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Home / People / Clodia

Historical person

Clodia

born 96 BCE

Clodia was a Roman aristocrat of the late Republic, often identified with the Lesbia of Catullus’s poetry. She belonged to the powerful Claudian family and appears in hostile legal and literary sources as a figure of scandal, influence and elite social conflict.

She belonged to the powerful Claudian family, was the sister of the populist politician Publius Clodius Pulcher and married the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer. Cicero attacked her character in the speech Pro Caelio, making the evidence for her life unusually partisan.

Steven Saylor’s The Venus Throw makes Clodia an active participant in Gordianus’s investigation: she hires him after the murder of Dio of Alexandria, and the case ultimately converges on the trial of Marcus Caelius Rufus, where Cicero turns his defence into a notorious public attack on her. A Mist of Prophecies returns Clodia to the circle of powerful Roman women surrounding a murdered prophetess called Cassandra, using the uncertainty of Caesar’s civil war to explore how aristocratic women could exercise influence through households, information and private alliances.

Periods

Periods linked to Clodia

Late Roman Republic133–27 BCE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Clodia (1 series)

Roma Sub Rosa in Order

by Steven Saylor 13 books 4.1(53,315)

The Roma Sub Rosa series follows Gordianus the Finder through the last generation of the Roman Republic. His investigations begin in the aftermath of Sulla’s dictatorship and continue through slave revolt, aristocratic trials, Catiline’s conspiracy, Caesar’s civil war and the assassination of Julius Caesar. The series uses murder…

All books in this series