Publius Clodius Pulcher

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Publius Clodius Pulcher (93 – 6 December 53 BC)[1] was a Roman senator of the patrician gens Claudia famous for his sexploits in private life and his public boldness and aggression. As an illegally constituted tribune of plebs he pushed through an ambitious legislative programme (the Leges Clodiae) in 58 BC, but is chiefly remembered for a bitter personal feud with Cicero and repeated violent clashes with Pompey's agent Annius Milo in the streets of Rome, which made urban violence a regular and debilitating feature of political life in the last years of the Republic.

Although certainly a destabilizing influence in politics whose public misbehaviour directly served the interests of the Gang of Three (or First Triumvirate) of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar, historians hotly contest whether he was primarily their instrument or followed an agenda of his own. Nevertheless for all his eccentric and mercurial temperament[2] and labyrinthine changes of course in his relations with many important princes of the time, the fair celerity of his murder subsequent to news of the battle of Carrhae and its results reaching Rome, strongly suggests that his main sympathies and support rested with Crassus.

Beginnings and rise

Immediate Family, marriage and children

Born Publius Claudius Pulcher, the youngest son of Appius Claudius, he became known as Publius Clodius after his corrupt adoption into the plebeian family of Fonteii in 59 BC.

He had two elder brothers and at least three, but more likely five, sisters. The identity of his mother's family continues to be one of the most disputed issues of 1st century BC Roman social history. Most likely she was:

It is certain that he was close enough by maternal bloodline to be called frater of some notable figures of the time:

It appears that his father married twice and that among his numerous Claudian brothers and sisters, Clodius was a full sibling of only the two youngest girls, Claudia Metelli and Claudia Luculli. At various times he was accused of incestuous relations with all his sisters, both of whom were known as Clodia in consequence of his transfer to plebeian status in 59 BC. Claudia Metelli is usually identified as Lesbia, to whom the poet Catullus dedicated many of his poems, but the evidence is not conclusive.

There is reason to believe that Clodius married twice; Cicero refers to a certain Natta as his brother-in-law, although he does not mention his gentile name; in a passage of uncertain genuineness, Servius calls him Pinarius Natta.[4][5] The surname is known from the Pinaria gens, but otherwise not among the Fulvii, notwithstanding which many scholars have inferred the existence of a Lucius Fulvius Natta. But Drumann provides reasons to believe that Clodius was married once before Fulvia, and that his first wife was Pinaria; in which case his brother-in-law was Lucius Pinarius Natta. In 62 BC Cicero refers to Natta as a stepson of Murena.[6][7][8]

In 62 BC or later[9] he married Fulvia of Tusculum, daughter of Sempronia the formidable principal heiress of the plebeian high noble family of Semproni Tuditani, which had died out in the male line with her father (70s BC). Fulvia bore him at least one son and one daughter who survived to adulthood, and following his death she married C. Scribonius Curio, tribune of plebs in 50 BC, and then Marcus Antonius the Triumvir (47–40 BC), also producing children by both of those important politicians.

Their daughter Claudia (c. 57 BC or c. 55 BC – aft. 36 BC)[10] was wed to the young Caesar heir for political reasons in 43 BC or 42 BC, when she was barely of age,[11] and soon divorced in 40 BC after the imperious Fulvia joined with the consul Lucius Antonius in stirring up the Perusine War in 41.[12]

His homonymous son, Publius Claudius Pulcher (c.61 - 20s BC)[13] turned out badly ; a lethargic nonentity who only rose to the praetura after 31 BC under the Octavian Caesar and died amid scandals of luxurious excess and an obsessive attachment to a common prostitute.[14] An inscription of ownership on an expensive Egyptian alabaster vase once owned by the son has survived to attest the latter's short official career, and includes an unusual triple filiation which confirms the literary evidence to the effect that Clodius' own filiation was: Ap. f. Ap. n. (son of Appius cos.79, grandson of Appius cos.143).[15]


Clodius in the Third Mithridatic War

Clodius took part in the later stages of the Third Mithridatic War when he covered himself with controversy and ignominy serving in the armies of two consular brothers-in-law, Lucullus (cos. 74) and Q. Marcius Rex (cos. 68). However, considering himself treated with insufficient respect, he stirred up a revolt. His 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.

