Product Code Database
Valeria Messalina (; ) was the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius. She was a paternal cousin of Emperor Nero, a second cousin of Emperor Caligula, and a great-grandniece of Emperor Augustus. A powerful and influential woman with a reputation for promiscuity, she allegedly conspired against her husband and was executed on the discovery of the plot. Her notorious reputation may have resulted from political bias, but works of art and literature have perpetuated it into modern times.
Little is known about Messalina's life prior to her marriage in 38 to Claudius, her first cousin once removed, who was then about 47 years old. Two children were born as a result of their union: a daughter Claudia Octavia (born 39 or 40), a future empress, stepsister, and first wife to the emperor Nero; and a son, Britannicus. When the Emperor Caligula was murdered in 41, the Praetorian Guard proclaimed Claudius the new emperor and Messalina became empress.
Tacitus himself claimed to be transmitting "what was heard and written by my elders" but without naming sources other than the memoirs of Agrippina the Younger, who had arranged to displace Messalina's children in the imperial succession and was therefore particularly interested in sullying her predecessor's name.K.A.Hosack, "Can One Believe the Ancient Sources That Describe Messalina?", Constructing the Past 12.1, 2011] Examining his narrative style and comparing it to that of the satires of Juvenal, another critic remarks on "how the writers manipulate it in order to skew their audience's perception of Messalina".Nicholas Reymond, Meretrix Augusta: The Treatment of Messalina in Tacitus and Juvenal, McMaster University 2000 Indeed, Tacitus seems well aware of the impression he is creating when he admits that his account may seem fictional, if not melodramatic ( fabulosus).Katharine T. von Stackelberg, "Performative Space and Garden Transgressions in Tacitus' Death of Messalina", The American Journal of Philology 130.4 (Winter, 2009), pp. 595–624 It has therefore been argued that the chorus of condemnation against Messalina from these writers is largely a result of the political sanctions that followed her death,Harriet I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture, University of North Carolina 2011, pp. 182–189 although some authors have still seen "something of substance beyond mere invention".Thomas A. J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome, Oxford University 1998 p. 170
In the final two years of her life, she also intensified her attacks on her husband's only surviving niece, Agrippina the Younger, and Agrippina's young son Nero (the later Emperor Nero). The public sympathized with Agrippina, who had twice been exiled and was the only surviving daughter of Germanicus after Messalina secured the execution of Julia Livilla. Agrippina was implicated in the alleged crimes of Statilius Taurus, whom it was alleged she directed to partake in "magical and superstitious practices".Tacitus, Annals XII.59.1 Taurus committed suicide, and, according to Tacitus, Messalina was only prevented from further persecuting Agrippina because she was distracted by her new lover, Gaius Silius.Tacitus, Annales, XI.10
According to Suetonius, Messalina realized early on that the young Nero could be a potential rival to her own son, who was three years younger. He repeated a tale that Messalina sent several assassins into Nero's bedchamber to murder him, but they were frightened off by what they thought was a snake slithering out from under his bed. In the Secular Games of 48, Nero won greater applause from the crowd than did Messalina's own son Britannicus, something which scholars have speculated led Messalina to plot to destroy Nero and his mother once and for all.
Two very prominent senators, Appius Silanus and Valerius Asiaticus, also met their death on the instigation of Messalina. The former was married to Messalina's mother Domitia Lepida, but according to Dio and Tacitus, Messalina coveted him for herself. In 42, Messalina and the freedman Narcissus devised an elaborate ruse, whereby they each informed Claudius that they had had identical dreams during the night portending that Silanus would murder Claudius. When Silanus arrived that morning (after being summoned by either Messalina or Narcissus), he confirmed their portent and Claudius had him executed.Tacitus, Annales, iv. 68, vi. 9, xi. 29.Suetonius, "The Life of Claudius", 29, 37.Cassius Dio, ix. 14.
