Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

by Tom Holland

Capture by pirates had recently become something of an occupational hazard for Roman aristocrats. Eight years previously Julius Caesar had been abducted while en route to Molon’s finishing school. When the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar had indignantly claimed that he was worth at least fifty. He had also warned his captors that he would capture and crucify them once he had been released, a promise that he had duly fulfilled. Clodius’s own dealings with pirates were to contribute less flatteringly to his reputation. When he wrote to the king of Egypt demanding the ransom fee, the response was a derisory payment of two talents, to the immense amusement of the pirates and the fury of the captive himself. The final circumstances of Clodius’s release were lost in a murk of scandal. His enemies—of whom there were many—claimed that the price had been his anal virginity.