Analyse how Cicero characterises Clodia in these extracts to serve his rhetorical purposes
- asking questions: attacking, questioning motives (painting as sussy), also makes himself seem attacky and aggressive
- si nostrae...commovebant - emphasises clodia's flaw to the jurors
In these extracts, Cicero characterises Clodia as mostly immorally licentious, but also suggests she is rash and ruining Rome. Then he argues how these characteristics discredit her and her accusations against Caelius.
34:
Cicero uses direct address questions to seemingly question why Clodia is so lustful. But Cicero actually sneakily uses the questions to alledge that Clodia is immoral in various ways. He directly accuses her of disregarding her ancestry ("imagines ... non commovebant"), lacking in feminity, ("laudis in gloria muliebri"), and being lustful ("te fraterna vitia ... moverunt"). Simultaneously, he uses historical precedents of chaste Clodiae ("Q. illa Claudia ... Vestalis Claudia") to make Clodia seem even more disgraceful in comparison. Cicero wraps all this in a convenient Caecus prosopopoeia which allows him to insult a noblewoman without making himself look like the scoundrel he is. All this characterises Clodia as the exact opposite of what a Roman matron should be, separating her from her status in the eyes of the jurors—which discredits her.
Then, Cicero uses a tricolon of Caecus' contributions to Rome ("pacem diremi ... aquam adduxi ... viam munivi") interwoven with another tricolon of Clodia's immorality ("amorum turpissimorum ... inceste ... alienis viris.") He places the Clodia tricolon in result clauses introduced by the Caecus tricolon, implying Clodia's lust is "spoiling" Caecus' contributions—and by extension, Rome itself. This, to some degree, portrays Clodia as an enemy of Rome, which of course discredits her.
35:
Cicero takes a slight break from discrediting Clodia to build on her characterisation. "Tantae familiaritatis, tantae consuetudinis, tantae coniunctionis" has a tricolon of "closeness" words to remind the jury about Clodia's lust. There's also an anaphora of "tantae" to exaggerate her lust.
Then, the dismissive, scolding tone in "nescio qua effrenata atque praecipiti" suggests that the allegations were a blunder on Clodia's part. This portrays her as rash and reckless. It is established that Clodia made allegations against Caelius because he attempted to poison her. But here, Cicero suggests her supposed rashness as a replacement motivation ("nescio qua" is ablative of cause for "deferri ... voluisti"). It conceals the original (much more important) motivation to diminish the gravity of Clodia's allegations.
In "aut ... doceas, aut ... fateare," Cicero makes a false dilemma: either Clodia's allegations are false, or, because of her (supposedly) overly licentious character, she is not to be trusted. Here, Cicero extends his argument from discrediting Clodia herself to discrediting her allegations. He addresses the false dilemma at Clodia, but in reality he's addressing the jurors to influence what conclusions they arrive at.
So by highlighting Clodia's deficits and in particular her lust, Cicero discredits Clodia in various ways and uses her reduced status to minimise the truth of her allegations.