Y.R. 692 The patrician Clodius, surnamed Pulcher, which means B.C. 62 handsome, was in love with Caesar’s wife. He arrayed himself in woman’s clothes from head to foot, being still without a beard, and gained admission to Caesar’s house as a woman in the night, at a time when the mysteries [of the Bona Dea] were celebrated, to which only women were admitted. Having lost his guide, and being detected by others by the sound of his voice, he was hustled out. This was one of the important events in Roman history, both in its consequences and as showing the rottenness of society at the time. The presence of Clodius at the festival of the Bona Dea (the Good Goddess) was sacrilege of the deepest dye, and as religion was the foundation of Roman law and life, the culprit must needs be punished. Both Cicero and Hortensius took part in the prosecution. A bill for his trial was brought before the Senate. It provided that the jury of fifty-six persons should be appointed by the praetor. The tribune Fufius proposed that they should be chosen by lot. As there was no room for dispute about the facts, the only question being whether Clodius was there or not, Hortensius accepted the amendment of Fufius, being constrained to do so by the fact that Fufius had the power to veto the bill and stop the proceedings altogether. Hortensius, in his confidence, said that he could cut the throat of Clodius with a leaden sword. The jurors were selected by lot. They were bribed with money advanced by Crassus. Thirty-one voted for acquittal and twenty-five for conviction. The whole affair is described in two of Cicero’s letters to Atticus (i. 14, 16). You ask, he says, what is the state of public affairs and of my own. That constitution of the republic which you thought had been confirmed by my counsels [by the overthrow of Catiline’s conspiracy], and which I thought had been confirmed by Divine Providence, — which seemed to be fixed and founded on the union of all good men and the authority of my consulship, — has, you may be sure, unless some god takes pity on us, slipped from our hands by this single verdict; if it can be called a verdict that thirty men, the basest and most worthless of the Roman people, bought with money, should subvert all law and justice, and that Talna and Plautus and Spongia and other riff-raff of that sort should decide that a thing was not done, which not only all men but even cattle know was done. The only person who really suffered in consequence of the trial of Clodius was Cicero himself. See ii. 14, 15, infra.