According to Robert Harris*, after Cicero fled Rome as Clodius was moving against him, he might have turned back and returned to the city; he could have fought the tribune on the law that would exile him, and, because Ceasar was leaving Rome for the Gaul expedition, Cicero had a good chance of winning this fight.

First, is this a fair analysis, and was returning to Rome shortly after fleeing really a possible course of action for Cicero to take? If it indeed was, what would have been the results?

*I happened to read the first chapter of the third novel in his Cicero trilogy today.
 
Not really. Clodius had the plebs romana behind him, and the common people (which supported both Caesar and Clodius) didn't like Cicero, who often allied with the Optimates.
That may be so. On the other hand, is there any possibility that Pompey could give Cicero protection if he stayed in the city?

To clarify, the "fight" I was referring to was the fight to exile Cicero, over the law designed to do just that; Cicero fled before the proposal even became law, and Harris seems to claim that had he returned and defended himself, Cicero might have stood a chance stopping Clodius from doing that.
 
That may be so. On the other hand, is there any possibility that Pompey could give Cicero protection if he stayed in the city?

Pompeius didn't want to help him, maybe because Cicero enver had real friend in Roman politics.
In 58 BC, Publius Clodius Pulcher, the tribune of the plebs, introduced a law (the Leges Clodiae) threatening exile to anyone who executed a Roman citizen without a trial. Cicero, having executed members of the Catiline Conspiracy four years previously without formal trial, and having had a public falling out with Clodius, was clearly the intended target of the law. Cicero argued that the senatus consultum ultimum indemnified him from punishment, and he attempted to gain the support of the senators and consuls, especially of Pompey. When help was not forthcoming, he went into exile.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Cicero would have surely died had he turned back. Keep in mind that the Harris novels (which I loved, by the way) are written as if they were memoirs of Tiro, so all that he's saying is that "Tiro" thought Cicero might have prevailed.
 
Hm, so it seems Cicero surviving had he turned back, much less prevailing against Clodius' exile attempt, is unlikely; I suppose the only remaining question is what happens if Cicero does die around this time?
 
Clodius was only bold enough to go through with it likely with the tacit backing of Pompey and Caesar anyway. Cicero was a vocal opponent of the triumvirate and Vettius had claimed Cicero was one of the men who had sent him to murder Caesar and Pompey. I'm not sure they actually believed the charges, but they tacitly supported the exile as a shot across the bow of Cicero. I don't think they ever intended it to be permanent. Pompey reversed course fairly quickly (though admittedly that may have been instigated by a fallout out with Clodius). The hope in all this was that Cicero could be cowed into silence on the triumvirate, and possibly help them (or, rather, Pompey) for recalling him.
 
Last edited:
Top