The Ancients - Messalina: Empress of Rome

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

In this episode of The Ancients, host Tristan Hughes speaks with historian Honor Cargill-Martin about the notorious Empress Messalina, third wife of Emperor Claudius. A lot has been said about Messalina over two millennia: that she was a nymphomaniac who organised orgies and engaged in prostitution, even going so far as to work as a prostitute in the streets of Rome, or had sex with 25 men in 24 hours, are just a few examples. Cargill-Martin sheds light on the political and social climate of ancient Rome during Messalina's reign and how she was a complex figure who deserves a more nuanced understanding.Produced by Elena Guthrie, edited by Aidan Longergan.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode where we're going back to ancient Rome, we're talking all about one of the most slandered women from ancient Roman history. I'm talking about the Empress Messalina, the third wife of the Emperor Claudius in the mid 1st century AD, so at the beginning of the Roman imperial period. Now to talk through Messalina's extraordinary story, I was delighted to interview Onna Cargill-Martin.

Onna's new book, all about Messalina, well, it's just been released. So do go and check that out. But after you've listened to this episode today. I do really hope you enjoy. And here's Onna. Onna, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me. You are more than welcome. And we're going to the early Roman imperial period, aren't we? Messalina, the definitive bad girl of the ancient Roman world. I would say so. That's what I like about her. So Messalina is a Roman empress. She reigns alongside her

husband Claudius from 41 AD to 48 AD. And the stories that are told about Marcelina after her death, the stories particularly about kind of her sexuality and her sexual exploits are insane. She has this reputation that kind of follows her through the centuries, through the millennia. And what I'm trying to do is pick that apart and bring the historical figure back a little more. So let's focus therefore on these sources you mentioned after her death, which gives us a little clue. But what do we know about the nature of the sources that we have available for Messalina? Okay, so our historical sources about Messalina are the same main historical sources that we have for really all of the Julio-Claudian period. We're looking at the great Roman historian Tastus and the imperial

biographer Suetonius, who were both writing in the first decades of the second century AD. And you're also looking at the Greco-Roman historian Cassius Dio, who's writing around a century later in the early to mid third century AD. For Messalina, we also have mentions of her in non-historical sources. So places like Pliny's Natural History, which is written kind of only a few decades after her death and in juvenile satires. And it's in those non-historical sources that we get these kind of wilder stories. We'll delve into those wilder stories, absolutely, as this podcast progresses. But first of all, therefore, set the scene for us, set the background, explain the world that Messalina is born into. Yeah, so Messalina is born really around the early 20s AD. There's some debates about her exact date of birth, but that's a rabbit hole that

I think that we really shouldn't go down. But she's born kind of into the early Roman Empire, and she's born right at the top of the socioeconomic totem pole for the kind of Julio-Claudian society. Her parents are Messala Barbatus and Domitia Lepida. They both come from very wealthy, very historically aristocratic Roman families, but they also both have strong links to the imperial family. They're both descended from Augustus's sister, Octavia. And so Messalina is really born at the heart of Julio-Claudian imperial society. She's born in the reign of Tiberius. And this is a society that has never been richer and has never been more politically cutthroat. Right. So early first century AD, there are these remarkable women from this time

in ancient history. Why for you did you decide to therefore focus on Messalina's story rather than any other of these figures? Okay, so I first encountered Messalina through the rumours about her sexuality. There are these stories, for example, that she sleeps with 25 men in 24 hours as part of a competition of sexual stamina with the most notorious prostitute in Rome. There's a story that she leaves the palace every night and goes to work in a low-class brothel on the streets of Rome. And I first encountered these stories because I was interested in the process of kind of rumor creation in ancient Rome. And I was interested in the question of how and why do you go from a situation where this woman is the most powerful and the most

respected woman really in the known world to a situation where these stories can and are being told about her. But the more that I looked at these stories and at the history of Marcelina, the more that I began to think that she was really an immensely underrated figure in the kind of political and the cultural history of this period more generally and one that I think really should be looked at much more. Well it's looking to her figure much more than right now so you've explained the background of Messalina so what do we therefore know about her early years? Okay so very little like most ancient women in general we really don't

