Defence Speeches by Cicero;

Author:Cicero;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 2000-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

The trial took place on 3–4 April 56. For the prosecution, Atratinus spoke first, then Clodius, then Balbus. Atratinus’ speech was devoted to an attack on Caelius’ character and morals: he represented him as effeminate (a ‘pretty-boy Jason’), loose-living, immoral, profligate, a lover of luxury, and well used to committing crimes of bribery and violence. Clodius’ speech probably went over the charges in detail: he would have deplored the treatment of the Alexandrian deputation, criticized Pompey for his support of Ptolemy, and referred to the evidence that Clodia would give against Caelius at the end of the trial. In particular, she would reveal how Caelius’ friend Publius Licinius had been caught handing over poison to her slaves at the Senian baths. It seems most likely that the prosecution indicated that Caelius was on familiar terms with Clodia, but not that he had been her lover. Evidently they calculated that the defence would also say nothing about this, since it would reflect badly on Caelius’ character (the situation resembles that at the trial of Sextus Roscius, at which the prosecution said nothing about Chrysogonus or the proscription lists, confident that the defence would not mention them either). Balbus, in closing the case for the prosecution, returned to the subject of Caelius’ moral delinquency, and also voiced his indignation at Caelius’ continuing persecution of his friend Bestia.

The speeches for the defence were given in order by Caelius, Crassus, and Cicero; in speaking last, Cicero was again following his usual custom (Brut. 190; Orat. 130). Caelius’ speech was vigorous and full of witty gibes: it contained a reference to Clodia as ‘the one-penny Clytemnestra’, i.e. a husband-murderer who sells her sexual favours cheaply (she was suspected of having poisoned her husband Metellus Celer). Although Caelius attacked Clodia’s morals in this way, it seems unlikely that he admitted to having been her lover–just as the prosecution calculated he would not. Caelius and Crassus, it is reasonable to assume, must have made some defence against the actual charges, particularly perhaps those ones which Cicero does not discuss.

Cicero’s speech, the final speech of the trial, took place on the second day, 4 April. This happened to be the first day of the Megalesian games, when the rest of Rome was on holiday. He therefore decided to compensate the jurors for missing the games by providing them with a speech that would be at least as entertaining: this is the speech that we have. In it he says little about the charges but concentrates on attacking Clodia (so as to discredit the evidence that she will give), sensationally revealing that Caelius had formerly been her lover (indeed, Cicero may even exaggerate their intimacy). If Caelius was Jason, as Atratinus had rashly claimed, then Clodia was Medea (§ 18): it was Caelius, like Jason, who had terminated the affair, and now Clodia, like Medea, was hell-bent on revenge. Hence the present trial. The prosecution had been confident that Cicero would reject this line, since it would surely damn

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