrician rank. After gaining the consent of the Roman Senate, and with the connivance of Caesar, he succeeded in being adopted into the plebeian branch of his gens by P. Fonteius in 59 BC. He even went so far as to change his name from the patrician "Claudius" to the more popular version, "Clodius." On December 10, 59 BC, he was elected Tribune of the Plebs, an office for which patricians were ineligible.
[edit] Introduction of the grain dole
His first act as tribune was to bring forward laws that secured him popular favour while antagonizing the Roman ruling class. Grain, instead of being sold at a low rate, was to be distributed free once a month; the right of taking the omens on a fixed day and (if they were declared unfavourable) of preventing the assembly of the comitia, possessed by every magistrate by the terms of the Lex Aelia Fufia, was abolished; the old clubs or guilds of workmen were re-established; the censors were forbidden to exclude any citizen from the senate or inflict any punishment upon him unless he had been publicly accused and condemned.
[edit] Rise to power
Clodius then acted against Cicero and Cato the Younger, who was sent to Cyprus as praetor to take possession of the island and the royal treasures. Cicero's property was confiscated by order of Clodius, his house on the Palatine burned down, and its site put up for auction. It was purchased by Clodius himself, who, not wishing his name to appear in the matter, had someone else place the bid for him. After the departure of Caesar for Gaul, Clodius practically became master of Rome with the aid of a personal gang, one of several that were active in the city at the time. In 57 BC, one of the tribunes proposed the recall of Cicero, and Clodius resorted to force to prevent the passing of the decree. His effort was foiled by Milo, who led an armed gang sufficiently strong to hold him in check. Clodius subsequently attacked the workmen who were rebuilding Cicero's house at public cost, assaulted Cicero himself in the street, and set fire to the house of Cicero's brother Quintus Tullius Cicero.
In 56, while curule aedile, he impeached Milo for public violence (de vi) while defending his house against the attacks of Clodius' gang, and also charged him with keeping armed bands in his service. Judicial proceedings were hindered by violent outbreaks, and the matter was finally dropped.
[edit] Death
In 53 BC, when Milo was a candidate for the consulship, and Clodius for the praetorship, the rivals collected armed bands and clashed in the streets of Rome. On January 18 52 BC, by chance Clodius and Milo passed each other on the Appian Way near Bovillae. A fight erupted between members of the two groups and Clodius died in the ensuing melee. Seutonius, however, contradicts this story, saying simply that Clodius was assassinated. His enraged clients used the senate house as his funeral pyre. The Senate then voted Julius Caesar (still in Gaul) to be removed from power in favor of Pompey, but the Tribunes were able to block this.
[edit] Family
Clodius was born into the wealthy patrician family of Appius Claudius Pulcher and Caecilia Metella Balearica. He changed his name from the ancient patrician spelling of Claudius to the plebeian spelling of Clodius upon his adoption by P. Fonteius. Clodius was married to Fulvia, and had a daughter, Clodia Pulchra, who was briefly married to Octavian, and a son, also named P. Clodius.
His sister, Clodia, was immortalized in the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus and the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero; Cicero insinuated, in Pro Caelio, that Clodia had had an incestuous relationship with her brother. She lived her life surrounded in perpetual scandal.
[edit] Clodius in popular culture
- Clodius makes several appearances in Roma Sub Rosa, a series of novels by the American author Steven Saylor.
- Clodius is a particular enemy of Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger in the SPQR series of mysteries by John Maddox Roberts.
- Clodius is a key player in Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series books Caesar's Women and Caesar. His entire exploits from his time in the east to his death in 52 BC is chronicled as a subplot to the greater story.
- Clodius plays a minor role in the Ides of March, an epistolatory novel by Thornton Wilder dealing with characters and events leading to, and culminating in the assassination of Julius Caesar. Clodius' possible involvement with Caesar's second wife Pompeia and his attempt to attend the secret rites of the Bona Dea are mentioned (though these events are transplanted in time).
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Cicero, Lettes (ed. Tyrrell and Purser), Pro Caelio, pro Sestio, pro Milone, pro Domo sua, de Haruspicum Responsis, in Pisonem;
- Plutarch, Lucullus, Pompey, Cicero, Caesar; Dio Cassius xxxvi. 16, 19, xxxvii. 45, 46, 51, xxxviii. 12-14, xxxix. 6, if, xl. 48. See also I Gentile, Clodio e Cicerone (Milan, 1876);
- ES Beesley, "Cicero and Clodius," in Fortnightly Review, v.; G Lacour-Gayet, De P. Clodio Pulchro (Paris, 1888), and in Revue historique (Sept. 1889);
- Tatum, W. Jeffrey. The Patrician Tribune: P. Clodius Pulcher. Studies in the History of Greece and Rome. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999 (hardcover, ISBN 0807824801).
- H White, Cicero, Clodius and Milo (New York, 1900);
- G Boissier, Cicero and his Friends (Eng. trans., 1897).
- Cicero, Letters (ed. Evelyn Shuckburgh), DCCXIII (A XIV, 13 a).
- Fezzi, L. Il tribuno Clodio, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2008
