Clodia of Rome: Champion of the Republic

One of Rome’s most powerful women, Clodia has been maligned over two thousand years as a promiscuous, husband-murdering harlot—thanks to her starring role in one of Cicero’s most famous speeches in the Forum. But Cicero was lying, in defense of his own property and interests. Like so many women libeled or erased from history, Clodia had a life that was much more interesting, complex, and nuanced than the corrupted version passed down through generations

Drawing on neglected sources and deep, empathetic study of Roman lives, classicist Douglas Boin reconstructs Clodia’s eventful passage through her politically divided and tumultuous times, from her privileged childhood to her picking up a family baton of egalitarian activism. A widow and single mother, Clodia had a charisma and power that rivaled her male contemporaries and struck fear into the heart of Rome’s political elite. That is, until a sensational murder trial, rife with corruption and told here in riveting detail, brought about her fall from grace. For generations of women who came after her—including a young Cleopatra, who might have met a disgraced Clodia when she first came to Rome—Clodia’s story would loom as a cautionary tale about the hostilities women would face when they challenged the world of men.

Freed from the caricature that Cicero painted of her, Clodia serves as a reminder of countless women whose stories have been erased from the historical record. In a Rome whose citizens were engaged in heated debates on imperialism, immigration, and enfranchisement, amidst rising anxieties about women’s role in society, Clodia was an icon—one worth remembering today.