Publius Clodius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher (c. 92[1] – 18 January 52 BC) was a Roman politician and demagogue. A noted opponent of Cicero, he was responsible during his plebeian tribunate in 58 BC for a massive expansion of the Roman grain dole as well as Cicero's exile from the city. Leader of one of the political mobs in the 50s, his political tactics – combining connections throughout the oligarchy with mass support from the poor plebs – made him a central player in the politics of the era.
Publius Clodius Pulcher
c. 92 BC
18 January 52 BC
Murdered
| Quaestor | 61 BC |
| XVvir sacris faciundis | 60–52 BC |
| Plebeian tribune | 58 BC |
| Curule aedile | 56 BC |
- Appius Claudius Pulcher (father)
Born to the influential patrician gens Claudia, he was embroiled early in his political career in a religious scandal which saw him develop a rivalry with the orator Cicero and become a plebeian in order to be eligible for the plebeian tribunate. He successfully stood as tribune of the plebs for 58 BC and passed six laws to restore Rome's collegia (private guilds and fraternities), expand the grain dole (making it free rather than subsidised while also using those collegia as means for distribution), annex Cyprus to pay for the dole, clarify augural law on religious obstruction, make it more difficult for the censors to expel senators from the senate, and exile Cicero for the unlawful execution of conspirators during the Catilinarian conspiracy.
When curule aedile in 56 BC, he feuded with and attempted to prosecute his political enemy, Titus Annius Milo, who controlled a rival set of urban mobs. Starting the year an opponent of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, he and his family reconciled with them to form a political alliance. A few years later in 52 BC, amid renewed political violence and a campaign for the praetorship, Milo and Clodius encountered each other on the via Appia outside Rome, where Clodius was killed. His body, brought back to Rome, was brought to the forum and then cremated in the senate house, causing its destruction by fire.
His politics were advanced largely by his cultivation of urban mobs in Rome which, by exercising violent control of the places where the republic operated, furthered his political objectives. These violent tactics, however, were not his only sources of influence: his family connections and nobilitas made him a valuable ally to many parties – including, at various times, Caesar, Cato, and Pompey – in the ad hoc factionalism of the late republic. The older view that Clodius acted as an agent of magnates, such as Caesar or Pompey, is now rejected by scholars; he is now seen as an opportunistic and independent politician.[2]
Name[edit]
There are a number of theories relating to Clodius' name: especially how it was spelt "Clodius" rather than "Claudius". His use of "Clodius" predates his plebeian adoption.[3] Nor did the o-form denote plebeian or patrician status, since Clodius' patrician sisters also used the o-form in correspondence.[4] Moreover, Clodius' uncle may have used the o-form of the name in the 90s BC, as did his elder brother Gaius as documented in Cicero.[5][6]
There is no ancient evidence of the common supposition that Clodius spelt his name with "o" instead of "au" to ingratiate himself with the urban plebs.[7] W Jeffrey Tatum, in the 1999 book The patrician tribune, also notes that Roman politicians did not benefit from reducing social distance between themselves and the plebs: rather, the plebs valued champions who were more noble since that made their causes seem more respectable.[8]
Shifting alliances[edit]
Opposition to recalling Cicero[edit]
On 10 December 58 BC, Clodius returned to being a private citizen. Pompey's allies in the tribunate promptly proposed a bill to recall Cicero; eventually, all but two of the tribunes would support the bill. In January 57 BC, the two new consuls – Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos – announced in the senate that they supported or acceded to Cicero's return.[121] Seeing the senate again support Cicero, one of Clodius allies in the tribunate – Sextus Atilius Serranus Gavianus – exercised a veto in the senate which continued through January.[122] When the bill to lift Cicero's exile came to a vote on 23 January 57 BC, two tribunes – Quintus Fabricius and Marcus Cispius – occupied the forum to prevent a veto from being raised. Clodius' gangs, strengthened by gladiators borrowed from his brother, then drove the tribunes from the forum by force; Cicero's brother Quintus, attending to support his brother, narrowly escaped the fighting alive. Another tribune, Titus Annius Milo, had the gladiators arrested and procured confessions, but Serranus had them freed; Milo and Clodius from this point became rivals.[122]