encounter ancient women in historical records until their lives really sincerely cross over with those of men. So it's generally when they marry that they enter written history. And that's certainly true of Messalina. She only enters our histories upon her marriage to Claudius. In terms of her early years, we know that she's born into this incredibly well-connected family, this incredibly wealthy family. And she almost certainly would have been given a very extensive education for a society that is so wildly misogynistic. The Romans are very good at educating their girls. So she would have been very well educated. And then in her late teens, at the end of the 30s AD, she's married off to Claudius, this much older man who is the uncle

of the reigning emperor, Caligulaigula. Right so and you mentioned there so Claudius at this time he's not emperor so when Messalina enters this almost the center of power in the Roman world what do we know about these years that before Claudius is emperor that whilst Caligula is emperor? Yeah so I think when Messalina marries Claudius she could not possibly have foreseen that this was going to make her empress in a couple of years' time. She probably marries Claudius in around 38 AD. Claudius has a number of kind of physical disabilities that has caused him to be sidelined within the imperial family for most of his life. It's only under his nephew Caligula that he is really kind of brought to the forefront again.

And his marriage to Messalina, who's this well-connected imperial princess, is probably part of that process. But when Messalina marries Claudius, he is simply kind of a member of the imperial family. And she enters this incredible, remarkable, bizarre court that has been created by Caligula. Caligula obviously has a remarkably bad reputation as an emperor, and I think a lot of it is probably relatively well-deserved. The court that he creates is this place of incredible luxury, incredible kind of sensual spectacle, really. And it's also a place of quite performative and theatrical arbitrary violence. And so I think it is a real baptism of fire for a girl in her late teens to be thrown into an environment like that. We don't hear anything specifically

about Messalina during these years, but it must have been an incredible education really in both the methods and the dangers of court politics. So as you said, this is court politics. So even if Messalina perhaps wasn't interested in getting involved in this court politics. So as you said, this is court politics. So even if Messalina perhaps wasn't interested in getting involved in this court politics, because she's married to Claudius, court politics, well, they'll come to her sooner or later. So, well, therefore, Caligula meets a sticky end, if I remember correctly.

He does, very sticky. Very sticky. So elaborate on that and then go on to how this affects Messalina. Okay, so Caligula is assassinated in January of 41 AD. He's been behaving more and more erratically for some time and it's becoming clear that his reign is just simply not tenable. He is brutally assassinated along with his wife and his one-year-old daughter. They're all murdered in really quite an unprecedented instance of familial violence.

He's murdered by a coalition of the Praetorian Guards and the Senate. And there is then chaos, essentially, about what's going to happen next. The conspirators have really not worked out what they're going to do after they kill Caligula. And after a number of days of chaos, Claudius is brought to the forefront by the Praetorian Guard and is installed as emperor. At this point, Messalina is probably still in her late teens or her very early twenties. She is eight months pregnant with their second child. And she gives birth to her son, who will later come to be known as Britannicus, just kind of within 20 days after Claudius' accession.

So how much power do you think Messalina had at the time of her accession to become empress? It's a really interesting question. I think at the moment of Messalina's accession, she's in a strong position, but not necessarily a powerful one. So empress in ancient Rome in this period is not an official office. It simply means that you are married to the emperor. It doesn't come automatically with any titles, any honors, or any specific powers. It really is simply that you have access to the emperor. But the time of Claudius is really kind of, we're coming up to the apogee of Julio-Claudian court. And having unimpeded and kind of continuous access, direct access to the emperor, as Messalina obviously does as his wife, is an incredible

direct route of political power in this period, and also an immense piece of political leverage. And so this puts Messalina, I think, in an incredibly strong position to go about building her own networks of power, both within the court on the Palatine, so within the imperial family and the extended group of kind of imperial administrators and freedmen, and also within senatorial circles in Rome more generally. And this is also a period in which she's incredibly popular and promoted on the public stage. The birth of Britannicus is a huge deal. After the death of Caligula, this is, I think, a real emblem of hope for the empire. And that's something that is promoted massively across the entire Roman world. Right. So actually the birth of a Nair so quickly, that's for, you know, having come through. She couldn't have done better. She couldn't have done better.

