The Greek biographer Plutarch wrote about this episode which involved Julius Caesar before he came to fame. A thuggish young man called Publius Clodius sneaked into Caesar’s house during a festival which only women were supposed to attend. Clodius was very young, had little facial hair and disguising himself as a woman tried to seduce Caesar’s wife Pompeia. He was spotted before he could even locate her, and was chased out of the house by the servant girls. Word spread and the city’s officials were aghast that Clodius’s presence had polluted their sacred festival. A tribune (the guardian of the people’s rights) took Clodius to court and prosecuted him on the charge of sacrilege. “Caesar divorced Pompeia at once,” wrote Plutarch, “but when he was called as a witness at the trial, he said that he knew nothing about the charges against Clodius. This seemed a most surprising thing to say and the prosecuting counsel asked: ‘In that case why did you divorce your wife?’ ‘Because,’ said Caesar, ‘I consider that my wife ought not even to be suspected.’ Many contemporary Roman historians refer to this episode including Dio Cassius, Suetonius and Appian, showing that it actually happened. Anyway, Clodius was acquitted of the charge, Caesar gained a reputation and we got the saying about how Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:14:09 +0000
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