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Clodius and Cicero: A Question of Dignitas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

W. K. Lacey
W. K. Lacey*
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
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Extract

Nobody has seriously questioned the proposition that the enmity between Clodius and Cicero dated from their clash over Clodius' impeachment for sacrilege at the Bona Dea Festival of 62 B.C., nor has anyone seriously doubted that the basic evidence on which an assessment of these events must rest is contained in the five letters of Cicero, ad Atticum i 12-16. The treatment of this evidence however has produced very divergent results; the purpose of this paper is to argue that the story told by these letters is clear, coherent and comprehensible, and that the conflict which developed was not based on psychological motivations (deep or otherwise) but on a conflict of dignitas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 8 , 1974 , pp. 85 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1974

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References

1 Referred (o in this paper simply as 12-16. Doubts about Cicero's veracity in 16 have been expressed, but they do not seem to me to be well founded.

2 For example, on the question ‘what caused the lasting enmity between Clodius and Cicero?’, compare Balsdon, J.P.V.D., ‘Fabula Clodiana’, Historia 15 (1966). 65–73Google Scholar, at 71 (Cicero's insults to Clodius in the contiones before Clodius' trial were responsible), with McDermott, W.C., ‘Curio Pater and Cicero’, AJP 93 (1972), 381 ffGoogle Scholar. (Cicero's publication of his speech In Clodium while Clodius was away in his provincia as quaestor was the cause), or Scullard, H.H., From the Gracchi to Nero (London, 1970), p. 116Google Scholar (Cicero's giving evidence at Clodius' trial was the reason), or Cary, M., CAH, Vol. ix, p. 525Google Scholar (it was in consequence of Cicero's effectively silencing Clodius by repartee in the Senate when Clodius tried to revenge himself for Cicero's giving evidence).

3 In 63 B.C. the date was 3 December.

4 17.10 and 18.2 (written on 5 Dec. 61 and 20 Jan. 60) serve to confirm the impression that the postal service to Epirus was untrustworthy.

5 The repetition (in 13) in an allusive style of what is explicitly stated in 12 is odd, and suggests that Cicero had no text of 12 before him when he wrote 13.

6 E.g. Balsdon, op. cit., 73, makes deductions from a ‘bombardment’ early in 61 followed by a silence caused by a ‘lack of heart’ to give Atticus the news.

7 ‘Nostrum’ = the consulars, so Shackleton Bailey, Tyrrell & Purser, and others.

8 Note the emphatic reiterations in 13.3: ‘ea rogatio quam ipse fert et fert ex senatus consulto et de religione’.

9 A rogatio was presumably necessary because this quaestio, like the quaestiones perpetuae, was deemed to represent the Roman People and give a verdict not subject to appeal.

10 It should not be stated that the quaestio was to be set up to try Clodius for sacrilege at the Bona Dea festival; a rogatio for this purpose would be a privilegium, and illegal (as Balsdon notes). It is not credible that Clodius' enemies were so ignorant as to do that. The quaestio must have been to hear evidence about the nefas which the pontifices said had been committed. Everyone knew that Clodius would be charged, but that does not mean that he was named in the bill.

11 Broughton, , MRR, Vol. ii, p. 197Google Scholar, regards C. Octavius as the only certain name as praetor in 61. He was a very upright man, (Cicero, ad Q.f. i 1.21) and the father of Octavian/Augustus (Suetonius, , Augustus 3Google Scholar, Velleius ii 59).

12 14.3 ‘ut homines suspicarentur’; 14.4 ‘aperte tecte’.

13 Adopting Shackleton Bailey's conjecture intercessit for the MS. tertium concessit.

14 It is an interesting commentary on the vagaries of politics that during the Empire this privilege was the thing most zealously sought by the Senate.

15 perditarum rerum atque partium, the barbatuli iuvenes, totus Me grex Catilinae who had taken the lead in trying to ‘fix’ the meeting of the comitia at which the rogatio was to be voted on (14.5).

16 A connexion between Clodius and Asia might be inferred from Clodius' subversion in Lucullus' army (Plutarch, , Lucullus 34Google Scholar), which was at least partly responsible for his recall. Lucullus had incurred great unpopularity with the publicani in Asia through his debt-reduction measures (ibid. 20), and this probably had much to do with Lucullus' supersession by Pompey.

17 Balsdon, op. cit., 71, thinks the violence of these speeches the source of Clodius' undying enmity. Yet personal vices were almost a stock theme in ancient political abuse.

18 McDermott, op. cit., 407 ff., argues that this title is an error by the scholiast of Bobbio or his sources: it was a speech in Clodium: also that the speech in Curionem was written in 59 or 58 B.C. in reply to an attack by Curio. McDermott, op. cit., 401, also points out that amongst the libidines available for attack at this moment was the homosexual liaison between Curio's own son (filiola Curionis, 14.5Google Scholar) and M. Antonius (Cicero, , Phil, ii 44-6Google Scholar).

19 But Caesar's remark that his wife must be above suspicion (Plutarch, , Caesar 10.6Google Scholar) must indicate that allegations of adultery had been made — even if they were not true. I am unable to believe that Caesar made this cruel wisecrack without the slightest justification.

20 For a Roman view: ‘quod te moleste ferre certe scio’ (12.3); neither Cicero nor Atticus, who was an Epicurean, was particularly religious. Atticus was friendly with Clodius' family (which was probably what made Clodius support Cicero in 63 B.C.); in ad Att. ii 22.5Google Scholar (? August 59) he appears to have ready access to Clodia.

21 He had been elected quaestor for 61 B.C. Broughton, , MRR, Vol. ii, p. 180Google Scholar for refs.

22 By the women, who gave evidence at the trial.

23 Hortensius' remark about the lead sword (16.2) seems clear enough evidence about what some people thought.

24 By Balsdon, op. cit., 65 ff.

25 Cicero, , pro Fonteio 23-6Google Scholar; M. Aemilius Scaurus was the princeps senatus. Balsdon, op. cit., 72.

26 The relative impotence of Afranius in 60 B.C. is an example; the manner of his election diminished his auctoritas. ‘Money makes everyone the same in dignitas’ Cicero remarked to Atticus in July 54 (Att. iv 15.7). Conversely Cato's known integrity added enormously to his auctoritas and, it may be surmised, to Cicero's, for he never had to take a province to solve his financial difficulties. Cf. also Plutarch, , Sulla 5.2.Google Scholar

27 Most obviously pro Murena and pro Flacco (a much underestimated speech), but equally clear in pro Caelio, pro Milone and pro Sestio, in which the menace to the res publico posed by the opposition is also stressed; compare also the elaborate praemunitio in II Verr. v 1 ff. against the opposition's claim for Verres that he is the sort of valiant soldier the res publico needs; note esp. the mockery of 25-31, and the opening of 32.

28 Compare Cicero's relations with Piso and Vatinius. Both were excoriated in orations which he published, and Piso replied. Both became reconciled to him, and Vatinius was a friend indeed in Cicero's dark days at Brundisium in 48/7.

29 Compare Cato's defence of the validity of Clodius' adoption and tribuneship, because that validated his own precious settlement of Cyprus; also Caesar's attitude to his legislation of 59, especially the lex Campana.

My friends Elizabeth Rawson, John Crook, Michael Crawford, and Joyce Reynolds have helped me with their advice; they should not be held responsible for the views here expressed, nor to be necessarily in agreement with them.