The scandalous image of the Empress Messalina as a ruthless and sexually insatiable schemer, derived from the work of Roman historians such as Tacitus and Suetonius, has taken deep root in the Western imagination. The stories they told about her included nightly visits to a brothel and a twenty-four-hour sex competition with a prostitute. Tales like these have defined the empress's legacy, but her real story is much more complex.
In her new life of Messalina, the classicist Honor Cargill-Martin reappraises one of the most slandered and underestimated female figures of ancient history. Looking beyond the salacious anecdotes, she finds a woman battling to assert her position in the overwhelmingly male world of imperial Roman politics – and succeeding. Intelligent, passionate, and ruthless when she needed to be, Messalina's story encapsulates the cut-throat political manoeuvring and unimaginable luxury of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in its heyday.
Cargill-Martin sets out not to 'salvage' Messalina's reputation, but to look at her life in the context of her time. Above all, she seeks to reclaim the humanity of a life story previously circumscribed by currents of high politics and patriarchy.
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Messalina - a name synonomous with notoriety, debauchery, and murder - a woman who - for many - was the epitome of all that was wrong with the Roman Empire. And like Jezebel and Eve, her reputation will be forever darkened, with no hope of redemption.
With her tome on Messalina, author Cargill-Martin has three main intents: she wants the reader to look at Messalina in the overall context of the period and her husband Claudius' reign; she seeks to address and examine Messalina's role; and she wants the explain to the reader the bias of the contemporary sources.
A quick google search will bring up a font of information on Messalina. For instance, Encyclopedia Britannica answers the question "what was Messalina famous for?" as:
Messalina Valeria, Messalina also spelled Messallina, (born before ad 20—died 48), third wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, notorious for licentious behaviour and instigating murderous court intrigues.
Whilst Encyclopedia dot com describes her as thus:
Roman empress, notorious for deviously influencing political affairs and for sexual indiscretions, who was executed for an alleged involvement in a plot to overthrow her husband Emperor Claudius.
Even good old Wikpedia uses language such as:
Messalina enters history with a reputation as ruthless, predatory and sexually insatiable ....
To give Wiki its due, it does at least list the original sources at the bottom of the article for those interested.
Messalin'a reputation - whether deserved or not - has already been decided for us, the reader, her behaviour spread out before us in great detail (akin to her legs in her competition with Rome's leading prostitute) by those writing her story. My questions is - did any of these contemporary (male) writers look at her behaviour in any form of context - or like today, did the downfall of the great and powerful make such good fodder for scandal?
Statue de Messaline par Eugène Cyrille Brunet
Lets be clear from the outset - Messalina is not a feminist role model - there is quite literally, too much sex and murder for her even to be considered as such. Does her reputation need rehabilitating or understanding? Quite possibly the latter. So who in fact was Messalina and what should her legacy look like?.
Cargill-Martin begins with the most obvious - Messalina's name and reputation, her vilification by a misogynistic and hypocritical patriarchy, who following her death, set about bastardising and destroying her history. Cargill-Martin then introduces us to the chroniclers both Greek and Latin - the ones who will tell her story - or at least their version of her story. We know history is written by the victors and written for a specific audience and patron - it was no different in the Classical period. Much of what was written about her was at a period of time when there was great hostility to the Claudio-Julian line. Most relied on second hand accounts, gossip and hearsay, filling in the blanks with fiction to make their tales more popular.
Then we begin ... with the end - the events leading to Messalina's eventual downfall in 48AD before we are catapulted back to Messalina's beginnings, of which very little is known prior to her marriage to Emperor Claudius in 38AD, aged 18 or 20 years old. And thus it is to her family and their position in Roman society that we must first look for clues and anecdotes relating to her childhood. What we do know is that for Roman women and girls, family defined their status and identity. A look at the reign of Emperor Tiberius and the notorious Sejanus follow. I recommended "I Claudius" by Robert Graves if you want a more "user friendly" version of this period, or check it out on YouTube. I remember watching this as a child - so much of an impact it made that I remember it still to this day - and as I was reading Cargill-Martin's book, it was the images and the actors from this series that populated my imagination.
The debauchery that was prevalent in the Roman Imperial Court did not begin nor end with Messalina. She was born into it, grew up within it, learned to survive it, and learned to use it. Cargill-Martin revisits the court of Caligula - "... a court built upon conspicuous consumption and sexual depravity ..." and demonstrates his arbitrary and immediate power over the life and death of his subjects, regardless of status and position. Caligula's reign fostered an atmosphere of fear, intrigue, paranoia, and murderous ambition. This was the court Messalina was forced to navigate as a young bride - her marriage to Claudius did not preclude any favouritism or guarantees of personal safety. So we the reader must see how this court, this reign, may have coloured Messalina's view of power and politics from any early period.
