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Updated: August 5, 2024
Placing himself at table a little after Messalina's death, he enquired, "Why the empress did not come?" Many of those whom he had condemned to death, he ordered the day after to be invited to his table, and to game with him, and sent to reprimand them as sluggish fellows for not making greater haste.
The kind secretary then, with one plunge of his sword, completed the work so well begun. A truthful account of Messalina's death was told to Claudius while he was at dinner. He finished the meal without saying a word, gave a present to the messenger, and went about his business, asking no questions, and never again mentioned the matter.
Peter are wont to chant the Epistle and Gospel, sat Lucrezia his daughter and Sancia his son's wife: round about them, a disgrace to the Church and a public scandal, were grouped a number of other Roman ladies far more fit to dwell in Messalina's city than in St. Peter's."
She told him of Messalina's conduct, and informed him particularly how she had at last crowned the dishonor of her husband by openly marrying Silius, or at least pretending to do so. "Your friends believe," she added, "that she and Silius entertain still more criminal designs, and that your life will be sacrificed unless you immediately adopt vigorous and decided measures to avert the danger."
The Roman historian who has recorded this narrative, assures us, that it was the very audacity of this guilt that constituted its charm in Messalina's eyes. She had become weary of, and satiated with, all the ordinary forms of criminal indulgence and pleasure.
Her proposal. Audacity of Messalina in this proposal. The false marriage is celebrated. Indignation of the emperor's friends. Plot formed for Messalina's destruction. Plans and arrangements of the conspirators. Their hesitation. Calpurnia. Motives addressed to her. Calpurnia and Cleopatra undertake their task. Messalina's festival in the palace gardens.
He was very easily deceived, and though Messalina's character was perfectly well known to others, he himself continued blind to her guilt. At length, however, she began to grow more and more bold. She became satiated, as one of her historians says of her, with the common and ordinary forms of vice, and wished for something new and unusual to give piquancy and life to her sensations.
That a wife and a mother, however unprincipled and corrupt, should make, under such circumstances, a proposal like this of Messalina's, is certainly very extraordinary; and to those who do not know to what extremes of recklessness and infatuation, the irresponsible despots that have arisen from time to time to rule mankind, have often pushed their wickedness and crime, it must seem wholly incredible.
Even before Claudius's death, Agrippina had vigorously opposed waste and plunder; it also appears that the reorganisation of finances after Messalina's death was due chiefly to her. The continuation under Nero of this severe régime displeased a great number of persons, who dreamed of seeing again the easy sway of Messalina.
The house was filled with valuable presents, the tokens of Messalina's love, consisting, many of them, of costly household treasures which had descended to Claudius in the imperial line, and which were of such a character that the alienation of them by Messalina, in such a way, was calculated to fill the heart of Claudius with indignation and anger. The emperor then proceeded to the camp.
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