This is an essay I wrote examining a famous speech Cicero made about a snit he was in with Clodius.

1. Haley Lynn Shoemaker
Ancient Near East
Prof. Morrow
The gods of Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero is perhaps the best known orator in history, and his “Speech
concerning his House delivered before the College of Pontiffs” is a skillful manipulation of
religion. That speech can be found in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero’s Orations,
translated by N. H. Watts, and more information about Cicero is here drawn from Ancient Rome:
a History by D. Brendan Nagle. In the Roman world, religion was irrevocably linked to the
political operation of the state, and even private religion had to conform to very specific rules
and rituals to avoid challenging the power of the republic.1 Cicero was exiled in 58 B.C.E due to
the machinations of Clodius.2 Clodius then tore down Cicero’s house and built a temple to
Justice in its place. However, Cicero was eventually recalled to Rome, and he regained his house
by arguing in the “Speech concerning his House” that the consecration of the new temple did not
follow the correct forms or laws governing religious ceremony.3 Cicero began this speech in a
manner similar to the modern politicking and pandering which surround religion today. He first
used logic to systematically invalidate each statement his opponent had made to the college. He
continued with a more emotional appeal to the religious sensibilities of the audience. However, it
should be noted that while this appeal was more emotional does not mean that it was not also
vital; normally the consecration of a temple would be an irreversible act. Cicero used the
rigorous requirements of Roman religion and the religious laws of the republic in three ways: he
1 Nagel, 212-3.
2 Nagel, 202.
3 Nagel, 214.

2. condemned the destruction of his house as being both impious and illegal;4 he claimed that the
consecration of the temple of Justice was done in an improper and unlawful way; and he
dismissed the temple itself as an affront to both that god and the pontiffs.5
Cicero needed to make the recovery of his private property a matter of public debate. He
did this in part by claiming:
What is more sacred, more inviolably hedged about by every kind
of sanctity, than the home of every individual citizen? Within its
circle are his altars, his hearths, his household gods, his religion,
his observances, his ritual; it is a sanctuary so holy in the eyes of
all, that it were a sacrilege to tear an owner therefrom.6
Thus he equated Clodius’ destruction of his house with an act of sacrilege against
his family’s gods, an act “in defiance of religion,” which was made all the worse
because Clodius claimed that he tore down the house for the sake of religion.7 He
made the altercation seem like something much more serious than a mere act of
spite, and therefore something to be addressed by the College of Pontiffs.
Cicero then claims that “…the consecration without popular mandate of
any building, land, or altar…” is unlawful.8 Of course, this would include the
consecration of Clodius’ temple. He pointed out that the decision to build the
temple was not submitted to the College of Pontiffs, or even a single pontiff, as
was proper.9 He also made several claims that Clodius had his brother-in-law
perform the rituals of consecration because he could not find anyone else willing
to do so.10 He then went on to say that the rituals themselves were improperly
4 Cicero, 259-83.
5 Cicero, 263-5.
6 Cicero, 263.
7 Ibid.
8 Cicero, 285.
9 Cicero, 291.
10 Cicero, 273, 293.

3. done, pointing out “how Clodius, with a distorted formula, and amid inauspicious
omens, constantly correcting himself, with fearful and faltering hesitation,
pronounced phrases and performed rites entirely different from those contained in
your treatises of ritual.”11 By charactering the construction of the temple in this
way, he created a vision of an inauspicious and foolhardy mistake, rather than an
act of religious conviction. Conveniently, he also made the usually binding
consecration seem not only undoable but actively malicious.
Finally, Cicero needed to show the College of Pontiffs that he was not
asking them to destroy a sacred building. Instead, he was offering to remove an
affront to the dignity of the College and the gods. He confronted Clodius about
the temple to Justice, saying:
‘Justice’… Have you installed at my house her whom you have
ousted from the whole city? You denied freedom of action to your
colleagues [the pontiffs] who were entrusted with supreme
authority… and were you the man to set up an image of Liberty in
a house which was itself a standing indictment of your brutal
despotism and the piteous degradation of the Roman people?12
Cicero even says that the statue of Liberty at the temple is a courtesan statue that
was stolen, implying further insult to that goddess.13 In short, Cicero asserts that
the very existence of the temple is a stain upon the honor of the pontiffs and
injurious to the goddess of Justice.
In conclusion, Cicero uses religion to make his opponent look weak,
insincere and impious, therefore allowing the College of Pontiffs to restore the
most well-loved man in Rome to his house in spite of what would usually be an
11 Cicero, 301.
12 Cicero, Page 265.
13Ibid.

4. inviolable religious ceremony. He used impiety and impropriety first to denounce
the destruction of his house in his absence, then to undermine the subsequent
construction and dedication of the temple of Justice, and finally to contend that
the resulting temple was an outrage to the goddess in question and also to the
College of Pontiffs. Through this skillful and lucrative grandstanding Cicero
regained his property and much of his standing in Roman political life.