Valerius Asiaticus was one of Messalina's final victims. Asiaticus was immensely rich and incurred Messalina's wrath because he owned the Gardens of Lucullus, which she desired for herself, and because he was the lover of her hated rival Poppaea Sabina the Elder, with whom she was engaged in a fierce rivalry over the affections of the actor Mnester.Tacitus, Annals, 11.2 In 46, she convinced Claudius to order his arrest on charges of failing to maintain discipline amongst his soldiers, adultery with Sabina, and for engaging in homosexual acts.Alston, Aspects of Roman History AD 14–117, p. 95 Although Claudius hesitated to condemn him to death, he ultimately did so on the recommendation of Messalina's ally, and Claudius' partner in the consulship for that year, Lucius Vitellius. The murder of Asiaticus, without notifying the senate and without trial, caused great outrage amongst the senators, who blamed both Messalina and Claudius. Despite this, Messalina continued to target Poppaea Sabina until she committed suicide.Tacitus, Annales, XI.1–3
The same year as the execution of Asiaticus, Messalina ordered the poisoning of Marcus Viniciusbecause he refused to sleep with her according to gossip.Cassius Dio 60, 27, 4 About this time she also arranged for the execution of one of Claudius' freedmen secretaries, Polybius. According to Dio, this murder of one of their own turned the other freedmen, previously her close allies, against Messalina for good.
Tacitus and Dio state that Narcissus convinced Claudius that it was a move to overthrow him and persuaded him to appoint the deputy Praetorian Prefect, Lusius Geta, to the charge of the Guard because the loyalty of the senior Prefect Rufrius Crispinus was in doubt. Claudius rushed back to Rome, where he was met by Messalina on the road with their children. The leading Vestal Virgin, Vibidia, came to entreat Claudius not to rush to condemn Messalina. He then visited the house of Silius, where he found a great many heirlooms of his Claudia gens and Drusii forebears, taken from his house and gifted to Silius by Messalina. When Messalina attempted to gain access to her husband in the palace, she was repulsed by Narcissus and shouted down with a list of her various offences compiled by the freedman. Despite the mounting evidence against her, Claudius's feelings were softening and he asked to see her in the morning for a private interview. Narcissus, pretending to act on Claudius' instructions, ordered an officer of the Praetorian Guard to execute her. When the troop of guards arrived at the Gardens of Lucullus, where Messalina had taken refuge with her mother, she was given the honorable option of taking her own life. Unable to muster the courage to slit her own throat, she was run through with a sword by one of the guards. Upon hearing the news, the Emperor did not react and simply asked for another chalice of wine. The Roman Senate then ordered a damnatio memoriae so that Messalina's name would be removed from all public and private places and all statues of her would be taken down.
Such measures were not totally effective and several images of Messalina have survived for one reason or another.Eric R. Varner, "Portraits, Plots, and Politics: "Damnatio memoriae" and the Images of Imperial Women", Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. 46 (2001), pp. 41–93 One such is the doubtfully ascribed bust in the Uffizi Gallery that may in fact be of Agrippina, Messalina's successor as wife of Claudius (see above). Another in the Louvre is thought to be of Messalina holding her child Britannicus. In fact it is based on a famous Greek sculpture by Cephisodotus the Elder of Eirene carrying the child Ploutos, of which there were other Roman imitations. Wikimedia