It's a stability. Hey, hey, presto. Yeah, exactly. So if that's the case, then you mentioned how she's gathering rounds, trying to secure her position, senators and other figures and so on and so forth. Now, does she have any precedence for that before her? Yeah. So I think the main precedent when you're talking about the power of the Empress is going to be Livia, who's the wife of the Emperor Augustus, and she becomes perhaps even more powerful after his death as the mother of Tiberius. And Livia is an incredible proof of how much power you can accrue as the wife of the emperor in this period. And she creates a lot of precedence that I think that Messalina certainly looks to and kind of tries to play with. But I think as a straightforward blueprint for how you create an excise power as an empress, Livia is not necessarily that useful for Messalina. Livia comes to the fore really when she's in her late 40s. She has two grown sons.

She spent decades building up this reputation for sort of traditional Roman morality. And she has this kind of matronly gravitas that Messalina simply can't come in and replicate immediately upon her accession. And so I think Messalina takes elements that she's learned from figures like Livia and from figures in the wider imperial family who've been powerful at certain points during Tiberius and Caligula's reign. But I think in a lot of ways, Messalina is kind of combining those elements and starting from scratch and creating her own image and her own route through the role of empress. While we're talking about image, I'd like you to focus in, to go into detail about one particular statue from very early in her reign. You know which one I'm talking about.

So the Messalina statue, I've just got in my notes, so I'm hoping you can elaborate on that. What is this? Yeah, so it's really our only very well-preserved image of Messalina. It's in the Louvre now. It is an over-life-size marble full-body sculpture. And what's so interesting about it, when we look at how Messalina is portrayed in the later sources, is that if you looked at this image and you had no context for it, it could easily be a Christian image of the Madonna and Child. Shows Marcelina veiled making a traditional Roman gesture of modesty holding her baby Britannicus. And this is such an ideal image of kind of Roman femininity. She's beautiful but she's fertile,

she's also chaste and modest and kind of faithful to her husband. And this, I think, is a really interesting insight into how Messalina is being presented or perhaps even trying to present herself during her life and how much that contrasts to kind of how she's presented in historical sources after her death. Because would you argue, I mean, we had a quick Google search, me and the team, before we did our meeting of Messalina. And something which seems to come up again and again, as you mentioned, is her beauty. Would you argue that this is one of the key features of Messalina that has been passed down even to the present day? Yeah, I think 100%.

But I think, look, whenever you're talking about these kind of discussions of women who are portrayed and really defined by their sexuality. I think you need to take discussions of their beauty, perhaps with a pinch of salt. I honestly think, you know, it's all men who are writing the histories of Marcelina and it's perhaps more fun for them to write about a beautiful woman. The statue, however, does show her in a very beautiful way, but equally, you know, these statues are idealized. No, quite right. One thing I've learned on the Ancients podcast is there's never a pinch of salt. It's always a barrel full of salt, wherever it is.

So this is another example. 100%. 100% indeed. Well, therefore, let's move on. When do we really start to see Messalina showing her political power? Very quickly, remarkably quickly. Within the first year of her reign, we're starting to see Messalina move against and take down potential political rivals in the Palatine court. So for example, there's this figure of Lovilla, who was one of

the sisters of Caligula. She'd been very promoted at the start of her brother's reign, and then she'd been accused of adultery and conspiracy and exiled. One of Claudius's first moves as emperor is to recall Caligula and political exiles, among them Lovilla. Lovilla comes back and very quickly seems to be kind of trying to re-establish a power base for herself on the Palatine. This is obviously incredibly dangerous for Messalina. Lovilla is kind of even better born in the context of the imperial family than Messalina is. And her husband, Lovilla's husband, Vinicius, had actually been posited as a potential successor to Caligula

after Caligula's death and before the accession of Claudius. So if Lovilla is kind of coming back to a prominent position, this is something that's potentially dangerous for Messalina. And we see Messalina very quickly, within a year, accuse Lovilla of adultery with the philosopher Seneca, have her exiled. And very soon after that, Lovilla is dead, perhaps murdered, perhaps forced to suicide. But I think this is portrayed in the sources as a kind of girly catfight over who's more popular on the Palatine, but this is clearly like a political move. And the fact that it's done so quickly and so effectively after Messalina's kind of accession, I think is testament to how soon and how effectively she has built these networks of power for herself. And this seems like a symbol, presuming for your whole research and the fact

