Ancient Rome and Modern America; A Comparative Study of Morals and Manners

by Guglielmo Ferrero

In that particular year, the ceremonies took place in the house of Julius Cæsar, who was Prætor at the time, under the presidency of his wife, Pompeia, and his mother, Aurelia. Cæsar had left the house, which had been decorated as the rites required. All the ladies of the aristocracy had assembled there, and the mysterious ceremonies were being carried on through the night, as usual, when in one of the rooms a slave belonging to Cæsar’s mother encountered a musician who seemed to have lost her way in the huge house, and not to know what she ought to do or where to go. The slave asked the stranger whom or what she was looking for. The musician did not answer. The slave, her suspicions aroused by the other’s silence, persisted with her questions. The musician was driven at last to say that she was looking for one of Pompeia’s slaves, by name Abra. But Aurelia’s slave was horror-struck when she heard the musician’s voice. It was the voice of a man! At once, with loud screams, she gave the alarm. A man, a man disguised as a woman, was present at the sacred rites of the Bona Dea! The musician bolted. Cæsar’s mother, a dignified and energetic woman, suspended the ceremonies, immediately ordered all the doors to be shut, and, followed by all the matrons, searched the house thoroughly from top to bottom. At last the musician was found hidden in Abra’s room; and several of the ladies present believed they recognised in her a young Roman patrician, famous in Rome for the blueness of his blood, and for his extravagance: Publius Clodius. He was expelled from the house, and the meeting broke up.

Next day, all Rome knew that Publius Clodius had dared to try to profane the mysteries of the Bona Dea; and the news created an immense sensation. Publius Clodius was the youthful descendant of one of Rome’s most ancient, illustrious, and famous patrician houses. His father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather had all been Consuls. Thus he belonged to one of those families which impersonated in the eyes of Italy the glory, the power, and the virtue of Rome. That the youthful scion of one of these venerated families should have dared to commit such a sacrilege was a thing which would have made a painful impression in Rome at any time. But the moment was a critical and uncertain one. The impression made by the conspiracy of Catiline was still lively and fresh. Everywhere, especially in the more respectable section of society, a feeling of disgust mingled with fear prevailed. The public was in favour of severe measures. All seriously minded people gave it as their opinion that the prevailing licence of manners, and especially the effrontery of the young men, must be curbed, if the Empire was not to crumble into decay. If matters had come to such a pass that a Claudius, a man whose name had for so many centuries spelt to the Romans all the austere and traditional virtues of the Roman citizenship of old, dared profane the most sacred rites of religion, what might not be feared at the hands of a creedless, dissolute, corrupt youth, which was preparing to invade, with the new generation, the official posts of the Republic?

Great, therefore, was the public indignation; and the strict party, captained by Cato, a small party but active and powerful in the Senate, perceived that now was the moment to make an example. That Clodius had, up to that time, served the Conservative party, the aristocratic community which Sulla had restored to power; that in the conspiracy of Catiline he had zealously helped Cicero and defended the cause of the order, counted for little, nay, rather was it all to the good. It was necessary to show the people that the aristocracy could still, as in the good old times, bring themselves to strike at their own members, when they failed in their most sacred duties.

The tales which soon spread among the public as to the reasons for the sacrilege only served to fan the flame of indignation. It was whispered that Clodius was the paramour of Pompeia, Cæsar’s wife; and that he had endeavoured, with the connivance of Abra, Pompeia’s slave, to gain an entrance into the festivities, for the purpose of an assignation with her! The sacrilege, therefore, was twofold. The rites of the Bona Dea were intended to assure the prosperity of the people. It was infamous that a young aristocrat should have dared to take advantage of them to further an intrigue of gallantry. An example must be made; this was for several days the general chorus throughout Rome. The most sacred things of the Republic could not be left a prey to this corrupt and depraved youth. The cynicism of a few dissolutes must not be allowed to expose the Republic to the wrath of the gods!

An example must be made—certainly! But how? The law contained no provision applying to such an act as Clodius had committed. Anyone desirous of prosecuting him would not have known what law to invoke in order to hale him before the judges. The case was unprecedented; and it had never occurred to anyone to write it down a crime, with a definite legal imprimatur attached. The ancient code was extremely formal, especially in questions of rites and religion, and so Clodius’s deed remained a wicked, impious, and shameful one, which was calculated to cover him with infamy, but which could not be punished by the law. Sensible, cautious, and prudent people, in the Senate, and out of it, lost no time in convincing themselves on this point; while Clodius, his friends, and his family, which was a most influential one, began to intercede, to pray, and to intrigue. It was true that Clodius had committed an act of unpardonable levity, which would ruin his political career for all time. But it was an act for which there was no punishment, save the reprobation of all good citizens.

So colourless a solution was, however, not at all to the taste of the public, which was deeply moved by the sacrilege, and roused to fury against these great families who abused their power in so scandalous a way. The public demanded a severer punishment. The small Pietist party, feeling itself backed by public opinion, brought the matter before the Senate, by the mouth of an obscure Senator named Quintus Cornificius. Cornificius proposed that the College of Pontiffs be consulted, and their opinion asked as to the gravity and character of the crime committed by Clodius. The proposal was an ingenious one. According to ancient ideas, it was incumbent on the State itself to take precautions that the gods should have no motive for losing their tempers with the people and the city, and thereupon wreaking vengeance upon Rome. With the public thrown into such a state of fear and commotion by Clodius’s sacrilege, the Senate could not refuse to consult the Pontiffs, to learn from them whether this act constituted an outrage against the gods, and, if so, an outrage of what gravity. The College of Pontiffs answered that the act was nefas—the technical expression which indicated the gravest of delinquencies towards the divinity. Their answer could not have been otherwise. Nevertheless, however nefas the act might be, there was no law which punished it.