Some of the surviving engraved gems that feature Messalina were also indebted to ancient Greek models. They include the carved sardonyx of Messalina accompanied by Claudius in a dragon chariot, which commemorated his part in the Roman conquest of Britain. This was modelled on depictions of Dionysus and Ariadne after his Indian victory and is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Cabinet des Médailles). Gallery of Ancient Art In its Roman adaptation, Messalina is in front guiding the chariot while Claudius stands behind her steadying his flying robe. The piece was once in the collection of Peter Paul Rubens, who made an ink sketch of it, although identifying the woman erroneously as Agrippina. Photo on Flickr However, there is another version of this victory celebration known as the Hague cameo, which may be a later imitation. In a chariot drawn by , the laurel-wreathed Messalina reclines in the post of honour, bearing the attributes of Ceres. Beside her sits Claudius with one arm about her neck and Jupiter's thunderbolt in his other hand. In front stands the child Britannicus in complete armour, with his elder sister Octavia next to him.C.W.King, Handbook of Engraved Gems (London 1885), p. 57 The Hague cameo
Yet another carved sardonyx now in the national library of France represents a bust of the laureled Messalina, with on either side of her the heads of her son and daughter emerging from a cornucopia. The Paris cameo This too once belonged to Rubens and a Flemish engraving after his drawing of it is in the British Museum. BM Museum number 1891,0414.1238 A simple white portrait bust of the empress is also held by the Bibliothèque nationale. Cameo Jewels of Ancient Rome A portrait oval in yellow carnelian was once recorded as being in the collection of Lord Montague;Copperplate engraving by Thomas Worlidge from James Vallentin's One Hundred and Eight Engravings from Antique Gems, 1863, #65 another in sardonyx once belonged to the Antikensammlung Berlin. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Two authors especially supplemented the gossip and officially dictated versions recorded by later historians and added to Messalina's notoriety. One such story is the account of her all-night sex competition with a prostitute in Book X of Pliny the Elder's Natural History, according to which the competition lasted "night and day" and Messalina won with a score of 25 partners.Online translation, X ch.83
The poet Juvenal mentions Messalina twice in his satires. As well as the story in his tenth satire that she compelled Gaius Silius to divorce his wife and marry her,Satire X, translated by A. S. Kline, lines 329–336 the Satire VI contains the notorious description of how the Empress used to work clandestinely all night in a brothel under the name of the She-Wolf. In the course of that account, Juvenal coined the phrase frequently applied to Messalina thereafter, meretrix augusta (the imperial whore). In so doing, he coupled her reputation with that of Cleopatra, another victim of imperially directed character assassination, whom the poet Propertius had earlier described as meretrix regina (the harlot queen).
The earlier propaganda against Cleopatra is described as "rooted in the hostile Roman literary tradition".Margaret M. Miles, "Cleopatra in Egypt, Europe and New York" in Cleopatra: A Sphinx Revisited, University of California 2011, p. 17 Similar literary tactics, including the suggestive mingling of historical fact and gossip in the officially approved annals, is what has helped prolong the scandalous reputation of Messalina as well.
The ambivalent attitude to Messalina can be seen in the late mediaeval French prose work in the J. Paul Getty Museum illustrated by the Master of Boucicaut, Tiberius, Messalina, and Caligula reproach one another in the midst of flames. It recounts a dialogue that takes place in hell between the three characters from the same imperial line. Messalina wins the debate by demonstrating that their sins were far worse than hers and suggests that they repent of their own wickedness before reproaching her as they had done.
While Messalina's wicked behavior towards others is given full emphasis, and even exaggerated in early works, her sexual activities have been treated more sympathetically. In the 1524 illustrations of 16 sexual positions known as I Modi, each was named after a couple from Classical history or myth, which included "Messalina in the Booth of Lisisca". Although early editions were destroyed by religious censorship, Agostino Caracci's later copies have survived (see above).
