On This Day in Ancient History - January 18 
Appian Way
Creative Commons. Courtesy of iessi at Flickr.
Appian Way
Creative Commons. Courtesy of iessi at Flickr.
On this day in 52 B.C., Clodius Pulcher (Clodius the Beautiful) was killed on the Appian Way. Like his contemporary Cicero, Clodius Pulcher was a pivotal figure in the late Roman Republic, who seems to have had connections with every other important name from the period.
Clodius Pulcher was a scoundrel from an ancient patrician family (see Appius Claudius Caecus) whose shenanigans eventually led to his death on the Appian Way, at the hands of a rival gang that was led by Milo, memorably recreated by Steven Saylor in one the works of fiction featuring Clodius Pulcher. Clodius' most infamous deed is known as the Bona Dea Scandal.
- Read Plutarch's account of the Bona Dea Scandal
- Cicero and Clodius, from Bingley's biography of Cicero
- Clodius Pulcher Timeline
- Sallust
"This day in ancient history" caveat: please see Unreliability of Dates.
Comments
While I may understand the chronological differences in your differentiation between Clodius and Claudius (after all, wasn’t the change to Clodius after the Bona Dea scandal?), readers might not catch the subtlety.
All the best,
Chris Weimer
Why a movie hasn’t been done depicting the life of Clodius, I’ll never know. His is a life that has everything an audience would love: war, murder, incest, homosexuality, politics, palaces, travel, scheming, etc. I guess the general population wouldn’t recognize the name and not be interested.