that you mentioned how it's presented almost like a cat fight. But you having to look at that and trying to sort fact from fiction as to what exactly is going on, is that a symbol of Messalina's story? Yes, I think definitely. I think Messalina is portrayed in the sources as overly feminine. And because of the misogyny of the sources, that's translated into not rational. So she's either too passionate, too sexual. And these are the things that are presented as driving all of her actions. But when we actually look at the context of these actions, it's very clear that she's making rational and sensible political decisions. I mean, sometimes they're brutal and murderous, but they're the that the contacts were calling for. When would you argue that Messalina, going from there, she really

reaches the zenith of her public prominence? I would say in the middle of the 40s AD. So, after her husband Claudius invades Britain and comes back and celebrates this big triumph in 44 AD, Messalina is given a remarkable and unprecedented kind of position of prominence in that triumph. The triumph traditionally is this victory procession given to the triumphing general, and it's an all-male procession. Women only take part really as captives, prisoners of war. In Claudius' triumph, Claudius comes first in the triumphal chariot, and directly behind him comes Messalina in this kind of honorific carriage called the Carpentum. This is an unprecedented position and it is such a strong message to the massed crowds

of Romans who are watching this procession that this is a woman who is central to the victory and the power and the success of the dynasty as a whole. of the dynasty as a whole. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and on my podcast, Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, I try to make sense of everything that baffled our early modern ancestors. Like, what do you do with your waist?

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Twice a week, every week. Listen and follow on Apple,ify or wherever you get your podcasts do we know how claudius reacts to all of this i'm guessing he's is he doing it because he just really loves messalina or does he see another reason for it so it's interesting because i think the sources come back again and again to this idea that Claudius is desperately in love with Messalina, kind of blinded by love is the real implication. And that's certainly possible. I mean, there's no evidence against it. But I think that Claudius has also realized by this point that Messalina is potentially an incredibly useful asset to his power, both in

terms of his public image. She's much younger than him. She brings a certain glamour to the dynasty. She's the mother of his heir, but also kind of in private in the machinations and the power base that she's building in the Palatine. Yeah, true. Because there's two words that never really go together. It's sexy Claudius, is it? Yeah, no, not really. Well, fair enough then. So we've kind of hinted at this already. Let's go on to the affairs of Messalina. But first of all, I think it's important to highlight the whole definition of adultery at this time in the Roman Empire, because it's a bit different to the definition today. Yeah, it is. It is a little different. So adultery in the Roman Empire is defined by the status of the woman. So adultery is sex with a married woman. The marital status of the man is entirely irrelevant. You could be a married man and if you sleep with an unmarried woman, you're an adulterer. If you're an unmarried man and you sleep with a married woman, you're an adulterer. Right. So and therefore, and also at the scene, Claudius, his wife is Messalina, but he's also sleeping with other women too. Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. Claudius is sleeping with lots of other women.

I mean, we'll have a couple of them named in the sources in particular in relation to Messalina's fall. But that's like, I don't think that Romans would have battered an eyelid at that. I think that it would have been utterly assumed. Fair enough. So it's good to get that highlighted straight away. So with the affairs of Messalina, so when do we think they begin? get that highlighted straight away. So with the affairs of Messalina, so when do we think they begin? Just to note before we begin a discussion of kind of affairs and sexuality, that whenever you're looking at sexuality or sexual activity in the ancient world, you're necessarily dealing with essentially 2,000-year-old hearsay. There are going to be lots of things that you have to

continually question. And I think particularly the more outlandish rumors about Marceline's sexual activity, we really can dismiss outright. But I think the rumors about her more sort of mundane adulteries, I think we have to take a little more seriously, simply because of the weight of the accusations that are laid against her and the emphasis that her enemies place on this when they try and take her down. I think that there is certainly significant evidence that she was engaging in extramarital affairs or perhaps indiscreet extramarital flirtations at the very least. In terms of when they begin, I think you're really looking at, again, the middle of the 40s.