Other artistic illustrations of Messalina's reported depravity, supposedly based on ancient medals and cameos, appear in the works of Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville. His main account, padded with more general quotations condemning the laxity of the times, takes up three chapters of his Monuments of the Private Lives of the Twelve Caesars (1780). Monumens de la Vie Privée des Douze Césars, Chez Sabellus, Capri chapters 29–31 Chapter 29 deals with Messalina's public marriage to Gaius Silius. The following chapters are illustrated by cameos ascribed to a certain Pythodorus of Trallès. In the first, Messalina sits naked while a maid dresses her hair in preparation for taking up her role as the courtesan Lisisica; in the other she offers fourteen myrtle wreaths to Priapus following her triumph in exhausting as many fit young men in a sexual contest. She also sits before a private shrine to Priapus in an illustration for the author's other pornographic work, Monuments of the Secret Cult of Roman Women (1787). Monumens du Culte Secret des Dames Romaines, Sabellus, Capri (Leclerc, Nancy) Illustration 32
In 1870 the French committee for the Prix de Rome set Messalina's death as the competition subject for that year. The winning entry by Fernand Lematte, The Death of Messalina, is based on the description of the occasion by Tacitus. Following the decision that she must die, "Evodus, one of the freedmen, was appointed to watch and complete the affair. Hurrying on before with all speed to the gardens, he found Messalina stretched upon the ground, while by her side sat Lepida, her mother, who, though estranged from her daughter in prosperity, was now melted to pity by her inevitable doom, and urged her not to wait for the executioner". Annales 11.37 In Messalina's hand is the thin dagger that she dare not use, while Evodus bends over her threateningly and Lepida tries to fend him off. In an earlier French treatment by , the lesson of poetic justice is made plainer by specifically identifying the scene of Messalina's death as the garden which she had obtained by having its former owner executed on a false charge. Now she crouches at the foot of a wall carved with the name of Lucullus and is condemned by the dark-clothed intermediary as a soldier advances on her drawing his sword. Wiki-Commons
Two Low Countries painters emphasised the behaviour of Messalina that led up to her end by picturing her wedding with Gaius Silius. The one by Nicolaus Knüpfer, dated about 1650, is so like contemporary brothel scenes that its subject is ambiguous and has been disputed. A richly dressed drunkard lies back on a bed between two women while companions look anxiously out of the window and another struggles to draw his sword.Wiki-Commons The later "Landscape with Messalina's Wedding" by Victor Honoré Janssens pictures the seated empress being attired before the ceremony. Wiki-Commons Neither scene looks much like a wedding, but rather they indicate the age's sense of moral outrage at this travesty of marriage. That was further underlined by a contemporary Tarot card in which card 6, normally titled "The Lovers", has been retitled "Shameless" ( impudique) and pictures Messalina leaning against a carved chest. Beneath is the explanation that "she reached such a point of insolence that, because of the stupidity of her husband, she dared to marry a young Roman publicly in the Emperor's absence".
The wild scenes following the wedding that took place in Rome are dramatised by Tacitus. "Messalina meanwhile, more wildly profligate than ever, was celebrating in mid-autumn a Bacchanalia in her new home. The presses were being trodden; the vats were overflowing; women girt with skins were dancing, as Maenad dance in their worship or their frenzy. Messalina with flowing hair shook the thyrsus, and Silius at her side, crowned with ivy and wearing the buskin, moved his head to some lascivious chorus". Annales 11.31 Such was the scene of drunken nudity painted by Gustave Surand in 1905. Wikimedia
Other artists show similar scenes of debauchery or, like the Italian A. Pigma in When Claudius is away, Messalina will play (1911), hint that it will soon follow. What was to follow is depicted in Federico Faruffini's The orgies of Messalina (1867–1868). Wiki-Commons A more private liaison is treated in Joaquín Sorolla's Messalina in the Arms of the Gladiator (1886). Wiki-Media This takes place in an interior, with the empress reclining bare breasted against the knees of a naked gladiator.
Juvenal's account of her nights spent in the brothel is commonly portrayed. Gustave Moreau painted her leading another man onto the bed while an exhausted prostitute sleeps in the background, while in Paul Rouffio's painting of 1875 she reclines bare-breasted as a slave offers grapes. The Dane Peder Severin Krøyer depicted her standing, her full body apparent under the thin material of her dress. The ranks of her customers are just visible behind the curtain against which she stands (see above). Two drawings by Aubrey Beardsley were produced for a private printing of Juvenal's satires (1897). The one titled Messalina and her companion showed her on the way to the brothel, while a rejected drawing is usually titled Messalina returning from the bath. Victoria & Albert Museum About that period, too, Roman resident Pavel Svedomsky reimagined the historical scene. There the disguised seductress is at work in a light-suffused alley, enticing a passer-by into the brothel from which a maid looks out anxiously. Messalina at AKG Images
Alternatively, artists drew on Pliny's account of her sex competition. The Brazilian Henrique Bernardelli (1857–1936) showed her lying across the bed at the moment of exhaustion afterwards.Wiki-Commons So also did Eugène Cyrille Brunet's dramatic marble sculpture, dating from 1884 (see above), while in the Czech Jan Štursa's standing statue of 1912 she is holding a last piece of clothing by her side at the outset.
