Pro Caelio
Caelius' prosecutors, Lucius Sempronius Atratinus, Publius Clodius (probably not Publius Clodius Pulcher, but more likely a relative),[2] and Lucius Herennius Balbus, charged him with the following crimes:[3] Caelius spoke first in his own defense and asked Marcus Licinius Crassus to defend him during the trial.
Bestia's 17-year-old son, Lucius Sempronius Atratinus, did not want his father's trial to take place and so he made a charge against Caelius.
Atratinus charged Caelius in the violence court (quaestio de vi) to prevent any delay in the proceedings of the trial.
The charges made against Caelius were linked to the attempt of Pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes to recover his throne after being deposed in 59 BC.
However, the Alexandrians were not interested in giving Ptolemy back the throne of Egypt and sent a deputation of 100 citizens, led by the philosopher Dio, to the Senate to hear their case.
Despite Ptolemy's efforts, Dio successfully made it to Rome and stayed in the house of Titus Coponius, a member of the Senate.
In 57 BC, the consul Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther decreed that Ptolemy should be restored to the throne of Egypt.
By centering his speech on attacking Clodia, Cicero avoided setting himself against public opinion or damaging his relationship with Pompey.
He became tribune of the plebs in 52 BC, and closely allied to the politician Titus Annius Milo, who, despite Cicero's famous defence (pro Milone), was condemned in that year for the murder of Publius Clodius and went into exile.
17 letters from Caelius to Cicero survive,[12] of which it has been said: "His style is one of the most interesting in Latin literature, vivid, dramatic, elliptical, familiar, and the whole collection is particularly valuable as exemplifying the type of writing fashionable among the bright young men of the day, besides expressing the writer's personality in a way that nothing else could do.
Eventually, however, he fell out with Caesar and died in a scuffle against Caesarian troops in Thurii in southern Italy in 48 BC.
6–9 The criticisms of Caelius's way of life in his youth are baseless; Cicero feels sorry for Atratinus in having to make this part of the accusation.
For now he imagines what her younger brother Publius Clodius Pulcher, with whom she is so "intimate", might say to her: "Why are you so worried about losing this handsome young man, sister?
Caelius is alleged to have told Clodia that he wanted some gold to pay for some games, but in reality to bribe the slaves of Lucceius, with whom Dio was staying.
It is quite wrong to accuse him under the lex Lutatia, whose purpose is to curb major uprisings against the state, not to satisfy the vengefulness of a woman.
In his article, Dorey claims that the prosecution's aim was that "even if Caelius were acquitted, there was the chance of his emerging so discredited as seriously to jeopardize his prospects of success in his renewed action against Bestia".
Popular critical consensus has long identified Clodia Metelli, who features so prominently in the speech, as Catullus's famed lover Lesbia.
The 2nd-century writer Apuleius claimed that Catullus gave his lover Clodia the pseudonym Lesbia; Wiseman traces Apuleius's source for this claim to the historian Suetonius, and Suetonius' sources to Gaius Julius Hyginus's De Vita Rebusque Illustrium Virorum.
[30] Despite these problems, Helena Dettmer believes that the chain of verbal and structural links connecting the six poems makes it clear that they all form part of a single cycle, and that they all refer to the same man, Cicero's Caelius Rufus.
Rather, Catullus's reference to the reluctance of Clodius's associates to exchange with him a common social kiss implies connotations of fellatio.
[35] A. S. Hollis points out in an article written in 1998 that Cicero uses subtle references to popular tragedies that circulated around Rome at the time that Pro Caelio was given.
In fact, Equus Troianus was the name of the tragedy performed at the opening of Pompey's Theater just a couple years after Pro Caelio was given, as Hollis points out.
Cicero must first present Clodia as an unchaste, promiscuous woman, and he accomplishes that by his use of language associated with prostitution while he describes her.
Also, Cicero can defuse the connection between Caelius and Catiline by presenting the former as the rebellious son who had been seduced into false ways by corrupting influences.
Finally, Cicero completes his destruction of the Caelius/Catiline connection by pronouncing that Caelius had nearly joined with Catiline, as May is quick to point out: "like father, like son!
Clodia's house is mentioned the most and it "a problematized space in which traditional Roman expectations of domestic behavior are egregiously violated".
[40] In Latin literature, the domus was the sphere of influence for women that displayed the Roman qualities of "chastity, fidelity, and wifely obedience" to the husband.
By doing so, Cicero cast Caelius on the "positive side of Roman values" and put Clodia in an "abyss of sexual license and its metonymic counterparts, public chaos and political anarchy".
[45] Cicero then claimed that Clodia created these charges against Caelius and attacked the reputation of Lucceius, who was living in Dio's domus.
[47] Leen argued that the domus had developed a conscience through the ordeal, aided and abetted Clodia through the murder of Dio and convicted her of the crime afterwards.