A curious incident took place during his time in pirate hands which was to have later consequences. The pirates sought a good ransom price from Ptolemy of Cyprus, a nominal ally of Rome who was then involved in negotiations for a potential marriage to a daughter of Mithradates VI of Pontus. Ptolemy sent a fairly trivial sum which so amused the pirates that they released Clodius without taking any money. He had evidently been overestimating his worth, and this transaction filled him with hatred for the Cypriot ruler.[16]

Italy and Gallia, 66–62 BC

L. Murena and P. Clodius both returned to Rome from the eastern wars in 66 BC. Murena had distinguished himself as a soldier but was otherwise untrustworthy and apparently something of crook, while Clodius was in deep trouble, having stirred up mutiny in Lucullus' army before fleeing to Antioch and, after a brief period of captivity in pirate hands, had joined the army of another brother-in-law, Q. Marcius Rex, in Cilicia. He was thus guilty of desertion and high treason ; not in any technical fashion but in the midst of a dangerous war in face of the enemy, further from home than Roman arms had yet been carried, or approximately the most serious crimes on the books of the day. Then there was the little matter of his incestuous relations with his sisters to harden the resolve of their husbands, and sundry interested persons and politicians. It appears that Cicero's adfinis Fabius Maximus Sanga was committed to an adulterous connection with Claudia Metelli, and quite as offended as any husband at having to share his girl with her brother[17] Although Clodius had probably done the worst of what he did at the instigation of (and with promises of protection from) Pompeius Magnus (husband of his soror consobrina Mucia Tertia), the latter remained in the east to complete the Mithradatic War (66-63) while Lucullus also returned home in 66 BC. Thus upon his own return Clodius needed protection from the powerful Luculli brothers, and fast. His marriage to the daughter of Murena's domineering wife Sempronia must be seen in this light.

Returning to Rome in 66 BC, Clodius was in serious need of protection from his brother-in-law because of the treason he had committed in Lucullus' army, and his incestuous relations with Lucullus' wife, which Lucullus had discovered his wife's incestuous relations with her brother Clodius upon his return from the eastern wars, and promptly divorced her. Turning 27 in the year of his return (and already having exceeded the normal age for a first marriage, which was 20–26, owing to his extended service in the east), Clodius wed Fulvia the daughter of Sempronia of the Tuditani that year or the next.[citation needed] At about the same time, Lucullus' very close relative (probably nephew) L. Licinius Murena became Sempronia's third husband. He also collusively prosecuted Catiline in 65 on a charge of extortion from his African command, and so helped secure his acquittal.[18]

In 64 BC, Clodius went to Gaul on Lucius Murena's command staff.[19] He returned to Rome with his commander in 63 in time for the elections at which Murena secured his family's first consulate, mainly with the help of Lucullus' army veterans and the consul Cicero, Clodius almost certainly having assisted as well. Catiline's defeat at the same elections was the signal to begin his attempt at a violent coup d'état, with the aim of slaughtering most of the nobility, especially the plebeian nobles and senators, and setting up a small patrician-dominated oligarchy. Although Clodius was still patrician and it later suited Cicero to portray him as a participant in the Catilinarian conspiracy, Clodius was not involved. On the contrary, he maintained his protective closeness to Murena and the cause of the optimates, rendering Cicero every assistance. As the great drama of the detection and arrest of the conspirators unfolded, Clodius appears to have joined the many other equestrian and noble youths who clustered about the consul as an informal but potent and intimidating bodyguard.[20] In the same year, one of Clodius' sisters (presumably Lucullus' former wife, since the other two were still married to Marcius Rex and Metellus Celer, respectively) attempted to persuade Cicero to divorce his wife Terentia and marry her instead. This made Terentia furious with the Claudia in question, and by association with the wider family.[20]

