Messalina (lived c. AD 17–48)
Messalina married Claudius around AD 38–39, at a very young age. In AD 41 she bore him a son, Britannicus, and as the mother of the heir she held a strong position.
Her image in the sources is hostile and based mainly on Tacitus, Suetonius and Juvenal. According to Prusac, the accusations may have stemmed from jealousy of her position as the heir’s mother. Whether her wedding to Gaius Silius in AD 48 was real remains an open question.
In AD 48 she was killed in the Gardens of Lucullus on the orders of the freedman Narcissus. She was the first empress whose memory was condemned, and most of her portraits were destroyed.
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