August 2025.

Watch the book trailer at YouTube, and learn more at W. W. Norton.

Who Was Clodia?

Advance Praise for Clodia of Rome

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

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

“Douglas 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.”

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

“Scintillating. . . . Clodia has always fascinated—but she has also always been a footnote. Here, she has the attention she deserves.”

— Catherine Nixey, author of The Darkening Age

“A brilliant, charismatic, politically savvy woman is ruined by misogyny and malice via a high-profile murder case—one 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.”

— Sarah Parcak, author of Archaeology from Space

“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.”

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

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Douglas Boin is Professor of History at Saint Louis University and the author of Alaric the Goth, Coming Out Christian in the Roman World, and two additional books on antiquity. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his husband.