A ROMAN JURY CORRUPTED BY LUST FOR BOYS, 61 BC
In December 60 BC a huge scandal erupted in Rome when Publius Clodius Pulcher, a well-known demagogue, was caught infiltrating the female-only secret rites of the Bona Dea disguised as a woman.[1] In January (by when Clodius had become a quaestor), a meeting of the Senate forced the College of Pontiffs to declare it sacrilegious, necessitating a trial in the summer. Initially, this went very badly for Clodius, but then, despite considerable evidence, including the testimony as to Clodius’s presence at the rites of the mother and sister of C. Julius Caesar, the pontifex maximus in whose house they had been held, a majority of the jurors at the trial voted to acquit him, giving rise to widespread allegations of massive bribery and other corrupt practices.
Presented here are the three surviving ancient accounts which say that the jurors were bribed not simply with large sums of money, but with promises of illicit assignations with married women and noble adolescent boys. Clodius was a noble himself with a record of successful manipulation of his upper-class connections to advance his interests.
The letters of the Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) to his close friend the historian Titus Pomponius Atticus (110-32 BC) were not intended for publication and are unusually revealing of Roman social and political life. For these reasons and because he wrote just after the trial, his testimony as to what happened is by far the most important. It should also be observed that Cicero had personally exposed as false the alibi that had been Clodius’s only serious defence.
The translation is by D. R. Shackleton Bailey for Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, Volume I 68-59 BC, Cambridge at the University Press, 1965.
XVI Rome, beginning of July 61
Describing how P. Clodius Pulcher managed to have the jury corrupted in his trial for sacrilege in 61 BC:
| Inside a couple of days, with a single slave (an ex-gladiator at that) for go-between, he [Clodius] settled the whole business—called them to his house, made promises, backed bills, or paid cash down. On top of that (it’s really too abominable!) some jurors actually received a bonus in the form of assignations with certain ladies or introductions to youths[2] of noble family. Yet even so, with the honest men making themselves very scarce and the Forum crowded with slaves, 25 jurors had the courage to take the risk, no small one, preferring to sacrifice their lives rather than the whole community. To 31 on the other hand light purses mattered more than light reputations. | [5] biduo per unum servum, et eum ex ludo gladiatorio, confecit totum negotium. arcessivit ad se, promisit, intercessit, dedit. iam vero (o di boni, rem perditam!) etiam noctes certarum mulierum atque adulescentulorum nobilium introductiones non nullis iudicibus pro mercedis cumulo fuerunt. mercedis cumulo fuerunt. ita summo discessu bonorum, pleno foro servorum, xxv iudices ita fortes tamen fuerunt ut summo proposito periculo vel perire maluerint quam perdere omnia; xxxi fuerunt quos fames magis quam fama commoverit. |
Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings
Valerius Maximus was a Roman rhetorician who wrote during. The Factorum et dictorum memorabilium (Memorable Doings and Sayings) is a collection of historical anecdotes written during the reign of Tiberius (AD 14-37) by the Roman rhetorician Valerius Maximus. The translation is by D. R. Shackleton Bailey for the Loeb Classical Library volume 493 published by the Harvard University Press in 2000.
IX 1 Of Luxury and Lust
One of many examples given of misbehaviour caused by lust:
| With what extravagance and lust did the trial of P. Clodius abound! In it, to the end that a defendant manifestly guilty of the charge of impurity might be acquitted, nights of married women and young[3] noblemen were bought for a great sum and paid out as bribes to members of the jury. In this abominable and manifold outrage it is hard to know which to execrate first, him who devised this form of corruption, those who allowed their chastity to become a bribery agent for perjury, or those who bartered their oath for illicit sex. | [vii] P. autem Clodii iudicium quanta luxuria et libidine abundavit! in quo, ut evidenter incesti crimine nocens reus absolveretur, noctes matronarum et adulescentium nobilium magna summa emptae mercedis loco iudicibus erogatae sunt. quo in flagitio tam taetro tamque multiplici nescias primum quem detestere, qui istud corruptelae genus excogitavit, an qui pudicitiam suam sequestrem periurii fieri passi sunt, an qui religionem stupro permutarunt. |
The epistles of the Roman stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca the younger were all written in the last two years, AD 63-65, of his life to his friend Lucilius, procurator in Sicily. The translation is by Richard M. Gummere for the Loeb Classical Library volume 77, published by William Heinemann in London in 1925.
XCVII: On the Degeneracy of the Age
Here Seneca cites Clodius’s corruption of the jury trying him as an example of how “luxury, neglect of good manners, and other vices” have existed in every age as much as I their own one:
|
[…] And yet, money was given to the jury, and, baser even than such a bargain, sexual crimes were demanded of married women and noble youths as a sort of additional contribution. The charge involved less sin than the acquittal; for the defendant on a charge of adultery parcelled out the adulteries, and was not sure of his own safety until he had made the jury criminals like himself. All this was done at the trial in which Cato gave evidence, although that was his sole part therein. I shall quote Cicero’s actual words,[4] because the facts are so bad as to pass belief: “He made assignations, promises, pleas, and gifts. And more than this (merciful Heavens, what an abandoned state of affairs!) upon several of the jury, to round out their reward, he even bestowed the enjoyment of certain women and meetings with noble youths.” […] |
[2 …] Credat aliquis pecuniam esse versatam in eo iudicio, in quo reus erat P. Clodius ob id adulterium, quod cum Caesaris uxore in operto commiserat violatis religionibus eius sacrificii, quod pro populo fieri dicitur sic summotis extra consaeptum omnibus viris, ut picturae quoque masculorum animalium contegantur? Atqui dati iudicibus nummi sunt et, quod hac etiamnunc pactione turpius est, stupra insuper matronarum et adulescentulorum nobilium stilari loco exacta sunt. [3] Minus crimine quam absolutione peccatum est: adulterii reus adulteria divisit nec ante fuit de salute securus, quam similes sui iudices suos reddidit. Haec in eo iudicio facta sunt, in quo, si nihil aliud, Cato testimonium dixerat. Ipsa ponam verba Ciceronis, quia res fidem excedit; [4] “Accersivit ad se, promisit, intercessit, dedit. Iam vero—o di boni, rem perditam!—etiam noctes certarum mulierum atque adulescentulorum nobilium introductiones nonnullis iudicibus pro mercedis cumulo fuerunt.” […] |
[1] Cicero reported this to his friend Atticus in a letter (no. 12) of 1 January 61 thus: “I imagine you will have heard that P. Clodius, son of Appius, was caught dressed up as a woman in C. Caesar’s house at the national sacrifice, and that he owed his escape alive to the hands of a servant girl—a spectacular scandal. I am sure it distresses you.”
[2] The word translated as “youths” is adulescentulorom, the genitive plural of the diminutive of adulescens, an adolescent.
[3] The word translated as “young” is adulescentium, the genitive plural of adulescens, an adolescent.
[4] This quote from the one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus quoted above is one of several indications that these letters, never intended for publication, were finally published in the middle of the 1st century AD.
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