Chapter seven examines an episode in the life of Marcus Tullius Cicero: the demolition of his house after he fled into exile in 58 BCE, and the consequences that followed. In the speech “On his house,” Cicero reveals that his enemy Publius Clodius has assimilated him to three legendary “aspirants to kingship” of the early Republic: Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius, and Marcus Manlius Capitolinus. These figures, evaluated negatively for their crimes, were supposedly executed and their houses demolished. Two additional negative exempla, Marcus Vaccus and Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, were punished similarly for different transgressions. Cicero strenuously denies that he is a “kingship aspirant,” and he turns these exempla against Clodius instead. His argument depends partly on describing a sequence of monumental structures on and neighboring his housesite, whose vicissitudes track their owners’ fortunes. That Cicero and Clodius wage a bitter political dispute in terms of exemplary models and monuments testifies to the persuasive force exempla were thought to possess.