Bona Dea scandal and trial for incestum

The rites of Bona Dea ("The Good Goddess") were held in December, at the house of Rome's leading magistrate. In 62, they were held in Julius Caesar's grace and favour house in the Regia, loaned to him as pontifex maximus. They were hosted by his wife, Pompeia, and his mother Aurelia, and were supervised by the Vestal Virgins. This was a cult from which men were excluded, so completely that they were not permitted to know or even speak the goddess's name – hence the euphemism "Good Goddess". Clodius intruded on the rites, disguised as a woman and apparently intent on finding and seducing Pompeia; but he was discovered. The ensuing scandal dragged on for months, during which Pompey returned from the east, Caesar divorced his wife, and most public business was suspended. Lucullus was determined to use the opportunity to destroy Clodius' political career, and eventually brought him to trial on the capital charge of incestum. Three Corneli Lentuli prosecuted.[21] Lucullus had numerous household slaves testify to Clodius' incest with his sister Clodia; Terentia, who had hosted the previous year's rites, almost certainly pressed Cicero to testify against Clodius in revenge for the latter's unsuccessful but still damaging prosecution in 73 of her half-sister, the Vestal Fabia, on a charge of incestum with Catiline.[22] Caesar's mother Aurelia and sister Julia testified to Clodius' offense. Caesar did his best to help Clodius by claiming he knew nothing. When asked why, if he knew nothing, he had divorced his wife, Caesar made the famous response that Caesar's wife had to be beyond suspicion.[23] Clodius perjured himself with a fabricated alibi that he was not in Rome on the day of the rites, which Cicero was in a position to refute, though he was uncertain whether he should do so. Eventually national and domestic politics forced his hand. He was most eager to forge a détente between Lucullus and Pompey, who were at loggerheads over the settlement of the eastern provinces, and wished to do Lucullus a favour in this matter, while at home Terentia demanded that he give his testimony and ensure the destruction of her subversive rival's brother and lover. Cicero did so, but Crassus decided the outcome of the trial by bribery of the jurors en masse to secure Clodius' acquittal.

When it was all over Clodius' politics had been transformed and became more deeply personal than ever before. He clung to Crassus[citation needed] as his chief benefactor, and was grateful to Caesar for his attempt to help him. He even appears to have borne no serious grudge against the leading princes who had engineered his prosecution, owing to the wrongs he had done them. But he had risked interfering with Lucullus' army in the east directly in the interests of Pompey, who had not lifted a finger to help him, despite being locked in serious political dispute with the Luculli brothers[citation needed]. And he had assisted Cicero against Catiline.

Sex and politics in late Republican Rome

If the Republic must be destroyed by someone, Cicero fulminates against Clodius in mock resignation,[24] let it at least be destroyed by a real man (Latin vir). Clodius' transvestitism in the Bona Dea incident was to supply Cicero with invective ammunition for years. Like other popularist politicians of his time, as embodied by Caesar and Antony,[25] Clodius was accused of exerting a sexual magnetism that was attractive to both women and men and enhanced his political charisma: "The sexual power of Clodius, his suspected ability to win the wife of Caesar, might be read as indicating the potency of his political influence."[26]

Eleanor Winsor Leach claimed, in her Lacanian analysis "Gendering Clodius",[27] that the frequency and intensity of Cicero's word plays on the cognomen Pulcher ("handsome, lovely")[28] show a certain fascination masquerading under rebuke. Leach calls Cicero's description of Clodius' attire when he intruded on the rites amounts to a verbal striptease, as the privative Latin preposition a ("from") deprives the future tribune of his garments and props one by one:

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Publius Clodius, out from his saffron dress, from his headdress, from his Cinderella slippers and his purple ribbons, from his breast band, from his dereliction, from his lust, is suddenly rendered a democrat.[29]

Cicero's accusations of sexual profligacy against Clodius, including the attempt to seduce Caesar's wife into adultery[30] and incestuous relations with his sisters,[31] fail to enlarge in scope over time, as Clodius' marriage to the formidable Fulvia appears to have been an enduring model of fidelity until death cut it short.[32] At the same time, even devotion to one's wife could be construed by the upholders of traditional values as undermining one's manhood, since it implied dependence on a woman.[33]

Adoption into plebeian family of the Fonteii

On his return from Sicily (where he had been quæstor between 61 BC and 60 BC), Clodius sought to hold a tribunate of plebs, with the stated intention to get revenge on his bitter enemy, Cicero. However, in order to be elected as a tribune, he had to renounce his patrician rank, since that magistracy was not permitted to patricians. In 59 BC, during Caesar's first consulship, Clodius was able to enact a transfer to plebeian status by getting himself adopted by a certain P. Fonteius that was much younger than him.[34] The process violated almost every proper form of adoption in Rome, which was a serious business involving clan and family rituals and inheritance rights. On 16 November, Clodius took office as tribune of the plebs and began preparations for his destruction of Cicero and an extensive populist legislative program in order to bind as much of the community as possible to his policies as beneficiaries.

