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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
Nel de haruspicum responso 45, Cicerone, riferendosi agli eventi del 60 e 59 a.C., allude a Pompeo come adfinis e sodalis di Clodio. La condizione di adfinitas può essere spiegata solo in termini di matrimonio tra il figlio di Pompeo e la nipote di Clodio, figlia di Appius Claudius Pulcher, un matrimonio che deve datarsi al 62/61 a.C. La sodalitas può essere stata espressa nell'aiuto elettorale che Clodio dette al beniamino di Pompeo, Afranius, nel 61. Una lettura della corrispondenza di Cicerone con Atticus nel 59 suggerisce che, nello stesso anno, Pompeo usava scuse simili per la sua collaborazione con Clodio.
1 Gruen, E. S., Phoenix 20 (1966), 120–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is a useful statement of Clodius' independence. Lintott, A. W., G. and R. 14 (1967), 157–69Google Scholar, further confirms the image of independence with his attention to Clodius' power base within the city.
2 Clodius maintained independence during the election campaign of that year when association with the dynasts would have been disadvantageous, but he initiated his tenure of tribuniciano ffice in 58 with support for them and their associates, e.g. the gagging of Bibulus (Dio 37. 12. 3), the protection of Vatinius (Cic., Vat. 33Google Scholar), publicly alleging their support for most of his early actions, collectively and individually (Cic., Sest. 39–42Google Scholar, cf. de har. resp. 47. Cic., fam. 7. 2. 3Google Scholar is clearly a reference to the coalition). Gruen (op. cit.) argues that Clodius had them over a barrel, cf. Dom. 23. Later in the year, Clodius found it useful to assert the friendship, Dom. 22. It was, then, a point to be debated; not self-evident.
3 Suggested implicitly by Gruen (op. cit. esp. 126), explicitly by Seager, R., Lat. 24 (1965), 519–53Google Scholar.
4 An alleged connection with Caesar is based on Caesar's decision not to attack Clodius in 61. But see App. b.C. 2. 14. Caesar considered a confrontation politically disadvantageous. In the context, the scholiast from Bobbio (p. 85 St.) labels Clodius potentissimus homo. On Caesar's expedience, Gruen, (op. cit.); cf. Gelzer, , Caesar, 60–1Google Scholar. For the connection with Crassus there is no sound evidence: Hillard, T. W., LCM 6. 5 (1981), 127–30Google Scholar.
5 The enmity between Cicero and Crassus is well-known. Caesar did more than simply acquiesce in Cicero's fate. His army had an intimidatory effect on the Roman populace, when demonstrations in favour of the orator might have turned the tide (Cic., Sest. 71Google Scholar, cf. p. red. in sen. 13. 32); contra Gruen, op. cit., 126 and Seager, op. cit. 520–2.
6 Cic., Dom. 41Google Scholar. He retreated to his Antiate villa where he contemplated permanent retirement, Cic., Att. 2. 6. 1–2Google Scholar.
7 Cic., de har. resp. 45Google Scholar.
8 Drumann, (GR II, 194Google Scholar; cf. 199) assumes that Pompeius was two-faced, as was his custom. Retrospectively, Cicero acknowledged that. At Dom. 28 he rationalizes (in the way that he rationalized Caesar's enmity) that certi homines, who remain unidentified, turned Pompey's heart from Cicero with baseless insinuations and false suspicions. Moreover, Cicero was extremely anxious to avoid terminating his friendship with Pompeius at that time: Holliday, V. L., Pompey in Cicero's Correspondence and Lucan's Civil War (The Hague, 1967), 28–9Google Scholar. But he needed a reasonable excuse to keep his eyes closed to the facts.