Even after her fall, no one can ever really make suggestions that her children might be illegitimate. No one can ever really make them stick. And so I think that there probably aren't rumours about infidelities dating to the earliest part of the reign. And I think what we're really seeing is that Messalina perhaps begins to act out a little when she feels that her position is secure. Right. So with what source of people, according to the sources, does she therefore have affairs with? Well, I think Messalina's list of lovers, alleged lovers,

is remarkable both in its length and its breadth. I mean, it reaches into the double digits just in terms of the lovers who are named. And the types of people, there really is, you can't draw a line through them. We have powerful senators, we have a consul designate, we have imperial freedmen, an imperial doctor, a man who runs a school for gladiators, we have a pantomime actor. Messalina really quite evidently does not have a type. I guess the big question is

why of all the people that they have affairs with, why have this wide range of potential lovers? Yeah, I mean, we really can't say. I mean, of course, it's possible that Messalina did have a really wide range of lovers. I think there are also some instances in which there is perhaps a drive to accuse her of having lovers, either who might be politically useful to her because it kind of plays into this idea that she's almost corrupting the political world with sex, or to ascribe to her lovers who are very low status because it's kind of more humiliating for her husband fair enough well talk to me therefore about one particular figure the actor monesta because this is such an interesting role in he's an absolutely fascinating figure so monesta is a pantomime actor which does not mean the same thing as it does today pantomime in the ancient world is essentially a sort of one-man interpretive dance based on kind of epic or tragic. I can't think of anything that I would less like to watch. But the Romans loved it and they saw it as like a very sensual art form.

I mean, the Doctor Galen describes like this woman who he can't work out what's wrong with her. And then he discovers that she's lovesick for this pantomime actor. They're seen as like real heartthrobs. And it's really interesting because they can become incredibly famous and incredibly wealthy, but they're also often enslaved or ex-slaves. And they're subject to a whole number of legal restrictions because they're deemed to be essentially unrespectable as a profession. And Monaster in particular is thought to be incredibly attractive. He's a real star of the stage in this period.

Caligula had been utterly obsessed with him. He would have people dragged from their seats and beaten if they talked during his performances. He'd allegedly like kiss Monesta in public. And Marcelina apparently becomes equally obsessed with him and begins to engage allegedly in this very indiscreet affair with him. And that's really the key problem. She allegedly showers him with gifts and commissions portraits of him. And the whole of Rome is talking about this.

And how does this affect Messalina's popularity? First of all, within the court of Claudius itself, and then I guess within Rome itself? Well, we really can't say. I mean, the sources say that the people of Rome are laughing at Claudius, essentially, and blaming Messalina for that. Obviously, these are much later sources ascribing a reaction to the audience. And if you're a writer and you want to make your reader feel something, ascribing a particular reaction to a wider audience is a good way to do that. So I think it's something we have to take with a pinch of salt, this idea that everyone is blaming Messalina and talking about Messalina,

but we can't say for certain. And so within the court of Claudius itself, if we go away from the affairs and focus in on others, political murders. So talk to me about Messalina's role. She is involved in political murders at this time in her life yeah so we see Marcelina really quite systematically removing any potential rivals for herself but also for her husband and in particular potential rivals for her son Britannicus and she does this really mostly at the beginning of the reign and I think this is a really key reason why we can say that these murders are done politically and they're done for reasons of dynastic civility. You can really see that Messalina is making a concerted effort to remove any potential rivals whilst the regime is still a little unstable in those early years. And she really develops quite

a clear modus operandi. A lot of other women are sort of associated with poisonings or kind of murders in that sense. Messalina is much more associated with essentially judicial murder, bringing unfounded accusations against political players, particularly accusations of adultery, particularly when they're women, or accusations of conspiracy as well. Unfounded accusations too. Well, we don't know whether they're founded or unfounded, but the implication certainly in the sources is that these are either kind of accusations

that she has created or trumped up in order to get rid of political enemies. Absolutely brutal. And I mean, okay. But very effective. Very effective, but brutal. I mean, the same can be exactly the same thing as you highlighted there.

Well, then let's move on to 48 AD, the start of 48 AD. Honor set the scene. What is Messalina's position looking like at this time? Yeah, so Messalina at this point has been incredibly powerful and an incredibly good and clearly a very stable position for nearly five years now. She hasn't really been murdering anyone, which suggests that she thinks that her position is quite stable. Her statues are being set up all over the empire. There are honorific inscriptions going up to her everywhere. She is in an absolutely brilliant position. There is a sense in the year,

