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Publius Clodius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher (c. 92 – 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.
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.
Later historians speculated that Clodius changed the spelling of his nomen from "Claudius" to "Clodius" to distance himself from his patrician family and curry favor with the plebeians; however, there are no ancient sources that substantiate the idea that he changed his name, or that the two spellings signified patrician vs. plebeian status. Ancient contemporaries like Cicero referred to him as "Clodius" before his plebeian adoption, and Clodius's patrician sisters spelled the names with an O in correspondence throughout their lives. The O-spelling may have also been used by Clodius's uncle in the 90s BC, as well as by his elder brother Gaius, as documented by Cicero.
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 because it made their causes seem more respectable.
Clodius was born to the patrician gens Claudia. His branch traced its ancestry to shortly after the founding of the republic, with its ancestral patriarch Attus Clausus holding a consulship in 495 BC. The Claudii Pulchri, the branch of the family from which Clodius hailed, descended from Appius Claudius Caecus (censor in 312 BC).
Clodius' father, Appius Claudius Pulcher, was consul in 79 BC and a supporter of Sulla. Shortly after he became proconsul of Macedonia in 77 BC, he died, leaving three sons. The youngest of these sons was Publius Clodius; his two elder brothers were Appius and Gaius. He also had three sisters all named Clodia: the eldest was the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer; the second daughter wed Lucius Licinius Lucullus; the third wed Quintus Marcius Rex. The identity of Clodius' mother is disputed, as is the precise relationship between the sons of father Appius and the two Metelli (Celer and Nepos).
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Publius Clodius Pulcher
Publius Clodius Pulcher (c. 92 – 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.
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.
Later historians speculated that Clodius changed the spelling of his nomen from "Claudius" to "Clodius" to distance himself from his patrician family and curry favor with the plebeians; however, there are no ancient sources that substantiate the idea that he changed his name, or that the two spellings signified patrician vs. plebeian status. Ancient contemporaries like Cicero referred to him as "Clodius" before his plebeian adoption, and Clodius's patrician sisters spelled the names with an O in correspondence throughout their lives. The O-spelling may have also been used by Clodius's uncle in the 90s BC, as well as by his elder brother Gaius, as documented by Cicero.
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 because it made their causes seem more respectable.
Clodius was born to the patrician gens Claudia. His branch traced its ancestry to shortly after the founding of the republic, with its ancestral patriarch Attus Clausus holding a consulship in 495 BC. The Claudii Pulchri, the branch of the family from which Clodius hailed, descended from Appius Claudius Caecus (censor in 312 BC).
Clodius' father, Appius Claudius Pulcher, was consul in 79 BC and a supporter of Sulla. Shortly after he became proconsul of Macedonia in 77 BC, he died, leaving three sons. The youngest of these sons was Publius Clodius; his two elder brothers were Appius and Gaius. He also had three sisters all named Clodia: the eldest was the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer; the second daughter wed Lucius Licinius Lucullus; the third wed Quintus Marcius Rex. The identity of Clodius' mother is disputed, as is the precise relationship between the sons of father Appius and the two Metelli (Celer and Nepos).