9 Further indications of the special relationship: apart from Atticus, Pompeius was Cicero's chief informant of Clodius' plans throughout 59 (Cic., Att. 2. 19. 4Google Scholar; 20. 2; 22. 2); Pompeius presumed to guarantee Clodius' behaviour—in consultation with Clodius' brother, Appius (ibid).; Clodius was expected, early in 59, by Caesar and Pompeius, to undertake a mission to Tigranes (Cic., Att. 2. 4. 2Google Scholar). The corrupt text implies a legatio libera, but not on private business: as ieiunus tabellarius, Cicero chortled (Att. 2. 7. 3). If a courier, surely Pompey's representative to Pompey's regal client.
10 T. W. Hillard, ‘The Opposition to Clodius in 60’, (forthcoming).
11 e.g. members of the type of sodalitas described at Cic., de Senect. 45Google Scholar.
12 e.g. Most. 1154, Cas. 581.
13 Cic., Cael. 26Google Scholar, where the opposite behaviour is excused only on the grounds of the recognizedly uncouth savagery of the Luperci; cf. Tyrell, and Purser, , The Correspondence of M. Tullius Cicero, 3, Addendum I (293–4)Google Scholar. The lex Acilia (9) set out that a sodalis of the accuser or accused must not serve on the jury.
14 Planc. 47. Sodalitas was a name which ‘sullied’ friendship; cf. Cael. 16; in connection with that passage (?), Schol. Gronov. (p. 323 St.) explains that sodalitas was a conspiracy for electoral bribery.
15 Cf. the care with which the nomen adfinitatis is treated at Cic., Sest. 6Google Scholar.
16 Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, AJAH 2 (1977), 148–50Google Scholar. It can be challenged: see T. W. Hillard, M. Taverne, C. Zawawi, ‘Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer (Claudianus?)’ (forthcoming).
17 Cic., fam. 3. 4. 2Google Scholar; 10. 10 (51 B.C.) on the marriage. This assumption is easily made by those scholars who might be said to consider the passage in isolation, e.g. Watts (Loeb trans.) 376, note a, and Lenaghan, J. O., Commentary on the de har. resp. (The Hague, 1969), 169Google Scholar.
18 Anderson, W. S., Pompey, His Friends and the Literature of the 1st Century B.C. (California U.P., 1963), 9Google Scholar, following Milner, RE s.v. Cn. Pompeius (32) and Drumann, , GR 4, 562Google Scholar. Anderson argues against a later date for the marriage but does not consider an earlier one. Syme, (RR, 45, n.3)Google Scholar dates the marriage to 54 on the grounds that Brutus' marriage to Appius' other daughter certainly took place in that year (Cic., fam. 3. 4. 2Google Scholar). He is followed by Burns, A., The Life and Political Career of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (Diss. Univ. of Washington—Ann Arbor Microfilm, 1964), 36Google Scholar. Rawson, E. (Hist. 22 (1973), 232)Google Scholar accepts this date and regards it as a link in Pompey's renewed movement towards Cato et al., though she recognizes that Appius' sudden hostility towards Gabinius in 54 is difficult to explain in the light of it.
19 Constans, L. A., Un correspondent de Cicéron, Ap. Claudius Pulcher (Paris, 1921), 47 n. 1Google Scholar; followed by Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton, 1950), 1, 387Google Scholar and 2, 1248, n. 33.
20 Cic. enumerates factors which drew himself and Ap. Pulcher into amicitia. Reference to the union of Cn. iunior and Claudia, together with that of the other Claudia Ap. f. and Brutus, falls between references to the formal reconciliation of the correspondants (i.e. Cic. and Ap. Pulcher) and their joint membership of the augural college. In context it will be seen that nothing like a chronological survey is offered. Similar method is used carelessly by Constans elsewhere in the same study. At Cic., Sull. 42Google Scholar he purports to see in Cicero's list of senatorial stenographers, evidence of Cic.'s personal affiliations climaxing with Ap. Claudius: ‘… C. Cosconium, qui tum erat praetor, M. Messallam, qui tum praeturam petebat, P. Nigidium, App. Claudium’. ‘The name of Ap. Claudius is allowed to stand by itself, without reference to station, as though eloquent in itself’ (Constans, op. cit., 8). Clearly Cicero has given a ranking in descending order of seniority.
