The Eastern Clientelae of Clodius and the Claudii

Abstract A good deal of light has been thrown on the activities of P. Clodius in recent years. His organization of the urban plebs and the collcgia has been studied with valuable results. It has been argued, and seems to be becoming accepted, that he was an independent politician rather than a hired representative of Caesar or Crassus–something that, for a member of a family with a tradition like that of the patrician Claudii, should never have been doubted. For the importance of family tradition, indeed, we need only refer to Cicero’s de Officiis r. r r6, on copying one’s own maiorcs. I would like to suggest that there was another aspect of his family’s tradition that was of great importance to Clodius, as it was to his brothers Appius and Gaius: the desire to keep up and extend the enormous hereditary clientelae that for more than two centuries we can trace gradually spreading over the whole Greek–speaking world–a process that we cannot follow in such detail for any other family.