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Cicero, Clodia, and the Pro Caelio

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

T. A. Dorey
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Extract

In his description of Cicero's eloquence Quintilian says that he had the power of carrying a jury with him against its better judgement without the jury's realizing what was happening. This magical power of Cicero's is exercised not only on Roman jurors, but also on most modern readers and even on some editors. This process is particularly apparent in many interpretations of the Pro Caelio. For example, Professor R. G. Austin, in his great edition of that speech, says, ‘Whatever the secret history, it is clear that the actual indictment was formal, and that Clodia was the real driving force behind it; society reasons prompted the case, and the issue was the social disappearance of either Clodia or Caelius.’ Yet an impartial weighing of the evidence with a mind unclouded by Cicero's brilliant oratory will point to the conclusion that the part played by Clodia in the case, though an important part, was only a subsidiary one.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , October 1958 , pp. 175 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

page 175 note 1 Inst. x. 1. 110.Google Scholar

page 175 note 2 Cicero, , Pro Caelio, ed. Austin, R. G.2 (Oxford, 1952), p. viii.Google Scholar See also Richards, C. G., Cicero (London, 1935), 78, 106, 222Google Scholar, and Fowler, W. Warde, Social Life at Rome in the age of Cicero (London, 1937), 129Google Scholar, for similar points of view.

page 175 note 3 Heinze, R. (‘Cicero's Rede Pro Caelio’, Hermes, lx (1925), 193–258)Google Scholar and Ciaceri, E. (‘Il Processo di M. Celio Rufo e l'Arringa di Cicerone’, Atti della Reale Accademia de Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli, N.S. xi (1929–1930), 1–24)Google Scholar have already shown that Cicero deliberately magnified Clodia's part in the prosecution. Heinze (p. 197) holds that the prosecution of Caelius was the result of a combination between Bestia's friends and family and the family of Clodia, and he goes on to say that Cicero tried to gain a tactical advantage by giving the impression that Clodia was the heart and soul of the prosecution, and that it all derived from her. It is doubtful, however, whether Clodia's family gave any official backing to the prosecution. Cicero's remark in Pro Caelio 29. 68, ‘tandem aliquid invenimus quod ista mulier de suorum propinquorum sententia atque auctoritate fecisse dicatur’, implies that they did not, but Cicero's word, in such circumstances, carries very little weight as evidence. However, there can be no doubt about Cicero's contempt for the performance of P. Clodius, the subscriptor. This Clodius was clearly a man of very little oratorical ability or standing, and it is inconceivable that, had Clodia's family been giving their official sanction to the prosecution, they would not have selected some more weighty and responsible representative. It seems that he was some nonentity whom Clodia had induced to appear to give the impression that she had the support of her family. See also M. Geizer, R.E., s.v. ‘M. Tullius Cicero’.

page 176 note 1 Cael. 23. 56.Google Scholar

page 176 note 2 Ibid. 11. 26. Cicero's reply to these allegations is so weak as to make it almost certain that they were true.

page 176 note 3 Op. cit., p. 74.

page 176 note 4 Inst. iv. 2. 27. See R. G. Austin, op. cit., App. V.

page 176 note 5 Cael. 31.76.

page 176 note 6 Ibid., 1.1, ‘accusari ab eius filio quern ipse in iudicium et uocet et uocarit, oppugnali autem opibus meretriciis’.

page 176 note 7 Clu. 23. 64.

page 176 note 8 Mil. 11. 31.

page 177 note 1 Cic. Leg. i. 1. 5 ‘cum in illa omnia ad ueritatem referantur’; Quint. Inst. x. 1. 31 ‘scribitur ad narrandum, non ad probandum, totumque opus non ad actum rei pugnamque praesentem sed ad memoriam posteritatis et ingenii famam componitur’.

page 177 note 2 Caci. 15. 36 ‘uis nobilis mulier ilium filium familias parco ac tenaci patre habere tuis copiis deuinctum’; 16. 38 ‘quae etiam aleret adulescentis et parsimoniam patrum suis sumptibus sustineret’.

page 177 note 3 Ibid. 21. 51, 10. 24.

page 178 note 1 Cicero's explanation has, I think, never been questioned. But if Clodia was ‘Lesbia’, there is no reason why she should not have tired of Caelius just as she had tired of Catullus.

page 178 note 2 Cael. 9. 20–22, 28. 66.Google Scholar

page 178 note 3 Cicero's insistence that Clodia is a meretrix is not mere vulgar abuse. A meretrix was infamis, and her testimony would thereby carry less weight; cf. Dig. xxii. 5. 3. 5 for a ban on a meretrix giving evidence.

page 178 note 4 Cic. Dom. 62, Red. in Sen. 18, Sest.. 54.

page 178 note 5 Att. ii. 1. 5.

page 179 note 1 Plut. Cic. xxix. 2. M. Gelzer, R.E., S.V. ‘M. Tullius Cicero’, dismisses this story as a malicious fabrication by Cicero's enemies.

page 179 note 2 See, for example, the mis-dating of Bestia's tribuneship in Plut. Cic. xxiii. 1.

page 179 note 3 Plut. Pomp. xliv, Cat. Min. xxx.

page 179 note 4 Plut. Pomp.. xlii 7.

page 179 note 5 Cicero refers to Clodia as Metellus Celer's wife in Fam. v. 2. 6, written at the beginning of 62 b.c.

page 180 note 1 Fam.. v. 2. 6.

page 180 note 2 Ibid. v. 1.

page 180 note 3 Ibid. v. 2. 6 ‘cuius erga me Studium … perspexeram’.

page 180 note 4 Att. 1. 16. 10.

page 180 note 5 Oratio in Clodium et Curionem, 4. 1–2.

page 180 note 6 Att. ii. 8. 2.

page 180 note 7 Ibid. ‘quoniam putas praetermittendum nobis esse hoc tempore cratera ilium delicatum’.