"Nature herself has endless tricks to lull a man's virtue to sleep while waking up his appetite for pleasure. She tempts the young down all sorts of dangerously slippery paths, but to compensate she lavishes on them great stamina and exquisite sensitivity. Show me a young man who despises the sight of beauty, who derives no pleasure from scent or touch or taste, who plugs his ears to keep out sweet music; I and a few others might argue that a youth of such purity has been blessed, but I think most of you would say he was cursed by the gods!
"Enough, then, of absolute standards! Let youth be permitted its pleasures. Let immaturity be allowed to flirt with foolishness. If he has a strong character, a young man will not be diminished by these expe-riences but will eventually outgrow them and be ready to take his place as a man of affairs in the Forum. Who can doubt that Marcus Caelius has already done so? You've watched him match wits with me here in the Forum. You've seen how eloquently he defended himself here today. What a superb orator! Let me tell you, from my own experience, cultivating that degree of skill requires enormous dedication and discipline. Marcus Caelius has reached a stage in his career where he no longer has the time or inclination to follow frivolous pursuits.
"Now then, we have navigated our way through the rocky shoals and treacherous reefs. From here on, clear sailing! Let us get back to those two charges against Caelius. The gold: Caelius is said to have gotten it from Clodia in order to bribe the slaves of Lucius Lucceius to kill Dio. Grave charges, to be sure, asserting that a man plotted to murder a diplomatic envoy, and instigated slaves to kill their master's guest- heinous crimes!
"But I have to wonder: would Clodia have given this gold to Caelius without asking why he wanted it? Surely not! If he told her it was to murder Dio, then she was in on the plot. Is that why you came here today, woman, to make a confession? To tell us how you raided your secret treasure chest, denuded that statue of Venus in your garden adorned with all those pretty trophies from your lovers, so that you could hand over the booty to Caelius for criminal use? Did you make Venus herself an accomplice in crime?"
I glanced at Catullus, for it seemed to me that from the corner of my eye I had seen his lips moving, as if he was reciting Cicero's speech along with him. He noticed my scrutiny, flashed something between a smile and a wince, and turned away. I looked at Clodia and caught a glimpse of her pale, rigid face before the crowd blocked my view.
Cicero went on. "If Caelius was as intimate with Clodia as the prosecutors maintain, then surely he shared with her the purpose to which he intended to put the gold. On the other hand, if the two of them were not on such intimate terms, then surely she never gave him the gold at all! Which is it, Clodia? Did you lend a man money to commit an unspeakable crime, making a criminal of yourself? Or is the truth that you never lent him the money at all?
"The accusation simply will not stand up, and not just because the character of Marcus Caelius is wholly at odds with such a loathsome, skulking plot. He's too smart, for one thing. No man with any sense would entrust a crime of such magnitude to the slaves of another man! On purely practical grounds, I have to ask: how is Caelius supposed to have made contact with these slaves of Lucius Lucceius? Did he meet with them directly-very rash-or through an intermediary? May we have the name of this go-between? No, because no such person exists. I could go on and on with such questions. How many must I ask to show how totally implausible the whole charge is, and how utterly without proof?
"To put the matter to rest, let us hear from Lucius Lucceius himself, who has provided a sworn deposition on the matter. I remind you that he was not only Dio's good friend and dutiful host, but a man who pays scrupulous attention to detail, as anyone familiar with his historical writings can attest. Surely if Lucceius had discovered that slaves belonging to him were plotting with an outsider to murder his guest, if he ever had even the least suspicion of such a thing, Lucceius would have gotten to the bottom of it. What citizen could do less, with his own honor at stake? Listen, then, to what he has to tell us."
A clerk came forward to read the deposition. Cicero walked to the defendant's bench, where his secretary, Tiro, handed him a cup of water. I thought back to my interview with Lucceius, how adamantly he had refused to acknowledge the slightest possibility that something had been amiss in his house, how his wife had known better, how the kitchen slaves who must have known something had been sent off to the mines and would never tell anyone what they knew.
The clerk cleared his throat, "I, Lucius Lucceius, under solemn oath, make this statement on the Kalends of Aprilis: That for a period in the month of Januarius, Dio of Alexandria, my esteemed friend, was a guest under my roof; that while he was my guest, nothing occurred to endanger his safety; that any rumors to the contrary, particularly rumors asserting a breach of loyalty among my household slaves, are completely scurrilous; that Dio left my house of his own choice and in good health; that I myself know nothing which might shed light on the circumstances of his death."
Cicero stepped before the judges. "There you have it: a wild, wholly unfounded accusation that emanates from a household of wanton de-bauchery and wickedness; and a level-headed, sober response, from a household of impeccable standards. On one hand, we have the word of a foul-tempered, raving, sex-crazed woman; on the other, the sworn affidavit of one of the most respectable men in Rome. Need we hesitate about choosing whom to believe?
"On then to the accusation that Caelius plotted to poison Clodia. I confess, I can't make heads or tails of this story. Why should Caelius want to do such a thing? To avoid paying back the alleged loan? But did Clodia ever ask to be repaid? To keep Clodia from telling what she knew about the attempt on Dio's life? But there was no such attempt, as we have just established. Indeed, I would suggest that this nonsense about gold and a plot against Dio was fabricated precisely to provide a motive for this other fabrication, that Caelius tried to poison Clodia. One fabrication is invented to provide a motive for another fabrication! Lie builds upon lie, slander upon slander.
"The prosecution alleges that Caelius once again attempted to commit murder by bribing someone else's slaves-this time, Clodia's slaves, to do in their mistress. And this, after having failed to pull off the same kind of plot with Lucceius's slaves! What kind of man puts his whole fate into the hands of another person's slaves, not once but twice? At least credit my client with having a brain!
"And just what sort of slaves are we talking about? In the case of Clodia's household, this is an important point. As Caelius must have known if he ever visited her house, the relationship between Clodia and her slaves can scarcely be described as normal. In a household like that, headed by a woman who behaves like a prostitute, where abnormal lusts and unheard-of vices are practiced on a daily basis, where slaves are invited to share an inordinate amount of intimacy with their superiors- well, those slaves are slaves no longer. They share everything with their mistress, including her secrets. They become her companions in loose living. In a household like that, the people on the bottom are sometimes quite literally on top."
I caught sight of Clodia, who seemed to physically shrink from the gales of laughter that roared through the Forum. Cicero held up his hand to quiet the crowd. "Keeping slaves in that fashion has one virtue, at least: such corrupted, pampered slaves must be almost impossible to bribe. Caelius must have known that, if he was as intimate with Clodia as we've been led to believe. Ifhe knew the situation, surely he would have known better than to try to insinuate himself between such a woman and her slaves-a tight spot for any man to wriggle into! If he didn't realize the situation, then how could he have been so intimate with the slaves that he would consider bribing them? The allegation contradicts itself.