With the assassination of Caligula in 41AD - Claudius is now Roman Emperor. Previously, the likes of Livia and Octavia set the example of the role of women in public life. But now Messalina becomes active in both shaping and promoting the image of her husband's principate, whilst cultivating allies and rooting out and eliminating any threat to her, her children or to Claudius. Like his predecessors, Claudius' reign was born out of intrigue and violence, and relied upon both to maintain its stability.
Many commentators like to criticise Claudius for being in thrall to Messalina. But lets look at this somewhat objectively, Claudius was no catch - he is often described as having a limp and being slight deafness due to sickness at a young age, and he was ostracized by his family and excluded from public office. He was a scholarly hermit getting by - out of sight, out of mind. Messalina was a young, and we may assume, vibrant Roman girl, who entered into an arranged marriage with a dribbling man old enough to be her father. I am sure Claudius couldn't believe his luck!
Anyway, it wasn't just Messalina who held Claudius' attention - he was guided by his self-made men: Callistus, Pallas and Narcissus. These men were also out for power and maintaining that power by whatever means. What role models for the young Messalina! And as mentioned above, Livia was held up to be the epitome of Roman matronhood, a rle-model for an impressionable young girl - and with much hindsight, we all know about Livia!
Following a short-lived rebellion in 42AD, purges of enemies of the regime began - "justice was decidedly bloody" - even though many were starting to fear her power, can this all be attributed to Messalina, I think not. It was around this time that Cargill-Martin notes that Messalina was feeling confident in her position - she had healthy heirs, her rivals were dead or banished, and her position as wife of the Emperor was exalted. And personally, I think it all began to go to her head, and her cycle of self-destruction began from this point onwards.
Cargill-Martin reviews the Roman Laws around adultery and the alleged lovers of Messalina. To play devil's advocate here, one could suppose that so confident in her position was she, that Messalina used adultery as a political tool - a means of creating her own court faction, separate from Claudius' made-men. What is most curious is that around 47AD, Claudius assumes the role of censor - a role tasked with the maintenance of public morality! It has often been asked whether Claudius was aware of or encouraged his wife's immorality. I guess this is an answer only Claudius himself is privy too. I personally, find it hard to believe that he did not and that - at the time - it suited him to turn a blind eye. Messalina was an instrument in coalescing support for and removing enemies of his vulnerable regime - and she would always provide - when the time came - a more than adequate scape-goat.
Cargill-Martin now takes us back to the events leading up to Messalin'a fall. Her adultery is more brazen; the Senate turns on her agents and supporters; her instigation of the murder of one of their own has turned Rome's freeman against her; and then the is the "marriage" ceremony with Silas / Silius.
The historian Tacitus (Tacitus, Annals, 11.26) thus writes:
I know it will seem incredible that, in a city as watchful as Rome, anyone could have felt so safe. Far more so, that on a specified day, with witnesses in attendance, a consul designate and the emperor’s wife should have met for the avowed purpose of legitimate marriage. That the woman should have listened to the words of the auspices, assumed the veil, performed sacrificed to the Heavens. That both should have dined with the guests, have kissed and embraced, and finally have spent the night in the licence of wedlock. But I have added no touch of fantasy: all that I record shall be the oral or written evidence of my seniors.
In what context was this "marriage" performed - as some Bacchanal ritual or a slap in the face to Claudius, was it to gratify her sexual needs or cement an alliance for the protection of herself and her son following Claudius' (eventual) death. Whatever the reason, Claudius had finally had enough - retribution and punishment were swift. Messalina was dispatched.
The Senate then agreed to remove all traces of her existence through a practice we now refer to as damnatio memoriae. Messalina's name was chiseled out of all official inscriptions; coins that bore her name and image were defaced; and many of her portraits were mutilated and vandalized until her likeness became as unrecognizable as her reputation.
Following the death of Messalina, Claudius remarries - this time, his niece Agrippina, mother of Nero. Here Cargill-Martin talks about reputation, and the obvious comparisons between Agrippina and Messalina that written about. Cargill-Martin covers off the period following the death of Claudius in 54AD, the rise of Nero, the assassination of Messalina's son, Britannicus in 55AD, and the fates of the other main players in Messalina's story. The final part of the book looks at the personification of Messalina - the ancient femme fatale, the woman who embodied carnal desire, and her representation by later artists, writers, composers and film-makers.
Messalina is the perfect case study both of the perils of Roman womanhood and of the peculiar sensuous and paranoid world of Rome's first dynasty.
I cannot recommend this book enough if you - the reader - would like to draw aside the curtain and look inside the world that this woman was born into, lived and died in. Look at her life in the context of this before judging her actions too puritanically. Could you have survived in such an environment and come out smelling like roses?
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