Milo
Killing of Clodius

Milo, endowed with physical courage, with a certain talent for intrigue and for contracting debt, and above all with an ample amount of native assurance which had been carefully cultivated, had made himself a name among the political adventurers of the time, and was the greatest bully in his trade next to Clodius, and naturally therefore through rivalry at the most deadly feud with the latter.  As this Achilles of the streets had been acquired by the regents and with their permission was again playing the ultra-democrat, the Hector of the streets became as a matter of course an aristocrat!  And the republican opposition, which now would have concluded an alliance with Catilina in person, had he presented himself to them, readily acknowledged Milo as their legitimate champion in all riots.  In fact the few successes, which they carried off in this field of battle, were the work of Milo and of his well-trained band of gladiators.  So Cato and his friends in return supported the candidature of Milo for the consulship; even Cicero could not avoid recommending one who had been his enemy’s enemy and his own protector during many years; and as Milo himself spared neither money nor violence to carry his election, it seemed secured.  For the regents it would have been not only a new and keenly-felt defeat, but also a real danger; for it was to be foreseen that the bold partisan would not allow himself as consul to be reduced to insignificance so easily as Domitius and other men of the respectable opposition.  It happened that Achilles and Hector accidentally encountered each other not far from the capital on the Appian Way, and a fray arose between their respective bands, in which Clodius himself received a sword-cut on the shoulder and was compelled to take refuge in a neighbouring house.  This had occurred without orders from Milo; but, as the matter had gone so far and as the storm had now to be encountered at any rate, the whole crime seemed to Milo more desirable and even less dangerous than the half; he ordered his men to drag Clodius forth from his lurking place and to put him to death (13 Jan. 702).

Anarchy in Rome

The street leaders of the regents’ party—­the tribunes of the people Titus Munatius Plancus, Quintus Pompeius Rufus, and Gaius Sallustius Crispus—­saw in this occurrence a fitting opportunity to thwart in the interest of their masters the candidature of Milo and carry the dictatorship of Pompeius.  The dregs of the populace, especially the freedmen and slaves, had lost in Clodius their patron and future deliverer;(11) the requisite excitement was thus easily aroused.  After the bloody corpse had been exposed for show at the orators’ platform in the Forum and the speeches appropriate to the occasion had been made, the riot broke forth.  The seat of the perfidious aristocracy was destined as a funeral pile for the great liberator; the mob carried the body to the senate-house,