The political class unified against the Clodius' violent tactics on 23 January. Milo prosecuted Clodius under the lex Plautia de vi but Clodius' allies in office – Metellus Nepos as consul, Appius Claudius Pulcher as praetor, and one of the tribunes (Sextus Atilius Serranus or Quintus Numerius Rufus) – made it impossible for Clodius to be tried by reserving all days in the calendar for other business.[123] Clodius' tactical superiority in the streets was then lost when further violence against another tribune, Publius Sestius, saw multiple politicians assemble mobs to arm themselves.[124] Pompey, supporting Cicero, canvassed for support across Italy and procured through Spinther a senatorial decree that citizens should to assemble in Rome to vote for Cicero's recall. By the summer, with much of Italy supporting Cicero's recall, Clodius' last remaining tools to oppose the recall were food riots. When the senate voted on lifting Cicero's exile in July, the measure passed 416–1 with Clodius the lone dissenter. Against such overwhelming support, Clodius' allies in the tribunate became unwilling to veto the bill as it proceeded in the senate or the senate's later decree that anyone who blocked the bill would be declared public enemies.[125]
On 4 August 57 BC, Clodius attempted to disrupt a public meeting where Quintus Cicero, brought by Pompey, was to speak in favour of lifting his brother's exile. Unsuccessful,[126] the bill passed later that day before the comitia centuriata amid a huge influx of Ciceronean supporters from across Italy.[127] Pompey's victory in recalling Cicero was made more complete when the senate, at Cicero's motion, gave Pompey a command to bring food to Rome to stop the riots. Clodius and Cicero again opposed each other over Cicero's attempt to have his Palatine house restored.[128] Before a pontifical hearing, Clodius and Cicero spoke, with Clodius arguing that removing the shrine to liberty would offend the gods. Cicero argued successfully that Clodius' law to take his house, in failing to explicitly authorise dedication, was null and void. After Cicero's victory before the pontiffs, Clodius first attempted to convince the public that the decree was actually in his favour before attempting to filibuster a senatorial debate on Cicero's house.[129] When the senatorial resolution was vetoed by Serranus after passing almost unanimously, the overwhelming senatorial response convinced Serranus to withdraw his veto. Unsuccessful lawfully, Clodius responded by mobilising his mobs to disrupt construction work on the site as well as harass Cicero, Milo, and others in the streets.[130] Clodius' defeats were, however, largely momentary. He retained the support of eminent men such as Publius Sulla and Quintus Hortensius; the ongoing political battle over the Egyptian command would again bring Clodius into political respectability.[131]
Death[edit]
Praetorian campaign[edit]
Clodius returned to Rome in 54 BC, possibly seeking a praetorship in 53. Whether Clodius actually sought the praetorship of 53 is unclear and debated, though many scholars side with Badian's belief that a delay actually occurred.[148] The ongoing censorship, which included many hearings for junior senators the censors wanted removed, cemented among the pedarii the fruits of Clodius' tribunate. Clodius was then involved in a series of trials against Gaius Cato and Marcus Nonius Sufenas, previous Clodian allies during their tribunates. While the sources are unclear as to whether Clodius participated in their defences, the three trials ended in acquittals.[149] Amid further activites in the courts, Clodius won support from defendants and – according to Valerius Maximus – defended one of his prosecutors during the Bona Dea affair; these actions showed a sound mind suitable for court presidency, ie a praetor.[150]