So when the answer of the College of Pontiffs reached the Senators, the latter found themselves confronted with the following situation. A very grave and scandalous crime had been committed by one of the best-known members of the aristocracy. This crime had stirred the public indignation to its depths, and had been declared nefas by the College of Pontiffs. Yet there was no way of punishing it, because the arsenal of the law did not provide the weapons necessary for its punishment. The danger inherent in this state of affairs was obvious. The public, infuriated and dismayed, would never believe that Clodius could not be punished—because the laws had never even imagined that such an abomination could ever be committed by a Roman. The public would declare that Clodius had escaped his richly-deserved punishment because he belonged to one of the most conspicuous and influential families in Rome. The aristocracy was superior to the law; it could even provoke with impunity the wrath of the gods against the city! What was to be done? Public opinion, in its agitated state, kept egging on the Senate; and the Pietist and ruthless party, profiting by the popular agitation, attempted a daring move, proposing to the Senate that it should invite the Consuls to make a special law, which should have retrospective force, and should declare Clodius’s act on a plane with the crime of incest,—make it equivalent, that is, to the seduction of a vestal virgin, a crime which, according to ancient law, was punishable with death, and which fell to be judged by the College of Pontiffs. Nevertheless, no one, not even Cato, could delude himself into thinking that the College of Pontiffs would condemn Clodius to death. Consequently, the law proposed to constitute a special tribunal,—which would not be that of the Pontiffs, nor the usual jury, chosen by lot. The Prætor would himself constitute it, choosing it from the panel of judges. It was hoped in this way to contrive a Court which would condemn Clodius at least to exile.

It is not difficult to realise how daring and dangerous it was to propose such a privilegium, as the Romans used to call exceptional laws, in times of uproar like those, and in the midst of the fierce discords which already for so many reasons were splitting up the Roman aristocracy. But the indignation and commotion of the public, superstitious and fearful as it was, were too lively. Cæsar himself had felt the necessity of throwing a sop to the public by divorcing Pompeia; and the Senate dared not reject the rash proposal, even though many wise men, like Cicero, thought that it would be more prudent to let Clodius fry in his own grease. The two Consuls were invited to draft the law and to get it approved by the people.

From this moment, however, difficulties began; and, in a few weeks, the prosecution of Clodius assumed a new aspect. It became a political matter. That the act he had committed was an abominable one, no one in Rome denied; but that in order to secure his punishment a law should be passed which would not only be a special one, but—most important point of all—would introduce the principle of the selection of judges by the Prætor,—no, to this the Popular, Democratic party could not consent. Always concerned not to leave in the hands of Sulla’s party, which was still so powerful in the Senate and throughout the Republic, too many weapons to employ against their enemies, the Popular party had recently taken to demanding with the utmost emphasis the most rigorous observance of legal forms, especially in proceedings in the law-courts, which were such a convenient means, in the hands of the preponderant party, of getting rid of the latter’s adversaries. In fact, at that moment the Popular party had begun an agitation against the illegalities committed in the course of the repression of Catiline’s conspiracy. This law, therefore, sounded like a challenge. As a matter of fact, of the two Consuls whose duty it was to bring it forward, one, Marcus Pupius Piso, though he had not dared resist the proposal openly in the Senate, was opposed to it; and, while he made a show of obeying the orders of the Senate and actually did, with his colleague, propose the law, he busied himself behind the scenes to secure its rejection. The other Consul, Marcus Valerius Messala, on the other hand, was an enthusiastic supporter of the law; but it was whispered about that a tribune of the plebs, if the law was brought forward, would veto it. Clodius and his relations worked away vigorously. All the wise and prudent men, even Cicero, held themselves in reserve, keeping an eye on the progress of events without compromising themselves too far; so that Cicero, writing at the end of January, 61, to Atticus, could give him to understand between the lines that the law would never be passed, and that the whole business would be brought to a stand-still by the fizzing away of the public anger. For the rest, this was the secret wish of all level-headed citizens, who, like Cicero, feared dreadful calamities, if the business were allowed to assume more serious proportions.

But all the wiseacres reckoned without Cato and the Pietist party, and without the obstinacy of Messala, who, irritated by the stolid opposition of his colleague, countered it with a determined effort to get the law passed. Between them all, they worked and spoke with such effect that they succeeded in obtaining the support of Pompey, and in bringing the law before the comitia in the first fortnight of February. Piso, however, was no less resolutely determined than Messala that the law he had proposed should not be passed, and, as it was his turn to preside over the meeting, he had recourse that day to every sort of subtle device to prevent the law being passed. He even went so far as to distribute to the voters only that tablet which they would use in rejecting the law. When the heads of the Conservative party, Cato, Hortensius, and Favonius, heard of this extraordinary intrigue, they hurried to the comitia and began to address the people. Cato distinguished himself by a virulent attack on Piso. The speeches were effectual in preventing the law from being put to the vote, and therefore from being, as it assuredly would have been, rejected. They could not, however, procure its approval, which, from Clodius’s point of view, and for the moment at any rate, came to much the same thing.