Messalina

The shocking and scandalous story of Messalinathe third wife of Emperor Claudiusone of the most controversial women to have inhabited the Roman world.The lubricious image of the Empress Messalina as a ruthless, predatory, and sexually insatiable schemerderived from the work of male historians such as Tacitus and Suetoniushas taken deep root in the Western imagination. Here, the classicist Honor Cargill-Martin puts this traditional narrative of Messalina to the test. She looks first at Messalinas life as it is recounted in the primary sources, before using material and circumstantial evidence to reconstruct each aspect of Messalinas character: politician, wife, adulteress, and prostitute. Finally, she explores how posterity has memorialized Messalina, whether as artists muse, epitome of depraved pagan womanhood, or as libertine icon portrayed in literature and film. Cargill-Martin sets out not to entirely rewrite Messalinas history, or to salvage her reputation, but to look at her life in the context of her time and to reclaim the humanity of a life story previously defined by currents of high politics and patriarchy.