Popular opinion began to move against the First Triumvirate and they were booed at a gladiatorial show in July. A contemporary commentator called them “the Beast with Three Heads.” When an actor in a play spoke the line, “To our misfortune art thou Great,” the audience took it as a reference to Pompey and called for a dozen encores.
Cicero began to detect a weakness in the alliance. He suspected that Pompey profoundly disliked the position he found himself in. He was right, up to a point. But although he knew better than to trust Pompey, with whose double-dealing he was familiar, he needed so much to believe that the former general could be detached from the “rascals” that he over-interpreted the evidence of his unease. There is no doubt that Pompey did feel uncomfortable, but at the same time there is every reason to suppose that his alliance with Caesar and Crassus remained as firm as ever. In fact, it was Cicero, the recipient of many melancholy private confidences, who would be discarded.
Cicero pretended to take Clodius’s election as Tribune lightly, but he could not stop mentioning it. “Dear Publius is threatening me, most hostile.… I think I have very firm backing in my old Consular army of all honest men, including the moderately honest. Pompeius signifies goodwill to me out of the ordinary. He also assures me that Clodius will not say a word about me; in this he does not deceive me but is himself deceived.”
Caesar’s final task was to decide on the future once his Consulship came to an end. So far he had achieved all they could have hoped: Pompey had had his eastern settlement approved and his soldiers had been given land, and Crassus had had the tax farmers’ contract renegotiated. The Consular elections, delayed from the summer by a decree of Bibulus, were eventually held on October 17. Two supporters of the Triumvirate, Aulus Gabinius and Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, whose daughter Caesar had recently married, won the day. Caesar was allocated the governorships of Italian Gaul, Transalpine Gaul and Illyricum (today Dalmatia) for five years. His friend Sallust wrote: “For himself he wanted a high command, an army and a war in some field where his gifts could shine in all their brightness.” This is what he had now obtained and over the coming years he methodically set about conquering what is now France and Belgium. Rome called these territories Long-haired Gaul (Gallia Comata).
On December 10, Clodius at last took office as Tribune. Unfortunately, as his great crisis approached, Cicero was joined in Rome by Atticus and their correspondence stops. He was still guardedly optimistic about his prospects and thought that the worst that could happen would be a trial before the Military Assembly, as had been the case with Rabirius. Because its voting system favored the affluent, his chances of acquittal would, he felt, be reasonably good. In any case, “all Italy” would come to his support.
It soon transpired that the new Tribune had more ambitious plans than anyone had expected. He produced a far-reaching program, well tailored to win the support of the urban proletariat. Grain distributions to citizens in Rome would, for the first time, be absolutely free; the right of association was restored and the veto on local clubs revoked; officeholders were prohibited from halting public business by reporting bad omens on days when the General Assembly was due to vote on a bill; a limitation on legislation brought in by Tribunes was removed; and a restriction on the Censors’ powers to expel Senators (presumably this was to protect popularis members) was imposed. The importance of the clubs or collegia for Clodius was that they would allow him to organize support (in the form of well-organized street gangs) in Rome’s poorer districts.
Clodius was a mysterious and in some senses a maligned figure, whose behavior was so bizarre that for some people rational explanations were unnecessary. So far as can be judged from the uniformly hostile sources, he was a serious politician with a loyal constituency among the urban masses. He had a coherent reform program designed to advance their interests. According to Cicero, the restoration of political clubs meant that he had inherited “all Catilina’s forces with scarcely any change of leaders.” However, unlike Catilina, Clodius saw that there was a distinction to be drawn between revolution and behavior that was merely illegal. Clodius observed the basic political norms, attending Senate meetings and standing for office. In the years ahead he stood for Aedile, successfully, and for Praetor. From the few scraps of evidence that remain, he maintained a client list both in the city and beyond.
Clodius’s originality lay in his perception of what could be achieved by consistent violence on the streets and in the Forum. For half a century politicians of every persuasion had resorted to force from time to time. The scale of public spaces in the city center, the absence of wide streets or avenues and the facts that there was no police force and that soldiers were forbidden to cross the pomoerium meant that gangs could temporarily take over the seat of government, terrorize officeholders and force legislation through or impede it. Clodius saw that this could be turned into a permanent state of affairs. He developed the concept of the standing gang, equipped and ready to act at any time. Once his Tribuneship was over in December 58, this would become his power base. He realized that this private army would need an operational headquarters and, apparently, took over the Temple of the Castors in the Forum for a time, turning the building into a fortress by demolishing the steps that led down from its high podium. This was insurrection as a means of government rather than as a means of overthrowing a government.
What Clodius wanted to do with power, once he had achieved it, is uncertain. Unlike other radicals, whether of the left or right, he gave no indication that has come down to us of a serious interest in root-and-branch constitutional reform. He was happy enough to exploit the constitution or subvert it, but he had no idea of overthrowing it. Beneath the eccentricity of his politics probably lay a basically conventional ambition to climb the political ladder, reach the Consulship and make a fortune from misgoverning a province. In that sense, there was no material difference between him and his hot-tempered brother, Appius Claudius Pulcher, who stood on the other side of the political fence and was a leading conservative. Clodius was typical of his ancestors in his waywardness, volatile moods and disrespect for respectable opinion. He regarded the political scene in a highly personalized light and was not a man to be crossed lightly, as Cicero found out.
Wisely, Cicero had taken steps to protect his personal position by finding a friendly Tribune who agreed to veto all Clodius’s reforms. In response, Clodius made a deal with Cicero: if Cicero would not block his legislation, he promised not to launch a prosecution. He made a point of being friendly with Cicero, saying that he wanted a reconciliation and blaming Terentia for their estrangement.
In late January or early February of 58, Clodius hurled his thunderbolt. He proposed two new bills, the first of which bought off the Consuls by allotting them rich provinces (Macedonia and Cilicia) for the following year with unusually generous financial allowances. The second cynically broke the assurance he had given Cicero. It punished with the denial of the traditional symbols of hospitality, fire and water (in other words exile), any public official who executed or had executed a citizen without due process of law. This was, in effect, a renewal or restatement of an existing law, but its target was obvious. It would be wrong, though, to see the bill simply as a question of revenge. From the point of view of his patron, Caesar, waiting outside the city limits in order to watch developments before he left for his provincial command, the indictment of Cicero for illegal acts as Consul would distract the Senate from examining the legality of his own legislation. More broadly, Clodius was exactly the weapon Caesar needed to keep the Senate cowed and on the defensive.