Messalina — Claudius: Found Behind a Curtain, Poisoned With Mushrooms?

Valeria Messalina marries Claudius around AD 38–⁠39. She is very young then (her birth year is uncertain, c. AD 17–⁠20), and Claudius is almost fifty. She is his third wife. The first two, Plautia Urgulanilla and Aelia Paetina, Claudius divorced while still a private citizen. Messalina is the daughter of his cousin (Suetonius, Claudius 26).

Twenty-two days after Claudius becomes emperor, she bears him a son. Suetonius records that the boy is first named Germanicus and later Britannicus. Claudius takes him in his arms and shows him to the soldiers and to the spectators at the games, and the crowd cheers (Claudius 27). Messalina is the mother of the heir. She receives honors previously due to Livia, such as a seat in the front row (Dio 60.22).

That is one side. On the other stand the sources that paint her as a monster. Dio writes that she trades everything with the freedmen: citizenship, commands, governorships. Citizenship can reportedly be had for a handful of broken glass (60.17). She also forces senators’ wives into infidelity and destroys those who resist (60.18). A later tradition, Juvenal among others, adds more colorful tales, such as a nocturnal “contest” in a brothel that Messalina supposedly won. Dio writes nothing of the kind.

Tacitus shows how easily she can be tempted. Messalina wants the Gardens of Lucullus, which Valerius Asiaticus is landscaping beautifully. So she sets an accuser on him. The case is heard in the emperor’s chamber, in her presence. Asiaticus defends himself so well that he moves both Claudius and Messalina. Messalina leaves to wipe away her tears, and on the way tells Vitellius not to let him be acquitted. Asiaticus takes his own life (Annals 11.1–3).

A few days later, at dinner, Claudius asks Scipio why he is sitting without his wife. He is told she has died. Messalina drove that woman, Poppaea, to take her own life (Annals 11.2). The emperor noticed nothing.

So what of this is true? Prusac notes that it is easy to accuse the mother of the lawful heir of debauchery and treason. In her view the black portrait of Messalina rests mainly on Tacitus, Suetonius and Juvenal, and jealousy of the position of the heir’s mother may have been the real reason for the hounding (Prusac 2025). Keep that in mind when you read about her end.

Autumn of AD 48. Claudius leaves for Ostia to offer a sacrifice. Meanwhile, writes Tacitus, Messalina marries Gaius Silius in Rome, the consul-designate and the handsomest young man in the city. Silius is said to have promised to marry her and adopt Britannicus (Annals 11.26). Tacitus himself admits the story sounds like a fable. But he writes only what he heard and what the older generation recorded (11.27).

Suetonius tells it differently. According to him, Claudius even signed the marriage contract, because he had been convinced the wedding was a sham, meant to avert a danger to the emperor foretold by omens (Claudius 29). So we do not know whether it was a wedding or part of a plot. Prusac leaves the question open.

The freedmen’s patience runs out. Narcissus does not warn Messalina. He goes to two of the emperor’s mistresses and bribes them with gifts and promises. One of them, Calpurnia, falls at Claudius’s knees and says that Messalina has married Silius. Narcissus adds: do you know that you are divorced? The people, the army and the Senate saw the wedding. Act at once, for the new husband is master of Rome (11.29–30).

Claudius is so terrified that he asks several times whether he still rules and whether Silius is still his subject (11.31). Meanwhile, in her new house, Messalina stages an autumn grape harvest. Women in animal skins dance like Bacchantes. One of the guests, for a joke, climbs a tall tree. Asked what he sees, he answers: a terrible storm coming from Ostia (11.31).

Then everything happens quickly. Messalina sends Britannicus and Octavia to their father to embrace him, and sets out to meet him herself. She walks through the whole city, because she has been left almost alone, and climbs into a cart used to haul garden refuse. No one pities her (11.32). Narcissus takes command of the Guard for a single day and rides in the same carriage as the emperor. When Messalina tries to intervene, he shouts over her about Silius and hands the emperor documents. Claudius says nothing (11.33–35).

In the camp the soldiers demand the names of the guilty. Silius does not look for a defense. He asks that his end be hastened (11.35). Messalina waits in the Gardens of Lucullus and writes pleading letters. Claudius goes home to an early banquet, softens with wine and orders that the “poor woman” be told to come and defend herself tomorrow (11.37).

Narcissus hears this and knows that if Messalina reaches her husband, he himself is lost. He runs out and orders the tribunes to carry out the sentence, saying it is the emperor’s command. In the gardens is Lepida, Messalina’s mother, long estranged from her. She urges her daughter not to wait for the executioner. Messalina weeps and delays. She is killed. Her body is given to her mother (11.37–38).

Claudius is still at the banquet. When they tell him Messalina is dead, he does not ask who killed her. He asks for a cup and finishes his dinner. In the following days he shows neither hatred nor joy, neither anger nor sorrow (11.38). Suetonius is even more bitter: after her death the emperor sits down to the table and asks why the empress does not come (Claudius 39). The Senate decides to remove her name and statues from all places.

This is a literary scene, but it shows how ancient authors saw the emperor: a man who does not know what is happening in his own house. Then he swears a solemn oath before the Guard. Since his marriages end badly, he will remain a widower. And if he breaks his word, let them kill him (Suetonius, Claudius 26).

Now sort the stories: which parts of Messalina’s story are certain, which rest on a single author, and which are disputed?