During the last quarter of the 19th century the idea of the femme fatale came into prominence and encouraged many more works featuring Messalina. 1874 saw the Austrian verse tragedy Arria und Messalina by Adolf Wilbrandt which was staged with success across Europe for many years. It was followed in 1877 by Pietro Cossa's Italian verse tragedy, where Messalina figures as a totally unrestrained woman in pursuit of love. Another 5-act verse tragedy was published in Philadelphia in 1890, authored by Algernon Sydney Logan (1849–1925), who had liberal views on sex.
As well as plays, the story of Messalina was adapted to ballet and opera. The 1878 ballet by Luigi Danesi (1832–1908) to music by Giuseppe Giaquinto (d. 1881) was an Italian success with several productions.A programme and resume of the 1898 Turin production at Internet Archive On its arrival in France in 1884 it was made a fantastical spectacle at the Éden-Théâtre, with elephants, horses, massive crowd scenes and circus games in which rows of bare-legged female gladiators preceded the fighters.Sarah Gutsche-Miller, Pantomime-Ballet on the Music-Hall Stage, McGill University thesis, 2010, p. 36 Isidore de Lara's opera Messaline, based on a 4-act verse tragedy by Armand Silvestre and Eugène Morand, centred upon the love of the empress for a poet and then his gladiator brother. It opened in Monte Carlo in 1899 and went on to Covent Garden. The ailing Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec saw the Bordeaux production and was inspired to paint six scenes from it, including Messalina descending a staircase, seated while a bearded character in a dark tunic stands to one side, or the same character stands Wiki-Media and kneels before her, Media storehouse as well as resting extras. Media storehouse Later there was also an Italian production of the opera in translation. Published in Piacenza, 1904
In 2009 the theme was updated by Benjamin Askew in his UK play In Bed With Messalina, which features her final hours.
Wilbrandt's Arria und Messalina was specially written for Charlotte Wolter, who was painted in her role by Hans Makart in 1875. There she reclines on a chaise-longue as the lights of Rome burn in the background. As well as a preparatory photograph of her dressed as in the painting, there were also posed cabinet photos of her in a plainer dress. Other stars were involved when the play went on tour in various translations. Lilla Bulyovszkyné (1833–1909) starred in the Hungarian production in 1878 and Irma Temesváryné-Farkas in that of 1883; Louise Fahlman (1856–1918) played in the 1887 Stockholm production,photographic portraits on Wiki-Commons and Alamy Marie Pospíšilová (1862–1943) in the 1895 Czech production.
In Italy, Cossa's drama was acted with Virginia Marini in the role of Messalina.
Both the Parisian leads in Danesi's ballet were photographed by Nadar: Elena Cornalba in 1885 and Mlle Jaeger later. During its 1898 production in Turin, Anita Grassi was the lead.
Meyriane Héglon starred in the Monte Carlo and subsequent London productions of De Lara's Messaline, while Emma Calvé starred in the 1902 Paris production, Archived score. where she was succeeded by Cécile Thévenet. Others who sang in the role were Maria Nencioni in 1903, Postcard, Jeanne Dhasty in the Nancy (1903) and Algiers (1907) productions, Charlotte Wyns (1868–) in the 1904 Aix les Bains production, and Claire Croiza, who made her debut in the 1905 productions in Nancy and Lille.Photograph on Wiki-Commons
Much the same point about the catastrophic effect of sexuality was made by Gregorio Leti's political pamphlet, The amours of Messalina, late queen of Albion, in which are briefly couch'd secrets of the imposture of the Cambrion prince, the Gothick league, and other court intrigues of the four last years reign, not yet made publick (1689). This was yet another satire on a Stuart Queen, Mary of Modena in this case, camouflaged behind the character of Messalina.
