Pro Milone

The Pro Tito Annio Milone ad iudicem oratio (Pro Milone) is a speech made by Marcus Tullius Cicero on behalf of his friend Titus Annius Milo. Milo was accused of murdering his political enemy Publius Clodius Pulcher on the Via Appia. Cicero wrote the speech in 52 BCE.

Milo was a praetor at the time who was attempting to gain the much-vaunted post of consul. Clodius was a former tribune standing for the office of praetor. The charge was brought against Milo for the death of Clodius following a violent altercation on the Via Appia, outside Clodius' estate in Bovillae. After the initial brawl, it seems that Clodius was wounded during the fight that was started by both men's slaves.

The sequence of events described by the prosecution and the commentary of Asconius Pedianus, an ancient commentator who analyzed several of Cicero's speeches and had access to various documents that no longer exist, was this: the absence of a summary of the chain of events in Cicero's speech may be attributed to their incriminating evidence against Milo. Presumably, Cicero correctly realised that to be the primary weakness. It can be assumed, from the fact that the jury indeed convicted Milo, that it felt that although Milo may not have been aware of Clodius's initial injury, his ordering of Clodius' butchering warranted punishment.

When initially questioned about the circumstances of Clodius' death, Milo responded with the excuse of self-defense and that it was Clodius who laid a trap for Milo to kill him. Cicero had to fashion his speech to be congruent with Milo's initial excuse, a restraint that probably affected the overall presentation of his case. To convince the jury of Milo's innocence, Cicero used the fact that following Clodius death, a mob of Clodius' own supporters, led by the scribe Sextus Cloelius, carried his corpse into the Senate house (curia) and cremated it using the benches, platforms, tables and scribes' notebooks, as a pyre. In doing so, it also burnt down much of the curia; Clodius' supporters also launched an attack on the house of the then interrex, Marcus Lepidus. Pompey thus ordered a special inquest to investigate that as well as the murder of Clodius. Cicero refers to this incident throughout the Pro Milone by implying that there was greater general indignation and uproar at the burning of the curia than there was at the murder of Clodius.

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