the year and a half that run up to her death at the end of 48 AD that things start to go a little awry, that she perhaps begins to feel jumpy again and that she oversteps the end of 48 AD, that things start to go a little awry, that she perhaps begins to feel jumpy again, and that she oversteps the bounds of her power. She allegedly gets rid of Polybius, who is a powerful imperial freedman. And then she also attacks a man named Valerius Asiaticus, who's one of the richest, most powerful, and crucially most popular senators in Rome. She accuses him again of conspiracy, adultery, also passive homosexuality. And that trial very nearly goes against her. Valerius Asiaticus nearly gets off. And even though he doesn't get off and eventually is kind of forced to commit, is convicted and

forced to commit suicide, that trial sows massive dissension among Messalina's erstwhile allies in the Senate. A number of her allies have been very close friends, apparently, with Valerius Asiaticus. And I think that this is a really controversial affair, both because of her target and the fact that it nearly fails. And so I think that there is an increasing sense, as this year goes on, particularly because she's also allegedly embarked on a new affair or a new kind of indiscreet flirtation with a man named Silius, who is going to be consul the next year. And apparently she's being very dangerously indiscreet about it. I think there is an increasing idea among Messalina's circle that she is becoming a bit of a loose cannon and potentially more of a

danger than she is a helpful ally. Very much a loose cannon and potentially more of a danger than she is a helpful ally. Very much a loose cannon, we'll get back to that idea straight away. But I also love the idea, the ignorance that I do have for the Roman Imperial period compared to the Hellenistic period, as we both well know. But the idea that you sometimes see that the Senate of the late Roman Republic, when it was very powerful back then, is no longer as powerful as it once was post-Augustus. But it seems here, from what you're saying, though,

that they still play a significant role in the story of Messalina, particularly near her end. Oh, they certainly play a significant role. I mean, the Senate are still a very influential body. And I think whenever Messalina wants to get something done... Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program,

they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. That's where these kind of court cases and these like political, like official political acts are undertaken. And so she needs to have strong allies in the Senate because she needs them essentially to enforce and enact her plans. When she wants to accuse someone of adultery or conspiracy, she needs to go through senators. So they are still very influential in that sense. And I think they're also influential in how she's portrayed, because I think this anxiety, as you were saying, about the fact that the Senate are losing their power is really

encapsulated in this fear that kind of women are co-opting that power and using it for sort of nefarious ends, essentially. Is there that very much a conservative lower C element in the Senate? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, therefore, you mentioned, you hinted at there's this worry that she's becoming a loose cannon. So take it away, Anna. How do things progress from this period to the next? Badly. Incredibly badly, if you're Marcelina. So come autumn of 48 AD, Marcelina is attacked. She falls and she is assassinated slash executed in these somewhat mysterious circumstances. So Tacitus, who gives us our main account of Messalina's downfall,

prefaces the events with the acknowledgement. He's like, I know that what I'm about to tell you is going to sound unbelievable. You're not going to believe what I'm going to say, but I promise that it was just what I was told by the people who came before me. For Tacitus to be saying that, you know that you have a situation that is difficult to credit on your hands, and we really do. As Tacitus tells us, Messalina and her latest lover, Silius, have decided that they want to overthrow Claudius. They're going to overthrow Claudius, they're going to put Silius on the throne, Messalina is going to be his empress, and he's going to adopt Britannicus. In order to do this, they wait until Claudius has left the city to go and visit the

port of Ostia. Then they publicly celebrate a bigamous wedding, and they plan to use that as the start of their coup and to put Silius on the throne. Claudius is informed of this by his loyal freedman, Narcissus, and they return to the city. They execute Silius and the throne. Claudius is informed of this by his loyal freedman Narcissus and they return to the city. They execute Silius and a whole litany of Messalina's other alleged lovers and accomplices. And then Claudius is planning to hear Messalina out the next morning to let her give her case. But Narcissus is concerned that the emperor will let his wife off. And so he orders her immediate execution. So even at this late stage Claudius is actually taken out of the picture because they worry that he's going to let her 100% and this really contributes to the sources obsession with portraying Claudius as this sort of

weak-willed and easily led emperor. I think that this story as Tacitus tells it is incredibly difficult to credit. Messalina really has nothing to gain from this politically certainly like she's already empress. This doesn't give her any more power. And I think even more crucially than that, when the alleged conspiracy is discovered and unravels, that there is no attempt made by the alleged conspirators to move against Tordius after the wedding, the alleged wedding has occurred. They simply disperse and then let themselves be executed or murdered. And I think