If a chronological rationale was at work, consciously or subconsciously, reference to the Pompeian connection may have been determined by the more recent contract (i.e. with Brutus).
21 Noted by E. Rawson. See above n. 18, and cf. Gruen, E. S., Hist. 18 (1969), 101–3Google Scholar.
22 Gruen loc. cit.; as indeed E. Rawson chose to regard it, while placing it in the unlikely context of 54.
23 Dio's statement that Appius was motivated by hopes of bribes from Gabinius may be a guess, but his surprise at the small influence of the marriage bond with Pompeius is not necessarily ‘obvious embarrassment’, nor is his speculation the ‘desperate explanation’ to get around the fact that Gruen (op. cit., 102, n. 142) supposes. That Dio should introduce explicit reference to the marriage at this unlikely point is evidence not to be lightly dismissed.
24 Wiseman, T. P., Cinna the Poet and other Roman essays (Leicester, 1974). 163–4Google Scholar.
25 On the dating, see Lenaghan's commentary, 22–8. The broad argument for a date in early May seems generally accepted, cf. Ramage, E. S., AJPh 93 (1972), 371Google Scholar, and Rawson, E., CPh 67 (1972), 141–2Google Scholar.
26 Plut., Pomp. 44. 2Google Scholar; cf. Cat. min. 30.
27 See Hopkins, M. K., Population Studies 18. 3 (1965), 309 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Hillard, T. W., Latomus 32 (1973), 514Google Scholar and notes 27 and 28; more recently den Boer, W., Mnemosyne (Ser. 4) 26 (1973), 29–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar (see especially 34–6), has voiced his belief in early marriages for Roman girls in all social strata.
28 At Varro, RR 3. 16. 1 f.Google Scholar, Appius is made to speak of being left in 76 with two brothers and two sisters to care for. The omission of any mention of his own wife and/or family may not be significant. The latter may have been taken for granted.
29 Schol. Bob., pp. 90–1 St.
30 See Att. 1. 12. 4.
31 No grounds had been cited, Plut., Pomp. 42Google Scholar. Cicero is defending Pompeius of whom Atticus customarily expressed scepticism; possibly a reassurance to Atticus, a friend of the Claudii, that matters are seen in perspective, that the coming alliance with the Claudii will not be seen to their detriment (unlikely in view of the almost formal announcement of Clodius' trouble in the next sentence).
32 There is no evidence that Ap. Pulcher was already abroad in late 62. His absence proved advantageous to Clodius (Schol. Bob., p. 90–1 St.) so he may well have pressed ahead with travel plans even after the eruption of the Bona Dea scandal in December, 62.
33 On these ties, see Rawson, E., Hist. 27 (1973), 219–39Google Scholar. The Claudian brothers, junior in terms of magistracies, may have been well-placed in the Senate if priests of senatorial standing were automatically awarded locus praetorius: Taylor, and Scott, , TAPA 100 (1969), 553–6Google Scholar. On Ap. Pulcher's augurate, see Cic., Div. 1. 105Google Scholar. C. Claudius' saliate has proved a chimera, but Clodius may have been a Xvir s.f. (Cic., de har. resp. 26Google Scholar; cf. MRR Suppl., 16).
Ap. Pulcher was well-served by his household, not only on Eastern matters but state affairs in general, Cic., fam. 3.1.1Google Scholar (Phania and Cilix); cf. Treggiari, S., Rom. Freedmen in the late Republic (Oxford, 1969), 179Google Scholar. On Clodius' resources, above n. 4. Clodius was not yet marked as a violent revolutionary. Despite contrary views, Cic., de har. resp. 42Google Scholar makes it clear that he only emerged as such from the Bona Dea trial. Pompeius was, in any case, toying with the popularis image: Badian, E., Athen. 56 (1978), 233–8Google Scholar.