Nonetheless the legality of Clodius' transfer, and therefore all his acts and laws, remained contentious for many years. Most seriously, in order to be permitted to adopt a fellow citizen from another clan and its rites into his own, a Roman citizen was required to be at least middle-aged (beyond adulescentia, i.e. 30 or older)[citation needed] and able to prove that he had tried but failed to produce children.[citation needed] In this case Clodius himself turned 34 in 59 BC and Fonteius, his adoptor, was even younger, something entirely illegal and unprecedented. Furthermore, once an adoption was made, the adoptee took his place within the adopting family with full rights and duties as the adopter's eldest son. This included changing his name to that of the adopter, to which an additional cognomen was normally appended, in order to indicate either the clan or the family of his birth.

Instead, Clodius violated this essential convention and simply gave a plebeian spelling to his clan name, from Claudius to Clodius turning the act of adoption to an open farce.[35] In this way, he emphasized that his sole interest in the enactment of this public socio-religious farce was to obtain a semblance of technical permission to hold the key plebeian magistracy, with its extensive legislative powers and protective sacrosanctity.

Prominence and demise

Tribunate

As tribune Clodius introduced a law threatening exile to anyone who executed a Roman citizen without a trial. Cicero, having executed members of the Catiline conspiracy four years before without formal trial, and having had a public falling-out with Clodius, was clearly the intended target of the law. Cicero argued that the senatus consultum ultimum indemnified him from punishment, and he attempted to gain the support of the senators and consuls, especially of Pompey. When help was not forthcoming, Cicero went into exile. He arrived at Thessalonica, Greece on May 29, 58 BC.[36] The day Cicero left Italy into exile, Clodius proposed another law which forbade Cicero approaching within 400 miles (640 km) of Italy and confiscated his property. The bill was passed forthwith, and Cicero's house on the Palatine was destroyed by Clodius' supporters, as were his villas in Tusculum and Formiae.[36][37] Cicero's property was confiscated by order of Clodius, his mall on the Palatine burned down, and its site put up for auction. Clodius had a temple of Libertas(Liberty) built on the site of Cicero's house so that if by any chance Cicero returned he would not be able to take the site back, and he also tried to sell Cicero's other property, but there were no takers.[38]

Clodius became exhilarated with his power and importance and wasted no time enacting a substantial legislative programme. The Leges Clodiae included setting up a regular dole of free grain, which used to be distributed monthly at variously and heavily discounted prices, but was now to be given away at no charge, thereby increasing Clodius' political status. Clodius also abolished 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 et Fufia. He also prevented the censors from excluding any citizen from the Senate or inflicting any punishment upon him unless he had been publicly tried and convicted.

He had noticed that violence and physical force had become the main means of maintaining dominance in Roman politics. Therefore, he abolished the restrictions on establishing new collegia, the old social and political clubs or guilds of workmen, and had them set up through his agents. These guilds were essentially organized and trained as gangs of thugs, and Clodius used them to control the streets of Rome, by driving off the supporters of his political opponents.[39] These men were attacking any politician who dared to confront their patron, by means of various forms of harassment, including accosting and beating in the streets, loud booing, showering with filth at the games, besieging houses by throwing rocks or even weapons and, at times, even attempting to burn them. Thus the opposition to Clodius was muted and he became the "king of the Roman streets".[39]

Out of personal hatred for the Lagid king Ptolemy of Cyprus, younger brother of Pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes, he passed a bill terminating his kingship and annexing Cyprus to the Empire. Complying to the wishes of the triumvirate,[40] he cleverly selected Cato the Younger to be sent to Cyprus with a special grant of praetorian command rights to take possession of the island and the royal treasures, and preside over the administrative incorporation of Cyprus into the Roman province of Cilicia. This measure was planned both to remove Cato, potentially a serious and difficult opponent, from the City for some time (in the event he was away for more than two years), and to turn him into an advocate for the legitimacy of Clodius' adoption and tribunate, which it also effected, later causing a great deal of friction between Cato and Clodius' bitterest enemies, especially Cicero.