54 BC saw Clodius' elder brother Appius elected consul with Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, only for them to be thrown into a serious corruption scandal that cut across all existing loyalties. Appius (a friend of the triumvirs) joined with Domitius (an enemy thereof) to support candidates Gaius Memmius (a friend thereof) and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus (an enemy thereof) as the only nominees for the consulship of 53 in exchange for the two candidates procuring fabricated legal documents to grant the two consuls lucrative proconsular postings.[151] When the plot became public, competing candidates Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and Marcus Valerius Messalla triggered a surge in interest rates as they borrowed to hand out bribes.[152] Distancing himself from his brother who was at the same time helping prosecuting candidate Scaurus for corruption, Clodius defended Scaurus, which saw him speak in Scaurus' defence alongside his enemy Cicero.[153] All four consular candidates were indicted for bribery and elections were delayed until July 53 BC. With none of the candidates withdrawing, Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus and Marcus Valerius Messalla were elected months into the consular term and found themselves with the unenviable task for arranging elections in this disturbed political environment for 52 BC.[154]
Clodius now stood in the praetorian elections for 52 BC; letters from Cicero indicate his success was a foregone conclusion.[155] His campaign – very uncommonly for a republican politician – included a pledge to redistribute freedmen from the four urban tribes into the 31 rural tribes, which would give them far more political power.[156] A more poorly documented proposal, possibly to regulate the informal manumission of slaves, was also brought.[157]
For personal and political reasons,[158] Clodius was part of the Pompeian effort to deny Titus Annius Milo, a candidate for 52 and friend of Marcus Porcius Cato, victory in the consular elections.[159] Clodius supported the other two candidates: Pompey's ally Publius Plautius Hypsaeus and the blue-blooded Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio. Clodius and Milo immediately came to fighting in the streets with their mobs: Clodius attempted to ambush Milo on the via Sacra forcing Milo to flee; Milo repulsed a violent Clodian attempt to seize the voting pens; a young Mark Antony was rumoured to have volunteered to assassinate Clodius to restore order.[160] The chaos of the street fighting, along with a persistent tribunician veto on elections from one of Pompey's tribunician allies (Titus Munatius Plancus), made it impossible to hold elections in 53: the two consuls, entering into office seven months late, abdicated on the last day of their terms without replacement.[161] Appointment of interreges was customary when all magistrates abdicated without replacement. Their appointment too was vetoed, on Pompey's initiative, as Milo's victory was clearly foreseeable.[162] Clodius' campaign for the praetorship continued into the new year, as did the campaigns of the other candidates. Part of his campaign included a visit to Aricia, a town on the via Appia, south of Rome.[163]
Legacy[edit]
In the aftermath of Clodius' death, his political legacy and tactics, which combined aristocratic connections with mass support from the poorer urban plebs, influenced later politicians. Publius Cornelius Dolabella, a patrician by birth and Cicero's son-in-law via Tullia, had himself adopted by a plebeian to stand for the tribunate, succeeding in 47 BC, and that year proposed the complete abolition of debts while raising statues of Clodius to great acclaim.[183] However, the use of political violence in Roman politics was not novel: Clodius was not the first nor the last to assemble mobs to disrupt or support political initiatives.[184] The grain dole which Clodius had legislated during his tribunate survived the fall of the republic and persisted through the Roman empire. Imperial self-representation as builders of public monuments as well as benefactors for freedmen and the urban plebs, "perpetuat[ed] some aspect of [Clodius'] political style".[185]
Clodius' reputation in the later ancient and modern sources is predominantly negative due to the survival of and reliance on Ciceronean invective from around 56 BC.[186] Treatments in modern times have at various times called him "a petty gangster", "an irresponsible demagogue", and "a demagogue of the wildest kind".[186] Modern historiography largely viewed him as an agent of Caesar, an anarchic enigma – for Theodor Mommsen, "an irrational anarchist",[187] – or a revolutionary enemy of Cicero and the senatorial republic.[188] Scholarship since 1966, with the publication of Erich Gruen's P. Clodius: instrument or independent agent? has instead focused on Clodius as an independent agent attempting to play off different groupings in the late republic for personal gain.[189] This independent agent interpretation has been praised as "incisive and penetrating",[188] especially amid the general abandonment of 19th century party-political interpretations of Roman politics.[190]