Clodius was incredibly powerful in his time. We often talk about the triumvirate, about Caesar and Pompey, but from 59 to about 55 (or so), Clodius was the most powerful man in Rome. Our understanding of his influence has really blossomed in the past century, culminating perhaps in Gruen's comments on him, which I parrot. Violence in the streets of Rome was nothing new and had been rampant for fifty years already, but Clodius weaponized it and organized it in a way it had never been achieved before. He built a network of popular support and populace-sanctioned goons on the model of the clientelae of Roman senatorial clans. He was the Al Capone of Roman Chicago, but much more powerful, much more feared, much more well-liked by the population at large as a romantic and heroic figure, and somehow much more dignified. He knew exactly what buttons to push to mold the Roman populace in his hand like putty. Almost instantly upon taking up the tribunate in 58, he quickly pushed through several bills which were directly related to the people and his role as their champion: he saw to the continuation of their free grain, and he reinstated the outlawed political organizations called collegia, which were akin to ancient guilds, unions, social clubs, and mini-mafias.

Yes, the violence blatantly instigated by Clodius was illegal and he should have been prosecuted dē vī, for violent acts, but who would dare to try the case? The senate was fractured into factions and complicated webs of obligation and reprisal. Enacting the senatus consultum ultimum required strong leadership and at least the semblance of solidarity, neither of which the senate could muster for the majority of the 50s BCE. Clodius collected favors and grudges like trading cards and he played the factions against each other for his own benefit. He only kept his alliances as long as they served him, and no one was safe from his very potent wrath. He attacked Caesar's acts as consul in 59, even though those acts included Clodius' own ridiculous adoption into a plebeian family (thereby facilitating his tribunate in 58). Caesar was busy in Gaul, yes, but Gruen thinks he was also too...cautious?... to really try to intervene, since Clodius' brothers were in the praetor phase of their careers and were likely to be consuls in the coming years. Caesar preferred to stay well away from all that noise. Pompey was so incessantly attacked that he was essentially a prisoner in his own house, and he was even physically assaulted by Clodius' goons. His fasces were thrown in the dirt. Both Cicero and Cato, Clodian enemies par excellence, were chased out of town. The only way to battle him was to beat him at his own gang, which Pompey finally managed to sort out by the dubious services of Milo. Ironically, it would be Milo who would be under real threat of prosecution for violence, under the machinations of—who else?—Clodius. He only gave it up when his efforts to make the trial a reality were continuously disrupted by his own most potent weapon: relentless, organized street violence.