However, Clodius good relationship to the triumvirate deteriorated when Pompeius criticized his policies and started contemplating to recall Cicero from exile. Then an infuriated Clodius turned against Pompeius, starting to harass him, reputedly with the secret approval of Crassus. When Pompeius discussed, with one of the tribunes, the possibility of recalling Cicero, Clodius culminated his harassment by organizing an attempt to assassinate him in August 58 BC. Then his gangs set up a blockade of his house, forcing Pompeius to stay at home until the end of that year, to avoid the attacks.[41] Clodius, frustrated by that, turned against Caesar, declaring illegal his consular legislation during the year 59. However, this act set the final motion for the recall of Cicero: when Clodius vetoed a relate bill, that was supported by eight tribunes, Caesar finally gave his agreement for a renewed attempt on passing the bill right after the expiration of Clodius' term, in December 58. In January 57, one of the new tribunes tried to pass the bill, but his attempt was met by the usual violence and failed, making clear that the domination of the streets and public spaces of Romes by the gangs of Clodius had to be faced with similar violent methods. Pompeius approved for the tribunes T. Annius Milo and P. Sestius to raise their own street gangs in order to oppose Clodius’ thugs, with some gladiator trainers and ex-gladiators as leaders and trainers. Street fighting continued through the first half of 57 but eventually Clodius lost the battle and the bill about Cicero passed.[42]

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 younger brother Q. Tullius Cicero.

In 56 BC, 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.

Death

In the elections of 53 BC, when Milo was a candidate for the consulship and Clodius for the praetorship, violent clashes erupted in the streets of Rome between the gangs of Clodius and Milo, twice delaying the election.[43]

On January 18, 52 BC, Clodius was returning to Rome by way of the Appian Way from a visit to some of his holdings in the hinterlands. Clodius was travelling lightly with a band of 30 armed slaves and, uncommonly for him, without his wife. By chance, Milo was travelling the other way with his wife as well as an escort which included gladiators, and the two groups passed each other. The encounter between the two groups passed without incident until the last pair at the back of each train began a scuffle. It is then believed that Clodius turned back and was wounded by a javelin thrown by one of the gladiators in Milo’s party. He was brought to a nearby inn for his wounds, while his slaves were killed or driven off.[44]

Milo made the decision that a live political enemy was more dangerous than a dead one and ordered that his gladiators kill the injured Clodius. The body was later discovered by a passing Roman citizen and sent back to Rome. There, Clodius’ wife and two tribunes rallied his supporters to use the Curia as Clodius’ funeral pyre, which resulted in the destruction of the Curia Hostilia. This action and the need to restore order in Rome are cited as the key reasons for the Senate's appointment of Pompey as Consul without colleague.[45]

The later trial of Milo would become famous for Cicero’s defense of the accused Milo with his famous speech “Pro Milone” which would ultimately fail to save Milo from exile on account of Cicero's never delivering the speech, having been scared off from the Forum, by the armed guard introduced by Pompey.[46] Additionally, in the presence of these soldiers, the jurors were affected to decide according to Pompey's wishes.[47]

