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What means were employed to persuade Claudius to consent to this new marriage we do not know. Suetonius refers to this, but he is not clear. In any case, this point is less important than that other question: Why was Messalina, after seven years of empire, willing to divorce Claudius and marry Silius?
Lateranus was an unprincipled and dissolute man, and in consequence of certain crimes which he committed in connection with Messalina, during the reign of Claudius, he had been condemned to death. The sentence of death was not executed, though Lateranus was deprived of his rank, and doomed to live in retirement and disgrace.
At length, however, the fall of Messalina, and the entire revolution in the situation and prospects of Agrippina which was consequent upon it, changed altogether the position of Nero.
Watson's, beside the foot of the Scala di Spagna, close to whose top tradition tells us that shameless Messalina, Claudius's empress, was mercilessly slain. And so it is throughout the city. Tradition, legend, and romance have peopled every place we visit. Wars, massacres, and horrible suffering have left a stain at every step.
Messalina managed her husband by alternate cajolings and threats. He was proud of her saucy beauty, and it was pleasing to an old man's vanity to think that other people thought she loved him. She bore him two sons by name, Brittanicus and Germanicus. A local wit of the day said, "It was kind of Messalina to present her husband with these boys, otherwise he would never have had any claim on them."
Besides Britannicus, it will be recollected that Messalina had left another child, a daughter named Octavia, who was two or three years younger than her brother, and of course about five years younger than Nero. Agrippina did not pursue the same course of opposition and hostility toward her which she had adopted in regard to Britannicus. She determined, at the outset, upon a very different plan.
She demands a great deal of courting, a great deal of ardor, a great deal of passion; she has got very warm blood herself, and, if I am not mistaken, she is a great-granddaughter of that beautiful Roman lady, Messalina." Now, for the first time, a slight tremor pervaded Victoria's frame, and a deep blush suffused her cheeks.
We had a delicate supper and ate with appetite, and after it was over I would have gladly left them; but Nina would not let me go. The wine had taken effect, and she wished to have a little amusement. After all the servants had been dismissed, this Messalina ordered Molinari to strip naked, and she then began to treat him in a manner which I cannot describe without disgust.
It was Messalina who had procured Seneca's exile. When Agrippina succeeded to her influence he was recalled. This ambitious woman, aware of his talents and pliant disposition, and perhaps, as Dio insinuates, captivated by his engaging person, contrived to get him appointed tutor to her son, the young Nero, now heir-apparent to the throne.
The latter had been the embodiment of the conservative virtues of traditionalism: the former by her egoism, her extravagance, and her wantonness was in a fair way to destroy all such traditions. Livia had been almost a vestal in her fight for the puritanism of old Rome: Messalina most ardently and violently fought to destroy it. Such an empress, however, could hardly please the public.
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