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CLODIA OF ROME

Douglas Boin

Champion of the Republic

a thrilling new history of the late Roman Republic, told through one woman's quest for justice.
A pioneering political voice, with charisma and power that rivaled many of her male contemporaries, Clodia of Rome was a pivotal figure in the late Roman Republic until a murder trial, rife with corruption, catalyzed her fall from grace. Taking readers inside the courtroom to follow the trial and Clodia's family's tumultuous political history, Douglas Boin brings a modern perspective to a long-buried story, full of juicy details and fascinating anecdotes. With countless examples of the surprising roles that Roman women played, followed by the attempts of powerful men to erase their stories, Boin challenges the male-dominated narrative of classical antiquity. Clodia of Rome offers a new understanding of the radical modernity of first-century Rome?one that mirrors our own in its volatile conflicts between forces of change and those of reaction.

Douglas Boin is professor of history at Saint Louis University and author of Alaric the Goth. His essays have appeared in Time, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his husband.
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Published 2025-08-01 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

Scintillating. . . . Clodia has always fascinatedbut she has also always been a footnote. Here, she has the attention she deserves.

quote Catherine Nixey, author of The Darkening Age

Boin valiantly recovers, reconstructs, and restores the reputation of a strong and independent woman who flouted social norms, attacked the prevailing system of inequality and injustice, and was punished by the powerful men she challenged. Clodia of Rome is a breath of fresh air blowing through the history of the Roman world.

quote Mike Duncan, author of Hero of Two Worlds and The Storm Before the Storm

You cannot read Cicero without wanting to have dinner with Clodia; Douglas Boin's lively and authoritative account brings us as close as we will ever get. This book reveals a woman as principled as she was glamorous, possessed of a concern for political injustice as much as an instinct for luxurious sensuality. Boin brings to sparkling, tensely-charged life a rare moment in Roman history - one in which it seemed that all the entrenched interests and old assumptions might truly be up for grabs.

quote Honor Cargill-Martin, author of She Speaks: the Women of Greek Myths in Their Own Words

Douglas Boin writes with a flair that Clodia herself would have admired. This is a real-life political thriller that takes us through the gritty streets and sumptuous mansions of Rome and reveals how its republic worked.

quote Josiah Osgood, author of Lawless Republic: The Rise of Cicero and the Decline of Rome

A brilliant, charismatic, politically savvy woman is ruined by misogyny and malice via a high- profile murder caseone over 2,000 years old. Douglas Boin's spellbinding account of a Roman woman named Clodia, who died in 44 B.C., shows his mastery of archaeological storytelling, excavating the complex layers of a long overdue exoneration of an extraordinary and timeless woman.

quote Sarah Parcak, author of Archaeology from Space

A brilliant portrait of the most glamorous, enigmatic, and fascinating woman in the history of the late Roman republica book I have been waiting to read since studying Cicero's evisceration of her when I was sixteen.

quote Tom Holland, author of Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

Boin traces volatile political intrigue and upheaval in Rome, Greece, and Egypt and also conveys quotidian realities of Roman life, including food, medicine, and women's cosmetics. A brisk, richly detailed narrative.

review Kirkus