The benefits to the Claudii are obvious for the very reasons that Cato's rejections of the alliance seemed eccentric. Their earlier alliance with Lucullus (n. 36 below) was jeopardized by Clodius' feud with him and Lucullus was, in any case, a dead horse politically.
34 The presence of the father was not essential, even during negotiations: Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Cicero (London, 1971), 125–6Google Scholar.
35 Ap. Pulcher was abroad again in 58 (Cic., Dom. 111Google Scholar); no need to postulate one prolonged sojourn.
The marriage can be seen in the same light as Gruen and Rawson see it (above nn. 18 and 22) while put in a different period. The contexts are not dissimilar.
36 On Claudian debts to Lucullus, Varro, RR 3. 16. 1 f.Google Scholar; Broughton, , MRR, 2, 125Google Scholar (Legates, Envoys); 140 (Legates, Lieutenants). The hostility between Pompeius and Lucullus is explicitly attested by Plutarch; unwisely rejected by Twyman, B., ANRW 1. 1 (1972)Google Scholar, esp. 850–3.
Some modern scholarship is too quick to see in Clodius' fermentation of unrest in Lucullus' camp at Nisibis (69/68 B.C.) the work of a Pompeian agent: Ferrero, L., Greatness and Decline of Rome (Eng. trans.), 1, 213Google Scholar; Smith, R. E., Service in the Post-Marian Roman Army (Manchester, 1958), 37Google Scholar; idem, CQ 7 (1957), 84; idem, Cicero the Statesman (Cambridge, 1966), 79; Ward, A., Lat. 27 (1968), 802 ff.Google Scholar But see now Gruen, E. S., AJPh 92 (1971), 1–16Google Scholar. Clodius' flight to Rex, Q. Marcius (cos. 69)Google Scholar is not the action of a Pompeian agent. Clodius' release by pirates ‘for fear of Pompeius’ (Dio 36. 17. 2–3; 38. 30. 5; App. b.C. 2. 23; Strabo 14. 6. 6) need not be overestimated. It was 67. Clodius has been detected in a ‘Pompeian cell’ in 65 (Stevens, C. E., Lat. 22 (1963), 397 ff.Google Scholar; Stockton, D., Cicero. A Political Biography (Oxford, 1971), 77–8)Google Scholar. All highly speculative. Gruen, (Ath. 49 (1971), 54–69Google Scholar, see esp. 59–62) neatly reverses all options. Hathorn, R. Y. (‘The Political Implications of the Trial of P. Clodius’, Diss. Columbia, Ann Arbor microfilm)Google Scholar and Manni, E. (RivFC 68 (1940)Google Scholar, esp. 164–6) see the Bona Dea prosecution as a manipulated attack on Pompeius through his agent Clodius. This is without evidence, and a misinterpretation of the Bona Dea affair.
37 Is it possible that Dio meant to indicate that Pompeius and Clodius were related ‘at some time or another’ but that he was unsure of the date of the marriage? It does not seem so.
I am grateful to Professor Wiseman for the suggestion that Clodius joined Pompeius in Spain after the demand for more troops in 74 (Sall., Hist. 2. 98MGoogle Scholar; Plut., Pomp. 20. 1Google Scholar; Sert. 21. 5–6Google Scholar; Luc. 5. 2–5Google Scholar). The anecdote of Clodius' attack on Catilina and the vestal Fabia at Plut., Cat. min. 19. 3Google Scholar (usually assigned to 73, MRR 2. 114Google Scholar; Gruen, E. S., Last Generation of the Roman Republic (California U.P., 1974), 42, 271)Google Scholar can be explained as a stock charge of incestum levelled retrospectively during the prosecution of Catilina in 65 and as Plutarch's chronological confusion. It is also possible that Clodius was never involved in an attack on a Vestal: Kelly, D. H. in Auckland Classical Studies Presented to E. M. Blaiklock (ed. Harris, , 1970), 140Google Scholar, n. 10 suggests that πλώτιος could be read for κλώδιος at Plut., Cat. min. 19. 3Google Scholar, thereby removing an episode from Clodius' life.
