Editing Bona Dea (section)

===Clodius and the Bona Dea scandal===
The Winter festival rites of 62 BC were hosted by [[Pompeia (wife of Julius Caesar)|Pompeia]], wife of [[Julius Caesar]], senior magistrate in residence and [[pontifex maximus]]. [[Publius Clodius Pulcher]], a [[populares|popularist]] politician and ally of Caesar, was said to have intruded, dressed as a woman and intent on the hostess's seduction. According to Plutarch, [[Aurelia (mother of Caesar)|Caesar's mother, Aurelia]] concealed the cult objects of the Goddess's mysteries from the intruder; but as the rites had been [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#vitium|vitiated]], the Vestals were obliged to repeat them, and after further inquiry by the [[Roman senate|senate]] and [[pontifices]], Clodius was charged with desecration, which carried a death sentence. [[Cicero]], whose wife [[Terentia]] had hosted the previous year's rites, testified for the prosecution.<ref>{{harvnb|Beard|Price|North|1998|pp=129–130, 296–7}}. Clodius' mere presence would have been sacrilegious: the possibility of his intrusion for sexual conquest would be an even more serious offense against Bona Dea. See also Brouwer, p. xxiii, and {{harvnb|Herbert-Brown|1994|p=134}}</ref>

Caesar publicly distanced himself from the affair as much as possible – and certainly from Pompeia, whom he divorced because "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion".<ref>The proverbial phrase "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion" is based on Caesar's own justification of this divorce, following the scandal. See Cicero, ''Letters to Atticus'', 1.13; Plutarch, ''Caesar'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html#9 9-10]; [[Cassius Dio]], ''Roman History'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/37*.html#45 37.45] and Suetonius, ''Julius'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Julius*.html#6.2 6.2 and 74.2] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120530163202/http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Julius*.html#6.2 |date=2012-05-30 }}</ref> He had been correctly absent from the rites but as a [[paterfamilias]] he was responsible for their piety. As ''pontifex maximus'', he was responsible for the ritual purity and piety of public and private religion. He had the responsibility to ensure that the Vestals had acted correctly, then chair the inquiry into what were essentially his own household affairs. Worse, the place of the alleged offense was the state property lent to every pontifex maximus for his tenure of office.{{Sfn|Herbert-Brown|1994|pp=134, 141-143}} It was a high-profile, much-commented case. The rites remained officially secret, but many details emerged during and after the trial, and remained permanently in the public domain. They fueled theological speculation, as in [[Plutarch]] and Macrobius: and they fed the prurient male imagination &ndash; given their innate moral weakness, what might women do when given wine and left to their own devices? Such anxieties were nothing new, and underpinned Rome's traditional strictures against female autonomy. In the political and social turmoil of the Late Republic, Rome's misfortunes were taken as signs of divine anger against the personal ambition, religious negligence and outright impiety of her leading politicians.

Clodius' prosecution was at least partly driven by politics. In an otherwise seemingly thorough account, Cicero makes no mention of Bona Dea's May festival, and claims the goddess' cult as an aristocratic privilege from the first; the impeccably [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]] Clodius, Cicero's social superior by birth, is presented as an innately impious, low-class oaf, and his popularist policies as threats to Rome's moral and religious security. After two years of legal wrangling, Clodius was acquitted – which Cicero put down to jury-fixing and other backroom dealings – but his reputation was damaged.<ref>{{harvnb|Beard|Price|North|1998|pp=129–130, 296–7}}. In 59 BC, to further his political career, which otherwise might have stalled, Clodius renounced his patrician status for a questionable adoption into a [[plebs|plebeian]] ''[[gens]]'', and was elected [[Tribune|tribune of the people]]. To his opponents, he was a dangerous social renegade; he was murdered in 53.</ref> The scandalous revelations at the trial also undermined the sacred dignity and authority of the Vestals, the festival, the goddess, office of the pontifex maximus and, by association, Caesar and Rome itself. Some fifty years later, Caesar's heir Octavian, later the ''[[princeps]]'' [[Augustus]], had to deal with its repercussions.{{Sfn|Herbert-Brown|1994|pp=141-143}}