INTRODUCTION

OF ALL THE BAD years (and there were many) in the lead-up to the final fall of the Roman Republic, the year 52 bce got off to an especially bad start. Since the Romans sincerely believed that certain days were unlucky, it followed that if the first day of the year happened to fall on one of these unlucky days, the whole year would be marked by misfortune.1 Sure enough, ominous portents began to appear, indicating that things were about to go from bad to worse.2 First, an owl was seen and captured in the city of Rome. While to us this might seem fairly innocuous, albeit a little spooky, to the Romans the owl was associated with blood-drinking and cannibalistic child-killing witches known asstriges, and its hoot was thought to signal impending death.3 Second, a cult statue of the god Mars started to sweat, and its perspiration continued unabated for three days.4 This undeniable sign of divine displeasure could only have been worse if the statue had been sweating blood. Third, a meteor streaked across the sky. Like the hoot of an owl, this was often considered a sign of impending death or other sort of doom. Finally, thunderbolts sounded while clods of earth, stones, shards of pot, and blood flew through the air, all obvious signs of the gods in the heavens attempting to communicate with the mortals down below. But what, exactly, were they saying? And was anyone listening, in any case? In such ill-starred circumstances, it was perhaps unwise for the Senate to vote to tear down the city of Rome’s temples of the Egyptian gods Serapis and Isis, which only increased the sense of unease.

This febrile climate of superstition and fear was further exacerbated by the fact that, due to electoral malfeasance, bribery and corruption, no consuls had been installed in office on 1 January, as would have been the usual practice. The positions, Rome’s supreme magistracies, would remain vacant until July, by which time the elections for the following year’s consulships were imminent. Everyone agreed: something terrible was about to happen.

On 18 January, a senator named Publius Clodius Pulcher was travelling north up the Appian Way to Rome, returning from an overnight trip to Aricia (modern Ariccia), an ancient town up in the Alban Hills, south-east of the city. He was accompanied by three friends – and, he thought, amply protected by a bodyguard comprising around thirty enslaved men armed with swords.5 Late in the afternoon, the group reached the ancient town of Bovillae (modern Frattocchie), where they passed a shrine to the goddess Bona Dea, the ‘Good Goddess’. She was a deity with whom Clodius had history, having been accused of impiety towards her back in 62 bce after interrupting an evening of sacred women-only rites. This resulted in him being put on trial for sacrilege, though he was ultimately acquitted of the charge. It was near this shrine that he and his entourage suddenly encountered a man named Titus Annius Milo, Clodius’ fellow senator, political rival and one of his many enemies. Milo was on his way south to his villa at Lanuvium (modern Lanuvio), accompanied by his wife Fausta Cornelia, several friends, and his own substantial bodyguard comprising perhaps as many as three hundred enslaved people, as well as hi