38 Esp. in the Pompeius where the alliance with Clodius is run into the period of the latter's tribunate (legislation is specifically mentioned).
39 Pinard, G., Florilegium 1 (1979), 58–64Google Scholar, explores this. His findings are plausible but the reading of the evidence is unconvincing.
40 Clodius may be depicted thereby as the last and worst of a series, but that is not clear.
41 Plutarch has identifiable sources. That is no guide to how he used them, but may indicate that he was informed by those who knew the chronology of events. The Cat. min. is balanced between the panegyric by Thrasea Paetus (following Munatius Plancus) and Caesar's anti-Cato (Peter, H., Die Quellen Plutarchs (repr. Amsterdam, 1965), 65–9)Google Scholar, neither likely (for opposite reasons) to portray Pompey's dilemma as it appears in Plutarch (i.e. driven over to disreputable elements by Cato's stubborn intransigence). The same picture is present in the Pompeius published earlier (Jones, C. P., JRS 56 (1966), 61–74Google Scholar, see esp. 68). Theophanes of Mytilene, Pompey's biographer and one of Plutarch's sources (Peter op. cit., 114–15) probably published in 62, or soon after (FGrH 188 T1–3), without adding such a dismal stop-press or epilogue. Oppius' Caesar, also used in the Pompeius, was unlikely to describe Clodius, or esp. Caesar, as the disreputable element, or be sympathetic to Pompey.
The casting of events could be a projection of Plutarch's own opinions, but more probably comes from Cicero's Cato, eulogistic enough to appeal to Plutarch but certainly tempered (Jones, C. P., Rh.M. 113 (1970), 188–96Google Scholar); probably read during the research for the still earlier Cicero. On Plut.'s reading of Cicero, see Barrow, R. H., Plutarch and His Times (London, 1962), 154–5Google Scholar; Helmbolt, W. C. and O'Neil, E. N., Plutarch's Quotations (1959), 17–18Google Scholar. On Cicero's qualified attitude towards Cato, Cic., Att. 1. 18. 7Google Scholar; 2. 1. 8; cf. Jones loc. cit. An alternative source would be Fenestella's Annales (Plut., Sull. 28Google Scholar; Crass. 5). Plutarch was well-informed on details.
42 This cannot mean that Pompeius chose not to deliver a laudatio at the trial. Admittedly he could not have attended in person, being obliged to wait outside the city in anticipation of his triumph, but a written statement could have been read. Technicalities may have debarred participation. As the 16th clause of the lex Acilia protects the institution of clientship, so might sodales have been spared embarrassments (cf. Plut., Mar. 5Google Scholar on the patron's privilege; lex Acilia, 9; and above, n. 13). Cicero may be referring here sarcastically to a legalistic loophole Pompeius had used to ensure noninvolvement. If he had wanted to say that Pompeius had denied support, there were more direct ways, e.g. laudare noluit (cf. vir.ill. 62). The key to meaning lies in the sentence structure. The force of the statement lies in the sudden reversal of expectations or the last word: sodalis, adfinis, qui illum reum non laudarat, excluserat; for a parallel, cf. Div. Aug. RG 5. 1; 5. 3.
43 Cic., Att. 2. 1. 6Google Scholar.
44 I am grateful to Professor Wiseman for the suggestion that silentio at Att. 1. 18. 6 applies as much to Herennius' proposal as to Flavius'. At some time during this period, Pompeius must have been forced into making the sententia which Cicero later exploited (de har. resp. 45) as indicating Pompey's opposition to Clodius. In all probability it was as non-committal as his utterances on the Bona Dea affair but, if as vaguely deferential to the Senate as were the latter, would allow Cicero to distort its meaning. The contemporary record however clearly indicates that Pompeius did not take a stand. The context of Att. 2. 1. 6 practically demands that, if it had occurred, it would have been reported.