Clodius in popular culture

Notes

  1. Birthdate established by G.V. Sumner, Orators. The Julian date of his death, 6 Dec. 53 BC, follows the intercalation and conversion model of C.J.Bennett for the attested date of his death in the pre-Julian calendar - 18 Ianuarius during the interregnum at the beginning of the civic year which eventually produced the two consuls Pompeius Magnus tertium and Q. Metellus Scipio. Tatum's lifespan, 92 - 52 BC (P.Clodius 1999, pp. 33 and 239-40), fails to address Sumner's solid case for the birth year and equates 52(Roman civic) with Julian 52 BC, which is mistaken
  2. Billows Colossus 2009, pp. 102, 167
  3. Perhaps the best discussion of the ambiguous evidence is that of T.P. Wiseman, Cinna the Poet and other Roman Essays, (Leicester University Press, 1974), ch.12 "The Last of the Metelli", pp.176-191, with stemma at 182-3
  4. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Domo Sua 45, 52; Epistulae ad Atticum iv. 8, b. § 3.
  5. Servius, ad Virg. Aen. viii. 269.
  6. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Murena 35; Pro Domo Sua 52.
  7. Wilhelm Drumann, Geschichte Roms ii. p. 370.
  8. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor, "Natta," No. 2.
  9. Tatum places the wedding of Clodius and Fulvia within a time frame of 62–59 BC, but probably during Murena's consulship of 62; see The Patrician Tribune pp. 60–61 online.
  10. Tatum, Patrician Tribune p. 60 online.
  11. Roman women of the aristocracy were usually married at the age of 15 or 16, though particularly high-ranking and thus desirable brides might become engaged as early as 12; see Ronald Syme, "Marriage Ages for Roman Senators," Historia 26 (1987) 318–332.
  12. Suetonius Divus Augustus 62.1: "As a youth he had had a daughter of P. Servilius Isauricus for his betrothed, but reconciling with Antonius after their initial discord, when the troops of both men were insisting that they should additionally be joined by some form of close relationship, he took as his wife Antonius' step-daughter Claudia, Fulvia's child by Publius Clodius, although she was barely yet of marrying age; and after his clash arose with Fulvia the mother-in-law, he divorced her still intact and virgin."
  13. Tatum (Patrician Tribune p. 61) points out that in 44 BC, the son P. Claudius could still be called a boy (puer), though granting that age categories such as puer, adolescens and iuvenis are fluid.
  14. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium libri IX, III, 5. 3
  15. T. P. Wiseman, " Pulcher Claudius ", HSCP 74 (1970), 208-221, at p. 210, with family stemma at 220. The inscription is CIL VI 1282 = ILS 882 : P.CLAVDIVS P.F.AP.N.AP.PRON.PVLCHER Q. QVAESITOR PR. AVGVR
  16. Appian (R.Em. 2, 23) is the only source for the paltry sum offered to the pirates by the avaricious Ptolemy of Cyprus – 2 talents (= 12,000 drachmai = 48,000 sestertii)
  17. cf. Cic.ad Att. II, 1. 5
  18. Cicero de haruspicum responso 42: "Later after inciting Lucullus' army by unspeakable crime he fled from those parts and soon after his arrival in Rome made arrangements with his relatives not to prosecute them while he accepted cash from Catilina to prosecute him collusively in the most disgraceful manner."
  19. Cicero de haruspicum responso 42: "Next he took himself into Gallia with Murena, in which province he wrote all over the testaments of dead men, murdered orphans and arranged nefarious criminal contracts and partnerships with many."
  20. 20.0 20.1 Plutarch Cicero 29.
  21. Valerius Maximus IV 3.5. The senior prosecutor is thought to have been L. Lentulus Crus; Gaius Curio pater, consul in 76, was the vigorous chief advocate.
  22. David F. Epstein, "Cicero's Testimony at the Bona dea Trial", Classical Philology, Vol. 81, No. 3, Jul., 1986, pp. 239 - 235.
  23. Plutarch, Caesar, 10.
  24. De Haruspicium Responso 20.42, as paraphrased and discussed by Eleanor Winsor Leach, "Gendering Clodius," Classical World 94 (2001), pp. 338–339. The original quote expresses vehemence through disjointed and repetitive syntax: quid est, quid valet, quid adfert, ut tanta civitas, si cadet — quod di omen obruant! — a viro tamen confecta videatur? ("What's the point, what's it worth, what's the relevance, if such a polity collapses — and may the gods overturn that doom! — unless it at least appears to have been brought about by a [real] man?").
  25. Catharine Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 63–64 online et passim.
  26. Edwards, Politics of Immorality, p. 47 online.
  27. Eleanor Winsor Leach, "Gendering Clodius," Classical World 94 (2001) 335–359.
  28. Tatum, Patrician Tribune, p. 43 online.
  29. P. Clodius, a crocota, a mitra, a muliebribus soleis purpureisque fasceolis, a strophio, a psalterio, <a> flagitio, a stupro est factus repente popularis: Cicero, the speech De Haruspicium Responso 21.44, delivered May 56 BC. Translation and discussion by Leach, "Gendering Clodius," p. 338.
  30. Whether Clodius was already married to Fulvia in December 62 BC, at the time of the Bona Dea incident, is unclear; Tatum's chronological frame of 62–59 BC (Patrician Tribune pp. 60–61 online) allows for the possibility that Clodius was a newlywed at the time.
  31. Tatum, Patrician Tribune pp. 41–42.
  32. "Clodius was very capable in the fifties of adopting a posture of strict religiosity and old-fashioned rectitude"; even Cicero notes that Clodius rarely traveled without his wife (Pro Milone 28), and "the prevailing assumption … was that Clodius had become quite the family man" (Tatum, Patrician Tribune, p. 42).
  33. Tatum, Patrician Tribune p. 315; Edwards, Politics of Immorality p. 85 online, noting that Pompey's contentment in the early fifties was attributed to his happy marriage to Caesar's daughter.
  34. Billows, Richard A. (2009), p.118.
  35. Billows, Richard A. (2009), pp. 102, 108.
  36. 36.0 36.1 Haskell, H.J.: This was Cicero, 1924 200-1.
  37. Plutarch. Cicero 32.
  38. Bingley: Cicero, 3-4.
  39. 39.0 39.1 Billows, Richard A. (2009), p. 167-168.
  40. Billows, Richard A. (2009), p. 168.
  41. Billows, Richard (2009), p. 168-169.
  42. Billows, Richard (2009), p. 169-170.
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  47. Billows, Richard A. (2009), p.184.

