ROME’S BAD BOY: CLODIUS PULCHER - Part I
I'm getting ahead of myself showing the death of Clodius, but , hey, he lived 2,000 years ago - of course he's dead! It'll have to do since there are vanishingly few images available of this scoundrel. By Silvestre David Mirys - Creative Commons (Public Domain)
The saga of Publius Clodius Pulcher, while likely unfamiliar, is a wild ride worth taking. He is the most resilient, self-aggrandizing, stupefyingly audacious figure I’ve yet encountered among the ancients.
Let’s story forth and marvel at the pirates, cross-dressing, treason, party-crashing, incest, revenge, gang warfare, male prostitution, and the arming of the metaphorical time bomb that would destroy the Roman Republic.
Clodius’ exploits look like a negative image of Forrest Gump. Where Gump is a lovable goof, Clodius is a cunning scoundrel. Where Gump has a girlfriend named Jenny, Clodius has a girlfriend named Clodia, who is also his sister. Where the film Forrest Gump coats your heartstrings in treacle, Clodius may cause your heart to race. Gump stumbles into key historical events; Clodius inflames civilizational ones with legends like Cicero, Marc Antony and Julius Caesar. But unlike Gump, Clodius really existed.
Clodius played a key role in the fall of the Republic. The fuse had been lit a century earlier when Tiberius Gracchus was murdered by Senators while advocating for the common people. (See Tiberius Gracchus: Parts I, II, and III) . Clodius ensured it would continue to burn.
Image from the 14th century sports the era’s style, depicting Clodius in drag (blue.)
Amid continuing civil turmoil, Publius Clodius Pulcher was born in 92 BC. The family Claudia was among the most influential in Rome and traced its lineage back nearly to the Republic’s 509 BC founding. Clodius would’ve wanted for nothing growing up, including a stellar education. He was expected to excel in military service en route to a political career. As noted here, an aristocratic Roman man was expected to meet or exceed the accomplishments of his father. Falling short of this heaped shame on the son and the family.
The first mention of Clodius comes from 67 BC when he served as a military legate for General Lucullus in the Third Mithridatic War. Just 23 years old and feeling slighted when denied a military honor, Clodius incited a mutiny. Exploiting low morale among the troops, he disingenuously claimed the war would be endless and devoid of booty. He rallied his fellow soldiers to abandon their posts. Swayed by his rhetoric, they did. Predictably, Lucullus lost his next major battle.
It’s possible that, eager to assume Lucullus’ command and its spoils, Pompey the Great paid Clodius to incite unrest. Pompey’s success and ambition could easily have motivated such meddling. Equally likely, Clodius was simply disruptive and turned his petulance into sabotage.
Clodius’ act was also a betrayal of family. Lucullus was his brother-in-law and married to Clodius’ sister, Clodia. To avoid torn allegiances, Clodia allegedly slept with both men, complicating loyalties further by throwing incest into the mix.
The mutinous soldiers eventually returned to Lucullus, and Clodius fled toward Rome. Within a year, somehow unburdened by consequences for his actions, he resumed military service under another brother-in-law, a naval commander. Barely into his tour of duty, Clodius was captured by pirates during a sea battle. After diplomatic negotiations and a ransom freed him, he went to Antioch where he nearly lost his life for spouting seditious speech. Later, when he had power, he enacted a law to punish a client king who’d offered a measly 2 talents of silver for his ransom. The man could hold a grudge.
Roman general Lucullus in a remarkably accurate depiction. At least as far as you know.
Later under the first triumvirate (Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Crassus), Clodius and his goons kept order on Rome’s streets and often scuffled with other gangs of goons. He introduced Caesar to his thuggish, carousing buddy, Marc Antony. This young buck would later serve on Caesar’s staff, gain glory in the Gallic Wars, and achieve infamy not only for his relationship with Cleopatra but as a male prostitute noted for his exceptional thighs.
In 62 BC, Clodius worked politically with Caesar. Their collaboration ended abruptly at Caesar’s home during the religious Festival of the Bona Dea which honored “the good goddess.” Hosted by Caesar’s wife Pompeia, this was strictly a women-only affair. Yet disguised as a maidservant, Clodius entered the residence. Some time later, another maidservant saw through his disguise. Shouting “Homo! Homo!”, she sounded an alarm about the presence of a man. Pandemonium ensued. Arrested for blasphemy, Clodius also faced suspicions of an affair with Pompeia. Caesar likely believed his wife’s fidelity, but he divorced her nonetheless for the sake of his political career, famously stating, “Caesar’s wife must be above reproach.”
Despite multiple eyewitnesses, Clodius’ defense was simple: “It wasn’t me.” This was such an audacious statement that it, like our modern-day gaslighting, began to sow doubt about his guilt. In a legal bind, he contacted his frenemy Cicero for help. The accomplished orator was at the height of his legal career and could prove a powerful ally to Clodius. Cicero’s response would seal his own fate and change the course of history.
To be continued in Part II
