"They most certainly are not. But never mind all that. Everyone knows that the Clodii are good-looking, and everyone suspects that they both have far too much sex for anyone's good. What else do we know about them? I think the first time that I ever heard of Clodius was when he acted as a prosecutor in the trials of the Vestal Virgins."
"Ah, yes, when he accused Catilina of seducing the Vestal Fabia."
"But when both Catilina and the Vestal were acquitted, things got so hot for Clodius in Rome that he had to flee down to Baiae until the furor cooled down. He burned his fingers on that one. I don't suppose he was even twenty at the time. I could never make out what his object was, except to stir up trouble. Perhaps he wasn't quite sure himself, just testing his powers."
"The next thing I remember about him happened a few years later," said Eco. "Something about stirring up that mutiny among the troops."
"Ah, yes, when he went off to serve in the East as a lieutenant under his brother-in-law Lucullus. Clodius styled himself as the soldiers' champion. They were already dissatisfied with the way Lucullus was driving them from campaign to campaign with no end in sight and no sure prospect of a reward, while Pompey's troops were already receiving farms and settlements for fewer years of service. Clodius made a famous speech to the troops, saying they deserved more from their general than the chance to lay down their lives protecting his personal caravan of camels laden with gold. 'If we must never have an end to fighting, shouldn't we reserve what's left of our bodies and souls for a commander who will reckon his chief glory to be the wealth of his soldiers?' "
"Papa, what a head you've always had for remembering speeches, even those you've heard only secondhand!"
"Such a memory is as much a curse as a blessing, Eco. Anyway, you can see that Clodius was a rabble-rouser even then, making himself the advocate of the masses against their rulers, setting himself up in opposition to the status quo. No wonder he switched to the plebeian form of his name."
"And then more scandal," said Eco. "The affair of the Good God-
dess."
"Yes. Was it only six years ago? Ironic that the man who started out by prosecuting a Vestal Virgin and her alleged lover should have gotten himself into such a sacrilegious scandal. The hearsay-gossip, not fact-was that Clodius was carrying on with Caesar's wife, Pompeia, but Caesar had caught on and set his mother to watch Pompeia like a hawk, so that it became impossible for the lovers to meet. Never one to let his appetites be denied, Clodius concocted a scheme to reach Pompeia. He decided to sneak into the women's festival of the Good Goddess, Fauna, which was being held that year in Caesar's house. No men allowed, of course. How could Clodius get in? By dressing up as a woman! Imagine him all fancied up as a singing girl in a saffron robe with purple hose and slippers-I wonder if his sisters helped dress him up."
"Perhaps it wasn't his first time in a stola," said Eco.
"I suppose he couldn't resist the idea of taking Pompeia in Caesar's own bed, with Caesar's own mother and scores of other women chanting and lighting incense in the next room. I wonder if Clodius planned to keep his stola on while he did it?"
"Papa, I object! You're letting your lurid imagination seduce you into accepting hearsay, and then compounding the slander."
"Granted, Eco. I shall try to get back to the facts. The story goes that Clodius almost pulled it off. In the haze of the incense and the confusion of the chanting and dancing-who knows what sort of rituals these women engage in behind closed doors?-Clodius managed to make his way into the house and to find one of Pompeia's slave girls, who was expecting him. She went to fetch her mistress, but when she failed to return, Clodius became impatient and started wandering through the house on his own, staying out of the light as much as he could, observing the proceedings."
"Wouldn't you love to know what he saw?"
"Wouldn't every man, Eco? But it was Clodius's bad fortune to be spotted by another serving girl, who saw his hesitant manner and innocently asked him who he was looking for. He told her he was looking for Pompeia's serving girl, but he was unable to disguise his deep voice. The girl let out a shriek. Clodius managed to hide in a storage room, but the women lit torches and searched the house until they rooted him out and drove him into the street."
"Well," said Eco wryly, "if nothing else, Clodius disproved the old superstition we all learned as boys, that any man who witnesses the secret ceremonies of the Good Goddess will be instantly struck blind."
"Clodius could still see, granted, but he might have wished to be struck deaf, so as not to hear the clamor he set off. The women went home and told their husbands, and you know how men are with gossip. By the next morning, the scandal was the talk of every tavern and street comer in Rome. The pious were outraged, the impious were amused, and I have no doubt that some from both camps were more than a little envious. The matter was much talked about for a season and then put aside for months, until some of Clodius's enemies decided to bring him to trial for sacrilege.
"At the trial, Clodius claimed that he was innocent and that the women were mistaken, because during the festival of the Good Goddess he had been fifty miles from Rome. Clodius and Cicero were still on friendly terms back then, and when the prosecution called Cicero to testify, Clodius expected him to back up his alibi. Instead, Cicero dutifully affirmed that he had seen Clodius in Rome on the day in question. Clodius was infuriated. That was the beginning of the bad blood between them."
"But Clodius was acquitted nonetheless," said Eco.
"Yes, by a slim majority of the fifty-odd jurors. Some say there was outright bribery by both sides; others say that the jurors simply voted along political lines. At any rate, Clodius was vindicated and emerged stronger than ever. He became bolder about using the street gangs he had been organizing to swell his retinue and intimidate his enemies. As for Caesar, the cuckolded husband, his only response was to divorce Pompeia, even though he publicly insisted that nothing untoward had occurred between her and Clodius. When the paradox was pointed out to him-why divorce Pompeia if she had been faithful?-he said, 'I have no doubt whatsoever about her fidelity, but Caesar's wife cannot be tainted even by suspicion!' Well, Caesar can't have been too offended by Clodius. The two of them have turned out to be close allies."
"As demonstrated by the way Caesar helped Clodius get his tribunate."
"Exactly. Clodius wanted to be elected tribune, but was barred from doing so, since it's a strictly plebeian office, off-limits to patricians. What was Clodius's solution? With Caesar pushing the paperwork, he managed to get himself adopted by a plebeian almost young enough to be his son, and so got himself officially enrolled as a plebeian-which outraged his fellow patricians and delighted the mob, who elected him tribune. At last Clodius was a commoner in fact as well as in name."
"I see a pattern," said Eco. "If a man can't witness the rites of the Good Goddess, Clodius will make himself a woman. If a patrician can't run for tribune, then Clodius, who has the most patrician pedigree in Rome, will make himself a plebeian."
"Not a man to let himself be stymied by technicalities," I agreed. "During his year as tribune he managed to get a lot done-introducing a grain dole to please the mob, arranging for the Roman takeover of Egyptian Cyprus to pay for the dole, and passing a law to send Cicero into exile."
Eco nodded. "But now Cicero is back in Rome, and Clodius's ally Caesar is off conquering Gaul. The big political issue of the moment is the Egyptian crisis, which brings us up to Dio's ill-fated mission. If we believe Clodia, Clodius made himself a friend of poor Dio before he was killed-and now they want you to find evidence against Clodia's lover Marcus Caelius to convict him of the murder."