that if you really had been planning a coup, there's no way that you would have made such a bold step as to celebrate a bigamous wedding with the emperor's wife if you didn't have a plan for what you were going to do next. I think that what you're actually seeing here perhaps is a coup enacted against Messalina by other members of Claudius's court. So I think that it's possible that the freedman Narcissus is actually using kind of the rumors of Messalina's infidelities and what is possibly actually a party celebrated in a kind of festival of the wine god Bacchus in this autumn. And he uses this to create this narrative that Massalina has bigamously married Silius and is planning a conspiracy against the emperor. And he uses that to essentially take her down. Wow. Well, fair enough. I mean, how can Claudius, well, how does Claudius react to all

of this? Well, allegedly Claudius, so Claudius is informed of his wife's death. He doesn't ask whether she was murdered or whether she committed suicide. He just asks for another glass of wine. And then in the aftermath of her death, the Senate very helpfully helped him get over it by decreeing that all of her statues and all of the honorific inscriptions that were put up to her either in public or in private are destroyed. And we actually have evidence of that. So we have statues of her that show that they've been kind of hit over the head and destroyed and inscriptions where her name has been chiseled off them. And this is a remarkably

kind of systematic erasure of Messalina's power from the material world and from Roman history. That's remarkable. The material world, as you mentioned, and Roman history in general, it's so extraordinary in almost, you know, such a quick amount of time that the memory of her is removed not just from the emperor, but from the whole Roman world. removed not just from the emperor but from the whole Roman world. Definitely and I think that this creates an environment that encourages these rumours to thrive because if you've had this woman who has been the most powerful woman she's been everywhere and suddenly she's disappeared obviously you're going to want to know what has happened and it also justifies people talking about her in ways that are really very disrespectful. And so this influences the legacy. You mentioned people like Juvenal earlier. Is this very much a significant influence?

I think it is. I think that it creates a breeding ground for rumour and it also makes her fair game, essentially, for people like Juvenal to elaborate on those rumours in really quite misogynistic and disrespectful terms. Talk to us a bit about how her legacy endures, how it continues in the later centuries. It is remarkable. I mean, over the kind of two millennia that follow her death, Messalina is transformed into this almost kind of archetype of

transgressive female sexuality, particularly in languages like French. Messaline becomes a noun and an adjective to describe a woman who is like dangerously sexual. She's used as an archetype for nymphomania as well in Victorian medical sources. She's used as a subject of kind of semi-exploitative films in the 20th century. She is fair game for any projection or kind of manipulation of this idea of dangerous female sexual desire. I think Juvenal's description of her going and working in the brothel is incredibly important for this because he has this line where he basically says she leaves tired but not sated and so Messalina becomes this image of this sort of all-consuming and potentially destructive power of feminine sexual desire she becomes a sort of archetypal femme fatale right and that has continued down to the present day? Yes yeah I would say so. And so what's your opinion? Do you think we can really ever sort the fact from fiction? We can

really find the true Messalina from the sources that survive? Okay so I would say that whenever you're working with ancient history the illusion that you can write a straightforward factual history of the ancient world is a dangerous one for an ancient historian I think that honestly the ancient world just has such a different approach to history that our sources just don't allow us to write a history that we can sit down and say confidently this is fact I think that's even more true when you're working with women because their lives tend to be more in private and so they're more easily manipulated in the historical sources and it's even more true when you're working with

a woman whose life has been as mythologized as Marcelina's has so I don't think that we can write a history that there are no questions about any sort of pieces of this and I've tried when I was writing the book to explain my working when I was looking at particular things give different options for certain events but I do think that we know a huge amount about the political and the cultural context in which Messalina lived and I think that when you take the kind of disparate references that we have to Messalina and you put them in that wider context which is something that people hadn't really done because everything was overtaken by this discussion of her sexuality really. I think that when you do

that you find that you can create and tell a narrative that is really quite comprehensive. This has been an absolute pleasure and last but certainly not least the book which you've written is called? It is called Messalina, a story of empire, slander and adultery. Anna, just goes for you to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me. Well, there you go. There was Anna Cargill-Martin explaining the story of the Roman Empress Messalina. I hope you enjoyed the episode.

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