45 Cic. In Clod. et Cur. frag. 10. (Though this fragment is part of a later publication (Schol. Bob. p. 85 St.), it was based on a speech and the altercatio reported in ad Att. 1. 16.)
46 i.e. he would delay passage to Sicily, his quaestorian allotment. It is unlikely that the sentence is cast in the historic present (a reference to earlier corruptions). The order of fragments, as given by the scholiast, suggests that the context is very much that of Clodius' present concerns.
47 Schol. Bob., p. 87 St.
48 Cf. Lenaghan's commentary, 162.
49 Cic., Att. 1. 61. 13Google Scholar, plerisque in locis if we can believe the scholia Bobiensa (87 St.).
50 Wild sexual allegations in the same pocket biography, for instance, allude to Clodius' capture by pirates, on which see above, n. 36.
51 On the marriage of Clodius and Fulvia, Taylor, L. R., AJPh 63 (1942)Google Scholar, see esp. 396, n. 34 and C. L. Babcock, ibid., 86 (1965), 1 ff. On Clodius' service in Gaul under Murena, Cic., de har. resp. 42Google Scholar; MRR 2, 185Google Scholar, n. 6.
52 Plut., Cat. min. 28Google Scholar. The consuls of 63 had a special bribery law passed to confront the phenomenon: MRR 2, 166Google Scholar for references.
53 Shackleton Bailey believes that Cicero had in mind the incident to which he alluded in de har. resp. 42 (op. cit., 324–5). This assumes that Cicero's claim that the behaviour was habitual was simply a rhetorical crack—though it may be more than that.
54 See above, n. 49.
55 For an illuminating discussion of the nature and quality of the Bobbio scholiast's work and his tendency to ‘guess’ information from the context, see Badian, E., JRS 63 (1973), 125–30Google Scholar.
56 Cic., Att. 1. 16. 2Google Scholar. One of the other runners was Clodius' cousin and brother-in-law, Q. Metellus Celer, whom Clodius was bound to support for family reasons. (If not, Celer's dilemma in the following year (Cic., Att. 1. 18. 5Google Scholar) is difficult to understand.) But Cicero is unlikely to be passing snide remarks about Celer's campaign. His feelings had changed since de leg. agrar. 2. 1,3. If resentment remained (defensive rather than aggressive, Att. 1. 19. 6; 20. 3), it was that the nobiles were not doing enough to hold their positions (ibid., 1. 18. 6–7).
57 Ibid., 1. 17. 9; Plut., Pomp. 44. 3–4Google Scholar; Cat. min. 30. 5Google Scholar.
58 It is difficult to imagine Clodius campaigning for the ignavus ac sine animo miles (Att. 1. 18. 5) on his own account. On Afranius, cf. Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Cicero's Letters to Atticus 1 (Cambridge, 1965), 322Google Scholar.
59 No reference elsewhere, e.g. at ad Att. 1. 18. 2–5Google Scholar, where the fabula Clodiana (i.e. the Bona Dea drama) is discussed, followed by reference to the debauched consular elections and other maladies of the times. But Cicero was concerned to isolate (and thereby highlight) trends in general terms. Clodius' participation need not have been crucial.
60 Stockton, D., Cicero, 160–1Google Scholar, sees quite clearly the sense of betrayal that Clodius must have felt—though for the wrong reason. Pompey's disloyalty may be the reason why he fell out—temporarily—with his friend (and the consul of that year), the highly principled M. Pupius Piso, who had sided with Clodius (for the sake of principle or Pompeius?): Cic., Att. 1.: 14. 6Google Scholar. They were apparently reconciled by July, 61: ibid., 1. 16. 12. On Piso's principles, Cic., Brut. 236Google Scholar; cf. Att. 1. 13. 2, where they are not to Cicero's taste.
I would like to thank E. Badian, E. S. Gruen, E. A. Judge, D. H. Kelly, A. W. Lintott and T. P. Wiseman for helpful criticism. They do not necessarily share my conclusions.