References

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Ancient sources

  • Cicero numerous Letters (ad Atticum, ad Familiares, ad Quintum fratrem); de domo sua ad pontifices, de haruspicum responso, pro M. Caelio, pro P. Sestio, de provincis consularibus, In L. Pisonem, pro T. Milone.
  • Stangl, Thomas: Ciceronis Orationum Scholiastae: Asconius. Scholia Bobiensia. Scholia Pseudoasconii Sangallensia. Scholia Cluniacensia et recentiora Ambrosiana ac Vaticana. Scholia Lugdunensia sive Gronoviana et eorum excerpta Lugdunensia (Vienna, 1912; reprinted Georg Olms, Hildesheim, 1964)
  • Asconius. Caesar Giarratano (ed.) Q. Asconii Pediani Commentarii, (Rome, 1920; reprinted Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1967)
  • Plutarch Roman Lives of: Lucullus, Pompeius, Cicero, Caesar, Cato
  • L. Cassius Dio Roman History, books 36-40

Modern works

  • Gentile, I., Clodio e Cicerone (Milan, 1876)
  • Lacour-Gayet, G., De P. Clodio Pulchro (Paris, 1888), and Revue historique (Sept. 1889)
  • Billows, Richard A.: Julius Caesar: The Colossus of Rome (Routledge, 2009), ISBN 0-203-41276-1
  • G Boissier, Cicero and his Friends (Eng. trans., 1897)
  • White, H., Cicero, Clodius and Milo (New York, 1900)
  • Lintott, Andrew W., " P. Clodius Pulcher – Felix Catilina? ", Greece & Rome, n.s.14 (1967), 157-69
  • —: Violence in Republican Rome (Oxford University Press, 1968)
  • Moreau, Philippe, Clodiana religio. Un procès politique en 61 av. J.-C. (Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1982) ISBN 2-251-33103-4
  • Tatum, W. Jeffrey, The Patrician Tribune: P. Clodius Pulcher (Studies in the History of Greece and Rome, University of North Carolina Press, 1999) hardcover ISBN 0-8078-2480-1

The most thorough and now standard biography in English.

  • Stanisław Stabryła, "P. Clodius Pulcher: a Politician or a Terrorist," in Jerzy Styka (ed), Violence and Aggression in the Ancient World (Kraków, Ksiegarnia Akademicka, 2006) (Classica Cracoviensia, 10),
  • Wilfried Nippel: Publius Clodius Pulcher – "der Achill der Straße". In: Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp, Elke Stein-Hölkeskamp (Hrsg.): Von Romulus zu Augustus. Große Gestalten der römischen Republik. Beck, München 2000. S. 279–291. ISBN 3-406-46697-4
  • Fezzi, L., Il tribuno Clodio (Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008) ISBN 88-420-8715-7
  • Bennett, Christopher J., author of the currently most advanced intercalation model for ancient Roman civic years, and the conversion of ancient Roman dates to retrojected Julian dates of the BC epoch. Bennett's model focuses on the period 190 BC - AD 8, from the synchronized eclipse of March 190 to the first true Julian year. It began to be published in a series of articles in the ZPE journal from 2003. The completed form is available in the Roman Chronology section of his website on the Ptolemaic dynasty, http://www.tyndalehouse.com/Egypt/ptolemies/ptolemies.htm. The latter also contains a convenient conversion table covering the period 262 BC - AD 60, in the file roman_civil.xls, completed in October 2010.

Dyson, Stephen L., Rome: A Living Portrait of an Ancient City (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010)