On Political Violence

The ancient legal justification for the extrajudicial removal of elected officials.

I tend to have a healthy backlog for this blog, and I like to keep it that way. Usually when I don’t feel like writing or am otherwise occupied, I’ll burn an article off and catch up at a later week. I don’t feel like writing too much, but I do feel the need to sort my thoughts regarding what happened on Tuesday in a public forum. 

In Cicero’s last recorded political speech before Caesar‘s Civil War, he defended T. Annius Milo from a murder charge. The specifics of the trial matter little for our purposes here today; the striking part of his argument is that, rather than using his time to expressly deny any Milo’s involvement in the murder, Cicero repeatedly argues that the victim was a wicked leader positioned to overthrow the Republic and deserved his fate. This was not broad permission to murder political opponents for their beliefs, but rather the point was that public figures who use their power to do things antithetical to the values of their country have forfeited their right to live unmolested. It should be noted that he did lose this case, but contemporary accounts agree that the revised version that has survived is far superior to the one that he delivered. Indeed, the crimes that Clodius committed against the republic without facing any meaningful consequence were numerous. Those familiar with the early career of Julius Caesar will recognize Clodius as the criminal who interrupted the rites of the Bona Dea.¹ The charge of incestum, or violation of chastity, did not stick, but his social standing suffered a heavy blow. This, along with the destruction caused by his supporters and their massive funeral pyre, Cicero gave as just cause for the dismissal of charges against Milo. Romans took the violation of the vestal virgins as a matter of treason: tribute to Vesta (known as Hestia to the Greeks) was tied to the health of the people, their fields, and later the empire as a whole. Her cult was the last pagan office to be disbanded in the late 4th century A.D. after the rise of Christianity.² Clodius brought such great harm on their nation that, to Cicero, his life was worth sacrificing for the good of the Republic. That is to say, the Romans felt that if political figures failed to meet expectations or usurped power, any action necessary to take them out of office was permissible.