Clodia
One of the most fascinating women from Ancient Rome shrouded in a cloak of secrecy, Clodia is famous because of a rumour among ancient writers that she killed her own husband *insert shock horror music*. Our two main sources come from the poet Catullus (who does not reference her by name, by the way), and Cicero, in his speech Pro Caelio. In these accounts, Clodia mainly gets called various different names in a schoolyard bullying manner, including "courtesan", "two-penny, half-penny Clytemnestra" and the "Medea of the Palatine".
The infamous Clodia existed in Rome during the first century BC. Unfortunately for us classicists, we don’t have the exact dates of when she was born, nor when she died. However based on the writing that survives of her, we know she was alive and well around the early 60s - late 50s BC … we just don’t know how old she was in this period. No writing from Clodia herself survives into the modern day, and therefore all we have to work with are two main sources: Catullus and Cicero. What’s important to remember throughout this article is that both of these men ended up hating her, meaning that our view of Clodia is coming from a lens of those who want to show her as being extremely problematic. Much like nowadays when you tell your friends about a dramatic fight you had with your significant other — you’re always going to present yourself looking a little more innocent than you really were during the argument. Whether you do this intentionally or not, we are all guilty of doing it… and that’s sort of what these guys do, but with Clodia bearing the brunt of their hurt egos rather than your absent partner.
Clodia’s story in ancient source material actually begins with many rumours surrounding her provocative persona, but alas, we can’t prove any of these to be true or false. The first rumour is that Clodia’s name wasn’t actually “Clodia” from birth. According to Cicero, Clodia changed her name from “Claudia” to “Clodia”, as a public declaration of her support for her brother’s political campaigns. Clodia’s brother was called Publius Clodius Pulcher, and he was running for tribune of the plebs, a public roman office.
The second rumour Clodia is the subject of is her involvement in her husband’s death. Dun dun duuuuun! Again according to Cicero, Clodia married Metellus Celer, an important politician in Rome, only for him to die a few years later after seeming to be relatively healthy. Cicero’s word alone is not proof enough that she was the cause behind Metellus’ premature death, however her reaction to his death certainly turned a few heads. What’s important to remember at this moment is that the ancient world was a strict patriarchal society, meaning a woman must be under the guardian-ship (shall we say?) of a man, whether that be her father, elder brother, son who has come of age, or her husband. The natural thing for a woman to do when finding themselves in the predicament Clodia did (having no husband), was to either move in with her brother, or return to her father’s home until she found a new husband to take care of her … but obviously, Clodia doesn’t do that. No no, our girl out here realises she’s inherited an incredible mansion on the Palatine Hill that belonged to her dead husband, and decides that now is the time to live her best single life. I mean this woman throws absolute RAGERS in that house. We know this because famous faces would attend these parties, most notably the poet Catullus was among the crowd. It’s during this period that Catullus meets Clodia, falls madly in love with her and writes (what feels like) a million an five poems about her. Some of these read as follows:
Poem V, English: “We should live, my Lesbia, and love / And value all the talk of stricter / Old men at a single penny. / Suns can set and rise again; / For us, once our brief light has set, / There’s one unending night for sleeping. / Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, / Then still another thousand, the a second hundred, / Then still another thousand, then a hundred; / Then, when we’ve made many thousands, / We’ll muddle them so as not to know / Or lest some villain overlook us / Knowing the total of our kisses.”
Poem V, Latin: Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus / rumoresque serum seueriorum / omnes unius aestimemus assis. / soles occidere et ridire possunt; / nobis, cum semel occidit breuis lux, / nox est perpetua una dormienda. / Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, / dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, / deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum; / dein cum milia multa fecerimus / conturbabimus illa ne sciamus / aut ne quis malus inuidere possit / cum tantum scia esse basiorum.
Poem LVIII, English: “Caelius, our Lesbia, the Lesbia, / The Lesbia whom alone Catullus / Loved more than self and all his kin, / At crossroads now and in back alleys / Peels great-hearted Remus’ grandsons”.
Poem LVIII, Latin: Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa, / illa Lesbia quam Catullus unam, / plus quam se atque suos amauit omnes / nunc in quadriuiis et angiportis / glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.
Poem LXXV, English: “Lesbia, my will has sunk to this through your frailty / And so destroyed itself by its own kindness / That it could neither like you, even were you perfect, / Nor cease to love you though you stopped at nothing”.
Poem LXXV, Latin: Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa / atque ita se officio perfidia ipsa suo, / ut iam nec bene elle queat tibi, si optima fias, / nec desistere amare, omnia si facias
Poem XCII, English: “Lesbia’s always abusing me and can’t keep quiet / About me, I’m damned if Lesbia doesn’t love me. / The proof? Because I’m just the same — forever praying / To be rid of her, but I’m damned if I don’t love her”.
Poem XCII, Latin: Lesbia mi dicit semper male nec tacet umquam / de me. Lesbia me dispeream nisi amat. / Quo signo? Quia sunt totidem mea. Deprecor illiam / assidue, uerum dispeream nisi amo.
