In the grand sweep of history, Clodius’ murder seems like a footnote. It’s not got the cultural cachet of Caesar crossing the Rubicon or the formation of the first Triumvirate, and Clodius, as even his own modern biographers argue, left no stamp on Roman history except as a rake and a power-hungry dandy.9 But Clodius was another in a long line of magistrates who were on the side of the people of Rome, who were loved by the people of Rome, who tried to address their needs and alleviate their poverty, and who was murdered by men who hated him for it.
