The Historians' History of the World 05

The next year (52) T. Annius Milo, P. Plautius Hypsæus, and Q. Metellus Scipio were the candidates, and they all bribed to a most enormous extent. Clodius stood for the prætorship, and between his retainers and those of Milo and the other candidates, scenes of tumult and bloodshed occurred in the streets almost daily. Pompey and the tribune T. Munatius Plancus purposely kept the patricians from meeting to appoint an interrex to hold the elections. On the 20th of January, Milo, who was dictator of his native place Lanuvium, had occasion to go thither to appoint a chief priest of Juno Sospita, the patron deity of the place; Clodius, who had been to harangue the magistrates at Aricia, where he had a great deal of influence, happened to be returning just at this time, and he met Milo near Bovillæ. Milo was in his carriage with his wife, the daughter of Sulla, and a friend, and he was attended by a numerous train, among which were some of his gladiators; Clodius was on horseback, with thirty armed bravos, who always accompanied him. Two of Milo’s people followed those of Clodius and began to quarrel with them, and when he turned round to menace them, one of them ran a long sword through his shoulder. The tumult then became general; Clodius had been conveyed into an adjoining tavern, but Milo forced it, dragged him out, and killed him outright; his dead body was thrown on the highway, where it lay till a senator, who was returning to the city from his country-seat, took it up and brought it with him in his litter. It was laid in the hall of Clodius’ own house, and his wife Fulvia with floods of tears showed his bleeding wounds to the rabble who repaired thither, and excited them to vengeance. Next morning Clodius’ friends, the tribunes Q. Pompeius Rufus and T. Munatius Plancus, exposed it on the rostra, and harangued the populace over it. The mob snatched it up, carried it into the senate house, and making a pyre of the seats burned it and the house together. They then ran to Milo’s house intending to burn it also, but they were beaten off by his slaves.

Death of Clodius

(After Mirys)

The excesses committed by the mob having injured the Clodian cause, Milo ventured to return to the city, and to go on bribing and canvassing for the consulate. The tribune M. Cælius, whom he had gained, having filled the Forum with a purchased mob, led Milo thither to defend himself, in hopes of having him acquitted by them as by the people; but the adverse tribunes armed their partisans and fell on and scattered them.[110] Milo and Cælius were forced to fly in the dress of slaves; the rabble killed, wounded, and robbed without distinction; houses were broken open, plundered, and burned, under the pretext of seeking for the friends of Milo. These excesses lasted for several days, and the senate at length decreed that the interrex, the tribunes of the people, and Pompey, should see that the republic sustained no injury; and finally, as there seemed an absolute necessity for some extraordinary power, to avoid a dictatorship and to exclude Cæsar (who was spoken of) from the consulate, it was resolved, on the motion of Bibulus, with the assent of Cato, to make Pompey sole consul.

POMPEY SOLE CONSUL

[52 B.C.]

Pompey (who was resolved to crush Milo) as soon as he entered on his office (February 25), had two laws passed, one against violence, the other against bribery. He ordained that trials should last only four days, the first three to be devoted to the hearing of evidence, the last to the pleadings of the parties; he assigned the number of pleaders in a cause, giving two hours to the prosecutor to speak, three to the accused to reply, and forbidding any one to come forward to praise the accused. To insure prosecutions for bribery, he promised a pardon to any one found guilty of it if he convicted two others of an equal or lesser degree or one of a greater. He directed that a consular chosen by the people, and not the prætor as in ordinary cases, should preside in the trials for violence.