A very early treatment in English of Messalina's liaison with Gaius Silius and her subsequent death appeared in the fictionalised story included in the American author Edward Maturin's Sejanus And Other Roman Tales (1839). But the part she plays in Robert Graves' novels, I, Claudius and Claudius the God (1934–35), is better known. In it she is portrayed as a teenager at the time of her marriage but credited with all the actions mentioned in the ancient sources. An attempt to create a film based on them in 1937 failed,William Hawes, Caligula and the Fight for Artistic Freedom, Jefferson NC 2009, pp. 14–16 but they were adapted into a very successful TV series in 1976.
In 19th century France, the story of Messalina was subject to literary transformation. It underlaid La femme de Claude (Claudius' wife, 1873), the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, where the hero is Claude Ruper, an embodiment of the French patriotic conscience after the country's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. In contrast, his wife Césarine (the female Caesar) is a creature totally corrupt at all levels, who sells her husband's work to the enemy and is eventually shot by him. Alfred Jarry's pataphysics novel Messaline of 1901 (titled The Garden of Priapus in Louis Colman's English translation), though lightly based on the historical account, is chiefly the product of the author's fanciful and extravagant imagination and has been compared with the treatment of Classical themes by Art Nouveau artists. The Nineteenth Century in Two Parts, Syracuse University 1994 p. 1214
In fact, Jarry's was just one of five contemporary French novels treating Messalina in a typically fin de siècle manner. They also included Prosper Castanier's L'Orgie Romaine (Roman Orgy, 1897), Nonce Casanova's Messaline, roman de la Rome impériale (Mesalina, a novel of imperial Rome, 1902) and Louis Dumont's La Chimère, Pages de la Décadence (The Chimaera, Decadent Pages, 1902). However, the most successful and inventive stylistically was Felicien Champsaur's novel L'Orgie Latine (1903) Archived online; there has also been a recent translation as The Latin Orgy. Although Messalina is referenced throughout its episodic coverage of degenerate times, she features particularly in the third section, "The Naked Empress" ( L'impératice nue), dealing with her activities in the brothel, and the sixth, "Messalina's End", beginning with her wedding to Silius and ending with her enforced death.Marie-France David-de Palacio, Reviviscences romaines: la latinité au miroir de l'esprit fin-de-siècle, Peter Lang, 2005, p. 232
Sensational fictional treatments have persisted, as in Vivian Crockett's Messalina, the wickedest woman in Rome (1924), Alfred Schirokauer's Messalina – Die Frau des Kaisers (Caesar's wife, 1928), Marise Querlin's Messaline, impératrice du feu (The fiery empress, 1955), Jack Oleck's Messalina: a novel of imperial Rome (1959) and Siegfried Obermeier's Messalina, die lasterhafte Kaiserin (The empress without principle, 2002). Oleck's novel went through many editions and was later joined by Kevin Matthews' The Pagan Empress (1964). Both have since been included under the genre "toga porn".Joanne Renaud, in Astonishing Adventures Magazine 5, 2009, pp. 52–55 They are rivalled by Italian and French adult comics, sometimes of epic proportions, such as the 59 episodes devoted to Messalina in the Italian Venus of Rome series (1967–74). More recent examples include Jean-Yves Mitton's four-part series in France (2011–13) and Thomas Mosdi's Messaline in the Succubus series (#4, 2014), in which "a woman without taboos or scruples throws light on pitiless ancient Rome".
Contrasting views have lately been provided by two French biographies. Jacqueline Dauxois gives the traditional picture in her lurid biography in Pygmalion's Legendary Queens series (2013), while the historian Jean-Noël Castorio (b. 1971) seeks to uncover the true facts of the woman behind Juvenal's 6th satire in his revisionist Messaline, la putain impériale (The imperial whore, 2015).
|
|
