1998/12/01 by A. S. Hollis · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Chemistry · #Classical Antiquity Studies #Organic Chemistry Synthesis Methods #Cicero #Brother #Sister #Art #Drama #Literature #Humanities #Philosophy #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1093/cq/48.2.561
openalex publication_date 1998/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
It is appropriate that this speech should be full of quotations from Roman drama. These offered the jurymen some compensation for their enforced absence from the theatrical performances of the Ludi Megalenses; on the very day (4 April 56 b.c. ) when Cicero demolished Clodia's reputation in court, her brother Clodius, as curule aedile, was nearby presiding at the opening of the Ludi. Brother and sister both had a strong interest in the stage; in Pro Sestio 116 Clodius is described as ‘ipse ille maxime ludius, non solum spectator sed actor et acroama, qui omnia sororis embolia novit’. In Pro Caelio 18 Cicero takes up Crassus' quotation of Ennius' Medea , ‘utinam ne in nemore Pelio …’ ends by calling Clodia ‘the Medea of the Palatine’. Clodius is made to address his sister in a trochaic septenarius, ‘quid clamorem exorsa verbis parvam rem magnam facis?’. A harsh parent is represented by a quotation from Caecilius, a gentle one by Micio from Terence's Adelphoe . Clodia herself is called (64) ‘veteris et plurimarum fabularum poetriae’—this phrase should not be taken to mean that she had actually written plays—and in 65 the whole affair at the baths is likened to a mime with no satisfactory conclusion (‘mimi … exitus in quo clausula non invenitur’).