CAELIUS RUFUS, MARCUS

born May 82 BC, Puteoli, Campania died 48, Thurii, Bruttium politician and close friend of Cicero. He is possibly also the Rufus whom the poet Catullus accused of stealing his mistress Clodia. At her instigation Caelius, who had deserted her, was prosecuted for vis (violent acts) in 56, but Cicero and Marcus Licinius Crassus, a man of wealth and influence, spoke in Caelius' defense and he was acquitted. Caelius was educated under the guidance of Crassus and Cicero. In 59 he prosecuted Cicero's colleague, Gaius Antonius Hybrida, for extortion in the consulship of 63 and succeeded in defeating Cicero's defense. He was tribune in 52. In the Civil War of 49 Caelius sided with Julius Caesar against Pompey the Great and fought in northwestern Italy and Spain. He gained the office of praetor peregrinus (judge of suits involving foreigners) in 48 but quarreled violently with the urban praetor Gaius Trebonius and introduced measures amounting to a general cancellation of debts. Deprived of his office by the Senate, he left to join Titus Annius Milo in an insurrection against Caesar, in which both he and Milo were killed.