Granted, you all probably looked at those a bit confused as to why our man Catullus would refer to Clodia as “Lesbia”. More importantly, you’re probably wondering how do we know this Lesbia really is Clodia? Aside from the constant references throughout Catullus’ poetry to Clodia’s hookup, Caelius (we’ll be going into more detail on him in one second), we also get confirmation from other sources that Lesbia is secretly Clodia. Luckily for us, gossipy authors like Suetonius and Cicero both confirm her identity in their various works.
And speaking of Cicero, it’s from him that we get the other lengthy account of Clodia by way of his speech called Pro Caelio. Littered throughout the well known speech, Cicero tells the audience that Clodia was having an affair with Caelius for two years, between 59BC and 57BC. According to this particular source, Caelius called off the affair between the pair and when he did, supposedly Clodia did not take it well. This is what leads us to why exactly Cicero has to step in with his court speech Pro Caelio.
Pro Caelio was delivered by Cicero in defence of Caelius. Caelius had been accused by Clodia of committing assault, attempted murder and theft. Naturally, Cicero approaches these charges in a very relaxed manner, stating “there are two charges, one about some gold, one about some poison, in which one and the same character is concerned” (first line of XIII). Due to the nature of the accusations being a more so he-said-she-said scenario, Cicero doesn’t have much hard evidence to work with throughout his speech. Therefore, he spends the majority of the time simply calling Clodia names. Fun fact: the first time he actually addresses Clodia by name happens in XIII, section 31! Now before he manages to swallow enough pride and use her legal name, Cicero calls Clodia “woman” and “courtesan” multiple times through the duration of the speech, then on specific occasions uses the terms “Medea of the Palatine” (VIII 18) and “fountain-head” of lies (VIII 19) rather than addressing the actual charges against Caelius.
Cicero’s argument is so weak that this is one of the things he has to say on the charges of poison and theft mentioned above: “he is charged with having taken som gold from Clodia, and with having prepared poison to murder this same Clodia. The gold, according to you, he took to give to the slaves of Lucius Lucceius, to procure the assassination of Dio of Alexandria, who at the time was living with Luceius. It is a grave charge against a man, that he either plotted against the life of an ambassador, or incited slaves to murder their master’s guests — it is a plot rich in villainy, rich in daring! And in regard to this charge, I first ask, whether he told Clodia for what purpose he took the gold, or whether he did not. If he did not tell her, why did she hand it over? If he did tell her, she made herself his accomplice of this crime … thus, if Caelius told you the truth, you abandoned woman, you knowingly gave him the gold to commit a crime!” (XXI 52-52) … Basically, right, Cicero’s whole argument is based on “if he said this, you said this”, resulting in Cicero now accusing Clodia of being an accomplice of a murder? Honestly, it’s hard to even tell in the text how Cicero got to this conclusion … but he did.
Long speech short, Cicero mainly claims that Caelius is totally innocent of all the accusations from Clodia because Caelius is apparently faultless. Cicero is literally grabbing at every single straw he possibly could to make Caelius out as the most perfect citizen and Clodia the worst of all women, even going so far as to blame Cealius’ corruption on the neighbourhood where Clodia lives. Cicero says in XX 47: “Does not then that notorious neighbourhood put us on the scent?” and then again later on calling it “the neighbourhood of the courtesan” — as if the bloody neighbourhood was a seeping swamp that could contaminate a man! Cicero’s description has a certain Shrek-swamp vibe to it, as if only Clodia occupied this neighbourhood, much like Shrek lives alone in his weird, dirty swamp in the Dreamworks movie … although Clodia isn’t the only inhabitant of the Palatine. There are loads of other people. Loads of other RICH people live on the Palatine during this period in Ancient Rome. And yet, for some reason in Cicero’s speech they all disappear so that he can make a dramatic point about Clodia’s toxicity …
Poor Shrek-Clodia.
Cicero uses a number of different techniques in his address, including an odd tactic of conjuring up one of Clodia’s dead ancestors to question her. We could not even make this up. In XIV 33-34, Cicero “calls up from the dead one of those full-bearded men of old … to rebuke the woman and speak instead of me … Let me call up some member of this very family, above all Appius Claudius the Blind, for he will feel the least sorrow”. It’s genuinely bizarre, even though it is a wonderfully creative moment. Cicero uses this tactic to question why Clodia was so close with Caelius, why she allowed him into her home — he even offers the idea that Clodia gave Caelius the gold herself with the sole intention of accusing Caelius of theft later on. This section of the speech is genuinely wild because it just shows how little evidence proving Caelius’ innocence there really was. Surely if Cicero has solid proof to suggest that Clodia had set Caelius up because she was bitter he broke up with her … Cicero would use it?
The speech continues in this sort of tone, with many weak arguments but lots of shouting (and by this we mean he uses many a vocative latin case throughout). Unfortunately once Cicero finishes the speech though, we aren’t given the verdict of the trial. Does Cicero’s new necromancy skill win him the case? Does Caelius go uncharged?? Did Clodia-Shrek return to her swamp??? We many never know. In fact, Clodia literally drops off the face of the earth after this speech, so we don’t know how she died or what happened to her. Maybe her and Caelius ended up hooking up again — literally no one knows!
For more information on Clodia you can check out the following sources:
The Loeb edition of Cicero’s Pro Caelio
Catullus Love Poems (this is the copy we use)