Pro Caelio

Pro Caelio is one of the most famous surviving speeches by the Roman orator, Cicero. It is Cicero's defence, delivered on April 4, 56 BC, of Marcus Caelius Rufus on a number of obscure charges, including sedition, theft, the murder of the Alexandrian diplomat Dio, and the purchasing and use of poison against Clodia. Of these the primary charge is that of political violence, the murder of Dio.

Caelius had been the lover of the notorious Clodia, sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, Cicero's enemy, who may have brought the prosecution. Cicero represents the charges against Caelius as the revenge of a woman scorned, and carries out a skillful character assassination of Clodia.

Cicero's job is doubly hard, as his speech must be delivered in the forum on the feast of the Magna Mater, the Ludi Megalenses. The jurors of the court are being forced to miss out on the plays and games of the festival. Cicero, however, creates a kind of play for his audience by stereotyping the players of the trial into familiar Roman dramatic types, such as the foolish young lover boy. He uses many rhetorical devices to interest his audience, such as monologues from Clodia's relatives' points of view. He even reduces a questionable action of Caelius to a satiric mime. Cicero deflects the charges with these devices, and Caelius is able to be acquitted.

It is sometimes thought that Catullus perhaps wrote Carmen 49 as a 'thank you' epigram to Cicero for not mentioning him in proceedings against Clodia, who is generally thought to be the same person as Catullus' Lesbia.

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