Clodia of Rome

Champion of the Republic

By: Douglas Boin

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

One of Rome's most powerful women, Clodia has been maligned over two thousand years as a promiscuous, husband-murdering harlot―thanks to her starring role in one of Cicero's most famous speeches in the Forum. But Cicero was lying, in defense of his own interests. Like so many women libeled or erased from history, Clodia had a life that was much more interesting, complex, and nuanced than the corrupted version passed down through generations.

Drawing on neglected sources and deep, empathetic study of Roman lives, classicist Douglas Boin reconstructs Clodia's eventful passage through her politically divided and tumultuous times, from her privileged childhood to her picking up a family baton of egalitarian activism. A widow and single mother, Clodia had a charisma and power that rivaled her male contemporaries and struck fear into the heart of Rome's political elite. That is, until a sensational murder trial, told here in riveting detail, brought about her fall from grace.

Freed from the caricature that Cicero painted of her, Clodia serves as a reminder of countless women whose stories have been erased from the historical record. In a Rome whose citizens were engaged in heated debates on imperialism, immigration, and enfranchisement, amidst rising anxieties about women's role in society, Clodia was an icon―one worth remembering today.

©2025 Douglas Boin (P)2025 Tantor Media

Worth the listen

A great story. Relevant to understanding ourselves today. I found this book enlightening. I wish I would have learned more about this history growing up. Additionally the narrator does a fantastic job conveying this dense narrative with clarity and an ease of listening. Recommended.

A wonderful and thoughtful provoking book, would highly recommend for those who love history.

An great book for those interested in learning more about ancient Rome, the treatment of women in antiquity or just about how unbecoming/unsavory of a character Cireco really was. The read really brings these people to light, highlighting how much has changed/improved in the last 2,000 years, while also showing us how much is very much the same. Would highly recommend.

Good, but not a lot about Clodia herself

Good. Presented some info I didn’t know, like the attack on Egyptian ambassadors. But there’s little about Clodia. It’s more about the political context of her time. Her name is used in the possessive (Clodia’s brother, Clodia’s husband, Clodia’s fortune) more than the nominative (as in, Clodia herself did this or that). That speaks to the paucity of sources more than an oversight by the author, but other histories of the 1st BC do a better job of painting the backdrop against which she lived.