I. ROME seemed to be given up only to the petty contentions of individuals; but, behind the men who stood in view, grave interests and violent passions were in agitation. The disease which undermines society unknown to it, reveals itself when facts, of no great importance in themselves, occur suddenly to produce an unforeseen crisis, to unveil dangers which were unperceived, and to show to all men that society on the brink of an abyss of which nobody had suspected the depth. Thus, by mere accidents of his life, Clodius seems to have been destined to cause the explosion of the elements of disorder which the Republic concealed in its bosom. He is caught in the house of Cæsar’s wife during a religious sacrifice, and this violation of the mysteries of the Bona Dea leads to a fatal division in the first bodies of the state. His impeachment irritates the popular party; his acquittal exposes to the world the venality of the judges, and separates the order of the knights from that of the Senate. The animosity with which he is pursued makes him a chief of a formidable party, which sends Cicero into exile, makes Pompey tremble, and accelerates the elevation of Cæsar. His death is destined to awaken all the popular passions, and inspire the opposite faction with so many fears, that it will forget its rancours and jealousies to throw itself into the arms of Pompey, and all the people will be in arms from one end of Italy to the other.
On the 13th of the Calends of February, 702 (13th of December, 701), Milo started from Rome to proceed to Lanuvium, his native town, of which he was the dictator.[738] Towards the ninth hour, he met on the Appian Way, a little beyond Bovillæ, Clodius, who, on his part, was returning on horseback from Aricia to Rome, accompanied by three friends and thirty slaves, all armed with swords. Milo was in a chariot with his wife Fausta, daughter of Sylla, and M. Fufius, his familiar. In his train marched an escort ten times more numerous than that of Clodius, and in which were several celebrated gladiators. The two troops passed near a small temple of the Bona Dea,[739] without exchanging a single word, but casting on each other furious looks. They had hardly passed, when two of Milo’s gladiators, who lagged behind, picked a quarrel with the slaves of Clodius. At the noise of this dispute, the latter turned his bridle, and advanced uttering threats. One of the gladiators, named Birria, struck him with his sword, and wounded him grievously in the shoulder;[740] he was carried into a neighbouring tavern.[741]
Milo, learning that Clodius was wounded, feared the consequences of this aggression, and believed that he would incur less danger by dispatching his enemy. He therefore sent his men to burst open the tavern; Clodius, dragged from the bed on which he had been placed, is pierced with blows, and thrown into the high road. His slaves are slain or put to flight. The corpse remained stretched on the Appian Way, until a senator, Sext. Tedius, who was passing, caused him to be taken up, placed in a litter, and carried to Rome, where he arrived at night, and was laid on a bed in the atrium of his house. But already the news of the fatal meeting was spread through the whole town, and the crowd hastened towards the residence of Clodius, where his wife, Fulvia, pointing to the wounds with which he was covered, urged the people to vengeance. The concourse was so great that several men of mark, and among others C. Vibienus, a senator, were stifled in the crowd. The corpse was carried to the Forum, and exposed on the rostra; two tribunes of the people, T. Munatius Plancus and Q. Pompeius Rufus, harangued the multitude, and demanded justice.
Afterwards, at the instigation of a scribe named Sext. Clodius, the body was carried to the curia, in order to insult the Senate; a funereal pile was made of the benches, tables, and registers. The fire communicated to the Curia Hostilia, and thence gained the Basilica Porcia, and the two buildings were reduced to ashes. Then the multitude, becoming more and more furious, snatched the fasces which surrounded the funereal bed,[742] and proceeded to the front of the houses of Hypsæus and Q. Metellus Scipio, as if to offer them the consulship. Lastly, they presented themselves before the abode of Pompey; some demanded with loud shouts that he should be consul or dictator, others shouted the same wishes for Cæsar.[743]
Nevertheless, nine days after, when the smoke was still rising from the ruins, the populace, on the occasion of a funereal banquet in the Forum, sought to burn the house of Milo and that of the interrex, M. Lepidus. They were driven away by a shower of arrows.[744] Milo, in the first moment, had dreamt only of hiding himself; but on hearing the indignation and terror caused by the burning of the curia, he resumed his courage. Persuaded, moreover, that, to repress these excesses, the Senate would proceed to severities against the opposite party,[745] he returned into Rome by night, carried his boldness so far as to announce that he still solicited the consulship, and began actually to buy the votes. Cœlius, a tribune of the people, spoke in his favour in the Forum. Milo himself mounted the tribune, and accused Clodius of having laid an ambush for him. He was interrupted by a considerable number of armed men, who rushed into the public place. Milo and Cœlius wrapped themselves in the mantles of slaves, and took flight. A great slaughter of their adherents was made. But soon the rioters, profiting by this pretext for disorder, murdered all they met, whether citizens or strangers, especially such as attracted their attention by their rich garments and gold rings; armed slaves were the chief instruments of these disorders. No crime was spared; under pretence of seeking Milo’s friends, a great number of houses were pillaged, and during several days all sorts of outrages were committed.[746]
The Republic is declared in Danger.
II. Meanwhile the Senate declared the Republic in danger, and charged the interrex, the tribunes of the people, and the proconsul Cn. Pompey, having the imperium near the town, to watch over the public safety, and make levies in all Italy. The care of rebuilding the Curia Hostilia was entrusted to the son of Sylla: it was decided that it should bear the name of the old dictator, the memory of whom the Senate sought to place in honour.[747]
As soon as Pompey had assembled a military force sufficiently imposing, the two nephews of Clodius, both named Appius, demanded the arrest of the slaves of Milo, and of those of Fausta, his wife. But the first care of Milo, his enemy once dead, had been to enfranchise his slaves, as a reward for having defended him, and, once enfranchised, they could no longer depose against their patron.
About a month after the death of Clodius, Q. Metellus Scipio brought the affair before the Senate, and accused Milo of falsehood in the explanations he had given. He arrayed skilfully all the circumstances which pointed to him as the aggressor: on one side, his escort much more numerous—the three wounds of Clodius—the eleven slaves of the latter slain; on the other, certain criminal facts connected with the event—a taverner slaughtered—two messengers massacred—a slave chopped to pieces for refusing to give up a son of Clodius; lastly, the sum of 1,000 ases offered by the accused to whoever would undertake his defence. Then Milo sought to appease Pompey, by offering to desist from his candidature for the consulship. Pompey replied that the right of deciding belonged to the Roman people alone. Milo remained under the accusation not only of murder, but of electoral solicitation, and of an outrage on the Republic. He could not be judged before the previous nomination of the urban prætor, and before the convocation of the comitia.
Pompey sole Consul.