Mesalina

Modelo:Ficha de nobre Mesalina (en latín: Valeria Messalina), nada c. 17/20, e finada no 48, foi a muller do emperador romano Claudio. Era curmá paterna do emperador Nerón, curmá segunda do emperador Calígula, e sobriña neta do emperador Augusto. Unha muller poderosa e influente cunha reputación de promiscuidade, presuntamente conspirou contra o seu marido e foi executada cando se descubriu o seu complot.

Primeiros anos

Messalina was the daughter of Domitia Lepida the Younger and her first cousin Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus. Her mother was the youngest child of the consul Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Antonia Major. Her mother's brother, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, had been the first husband of the future Empress Agrippina the Younger and the biological father of the future Emperor Nero, making Nero Messalina's first cousin despite a seventeen-year age difference. Messalina's grandmothers Claudia Marcella and Antonia Major were half sisters. Claudia Marcella, Messalina's paternal grandmother, was the daughter of Augustus' sister Octavia the Younger by her marriage to Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor. Antonia Major, Messalina's maternal grandmother, was the elder daughter of Octavia by her marriage to Mark Antony, and was Claudius' maternal aunt. There was, therefore, a large amount of inbreeding in the family.

Little is known about Messalina’s life prior to her marriage in 38 to Claudius, her first cousin once removed, who was then about 48 years old. Two children were born as a result of their union: a daughter Claudia Octavia (born 39 or 40), a future empress, stepsister and first wife to the emperor Nero; and a son, Britannicus. When the Emperor Caligula was murdered in 41, the Praetorian Guard proclaimed Claudius the new emperor and Messalina became empress.

Reputación

Mesalina traballando nun burdel, de Agostino Carracci, finais do século XVI.

Co seu ascenso ó poder, Messalina entra na historia cunha reputación de ser desapiadada, depredadora e sexualmente insaciable. O seu esposo é representado como doadamente conducido por ela e inconsciente dos seus moitos adulterios. No ano 48, el marchou de viaxe e foi informado cando regresou que Mesalina chegara a casar co seu último amante, o senador Caio Silio. Malia que moitos a tería condenado a morte, o emperador ofreceulle outra oportunidade. Ó ver iso como unha debilidade, un dos seus principais oficiais argallou de costas ó emperador e ordenou a morte de Mesalina. Ó escoitar as novas, o emperador non reaccionou e sinxelamente pediu outro cálice de viño. Despois , o senado romano ordenou unha damnatio memoriae para que o nome de Mesalina fose borrado de tódolos lugares públicos e privados e tódalas súas estatuas fosen derrubadas.

The historians who relay such stories, principally Tacitus and Suetonius, wrote some 70 years after the events in an environment hostile to the imperial line to which Messalina had belonged. Suetonius’ history is largely scandal-mongering. Tacitus claims to be transmitting ‘what was heard and written by my elders’ without naming sources other than the memoirs of Agrippina the Younger, who had arranged to displace Messalina’s children in the imperial succession and was therefore particularly interested in blackening her predecessor’s name. It has been argued that what passes for history is largely a result of the political sanctions that followed her death.

Accusations of sexual excess were a tried and tested smear tactic and the result of ‘politically motivated hostility’. Two accounts especially have added to her notoriety. One is the story of her all-night sex competition with a prostitute in Book X of Pliny the Elder's Natural History, according to which the competition lasted for 24 hours and Messalina won with a score of 25 partners. The poet Juvenal gives an equally well known description in his sixth satire of how the Empress used to work clandestinely all night in a brothel under the name of the She-Wolf. He also alludes to the story of how she compelled Gaius Silius to divorce his wife and marry her in his Satire X.

Véxase tamén

Bibliografía

• Tatum, W. Jeffrey; The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher (The University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
• Mudd, Mary; I, Livia: The Counterfeit Criminal. the Story of a Much Maligned Woman (Trafford Publishing, 2012).