Cicero Driven into Exile by Clodius
The tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher was one of the most dangerous men in the late Republic: aristocratic by birth, populist by strategy, and personally vindictive. He had never forgiven Cicero for testifying against him in the celebrated Bona Dea scandal. Now, with Caesar and Crassus looking on benevolently and Pompey unwilling to defend the man he had come to regard as a nuisance, Clodius moved against Cicero. In early 58 BCE, Clodius promulgated a law: any person who had put a Roman citizen to death without trial was to be exiled. Cicero saw it coming. He appealed to Pompey, who sheltered behind excuses. He appealed to the optimates in the Senate, who offered sympathy but not action. Cicero left Rome voluntarily before the law passed. His magnificent house on the Palatine was demolished. The site was consecrated as a shrine to Liberty. In exile at Thessalonica and later Epirus, Cicero descended into a state of profound psychological collapse that his own letters document with painful honesty. The recall, engineered in 57 BCE largely by the tribune Titus Annius Milo, came after a year of mounting pressure. Cicero returned to triumphant crowds. But the exile had shattered something in him — a confidence in the ultimate rationality and justice of the Republic. The experience fuelled his later philosophical writings, which increasingly turned from civic engagement toward internal resilience.
- Year: 58 BCE
- Category: Political
