One of the more colourful figures of the late Roman Republic was Publius Clodius Pulcher, a famous rival of Cicero, who in 63 BC was tried for the capital offense of sacrilege after dressing in drag to infiltrate a women-only ritual in reverence of the goddess Bona Dea. His objective was to seduce the wife of Caesar, Pompei, and while unsuccessful, his action led to their subsequent divorce. It was political machination of the most bizarre sort, full of strange legal wrangling, reminiscent of the earlier part of Clodius’s career, whereby he aspired to be adopted by a plebeian family in order to apply for a political office restricted to members of that class. Late Roman Republican politics, replete with what today we call lawfare, brings to mind an adage of Nicolás Gómez Dávila’s, that “dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies.”
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The Latifundia
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One of the more colourful figures of the late Roman Republic was Publius Clodius Pulcher, a famous rival of Cicero, who in 63 BC was tried for the capital offense of sacrilege after dressing in drag to infiltrate a women-only ritual in reverence of the goddess Bona Dea. His objective was to seduce the wife of Caesar, Pompei, and while unsuccessful, his action led to their subsequent divorce. It was political machination of the most bizarre sort, full of strange legal wrangling, reminiscent of the earlier part of Clodius’s career, whereby he aspired to be adopted by a plebeian family in order to apply for a political office restricted to members of that class. Late Roman Republican politics, replete with what today we call lawfare, brings to mind an adage of Nicolás Gómez Dávila’s, that “dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies.”