Twinned Fortunes and the Publication of Cicero’s Pro Milone

n 52 b.c.e., Publius Clodius Pulcher, the man who had engineered Cicero’s exile, met Titus Annius Milo on the Via Appia by chance. Fighting broke out between their entourages and Clodius was wounded. Milo, apparently believing that he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, ordered his followers to drag Clodius from the inn where he was recovering and kill him. The body of Clodius was left on the roadway. So we are told by Asconius,1 though these events leave little mark on the speech that Cicero wrote to defend Milo. The corpse of Clodius was conveyed to Rome in the litter of a senator who had happened upon it. The arrival of the body in Rome created a furor. The senate, under the pressure of fiery contiones held by the supporters of both Clodius and Milo, declared that the violence that had taken place on the Via Appia was detrimental to the state.2 Pompey was declared sole consul in a bid to calm the chaos. He established a special court and it was here that Milo appeared with Cicero as his only advocate.3 The circumstances of the trial are famous and are alluded to in the exordium of Cicero’s speech, where he confesses his fear at seeing the unaccustomed glitter of weapons in the Forum (Mil. 1).4 Surrounded by Clodian supporters and Pompey’s troops, Cicero failed to maintain his own equanimity.5 The