Valeria Messalina

“ While the emperor was engaged in these and similar pursuits and occupations, Messalina went on in her career of dissipation and indulgence from bad to worse, growing more and more bold and open every day. She lived in a constant round of entertainments and of gayety—sometimes receiving companies of guests at her own palace, and sometimes making visits with a large retinue of attendants and friends, at the house of Silius. ”

“ While those who profited by her dissipations greatly admired Messalina, a lively movement of protest was soon started among the people, for they, unlike many of the aristocrats, who affected modern views and who pretended to scorn the traditions of ancient Rome, were faithful to all such puritanical traditions and wished to see at their emperor's side a lady adorned with all the fairer virtues of the ancient matron—with those virtues, in short, which Livia had personified with such dignity. ”

“ The Roman empress Messalina was never half so famous for her lust, as you are for your chastity; nor the most christian king’s favourite, madam Maintenon, more eminent for her parts, than you are for your cunning; for nothing is a greater manifestation of a woman’s conduct, than for her to be vicious without mistrust, and to gratify her looser inclinations without discovery ”

“ Weariness, as usual, followed fast on the heels of satiety, to be succeeded by irritation, discontent, and dislike; then came rude words, angry gestures, and overt aggression from the man, met by the woman with trifling provocations, mute defiance, and sullen scorn. To love another, too, so hopelessly and so dearly, made Valeria’s lot even more difficult to bear, rendering her fretful, intolerant, and inaccessible to all efforts at reconciliation. ”

“ Edith, airy and swift, darted and flashed across the court, playing almost impossible balls. In the evening, as she lay back in the rocking-chair, pale and sweet, with her shimmering hair about her, Nino called her a tired butterfly, and sang "La Farfalla" to her. Valeria was miserable. She said it was homesickness. She felt that she was homesick for the sun of Italy and the language of Italy; homesick for people with loud voices and easy gesticulations and excitable temperaments; homesick for people with dark eyes and dark hair. ”

“ But these hopes, to use again the language of Gibbon, "were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment, and the bloody execution which stained the palace of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her safety by hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months through the provinces in the disguise of plebeian habits. ”

“ Still others could be seen with the burning slow-match firing cannon, from which issued monstrous members that were buried with lightning swiftness between the wide-spread thighs of a frenzied she-devil.
The most spiteful of the lot bound a Messalina down by her four limbs and indulged in her sight in the most frightful sexual excesses. The unhappy woman foamed at the mouth, twisted about, raved for a pleasure that was denied her. ”

“ No individual can be governed by the ideas that are prevalent in the society in which he lives and, at the same time, dispense with the methods ordinarily employed by that society. The Romans of the period which we are now reviewing believed that the best, as well as the easiest, way in which to placate an enemy or to outwit a rival was to destroy him. Messalina had no desire to do better than her surroundings warranted ”

“ But one human life is not sufficient in which to display all the possible varieties of moral unrestraint. Messalina died, and Agrippina reigned in her stead. In the daughter of Germanicus was exemplified a character very different from that of the woman we have just dismissed. Agrippina was less wanton, but she was not more womanly. Messalina sacrificed human life in caprice, Agrippina assigned men to death in cold calculation. The aim of the one was pleasure, the object of the other was power. Messalina was a most unworthy mother ”

“ And so if Silius would agree to it, she was ready, she added, the next time that the emperor went to Ostia, to have the ceremony performed.
Audacity of Messalina in this proposal.
That a wife and a mother, however unprincipled and corrupt, should make, under such [Pg 80] 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. ”

“ Among these freedmen there were, to be sure, men like Narcissus and Pallas, intelligent and sagacious, who did not aim merely at putting money into their purses, but who helped Claudius to govern the empire properly. Messalina, on the other hand, thought only of acquiring wealth, that she might dissipate it in luxury and pleasures. The wife of the emperor had been selling her influence to the sovereign allies and vassals, to all the rich personages of the empire, who desired to obtain any sort of favor from the imperial authority ”

“ Valeria looked at him with timorous eyes. "And now I am twenty-seven and a half, and you are only twenty-three."
"True," said Nino. "How young you are! The woman I love is thirty-eight years old."
Valeria's face paled; then it flushed rose-pink, and she laughed. "Thirty-eight! Nearly forty? I don't believe it!" All her pretty teeth shone, and the dimple dipped in her cheek. ”

“ It is remarkable, in an age of unparalleled laxity of morals, that when means were sought by which to bring about the destruction of an enemy, an accusation of adultery was usually successful. Those Romans were human enough to condemn in others what they condoned in themselves. Think of Messalina preaching of morals! She preferred charges of incontinence against Julia, and induced the easily influenced emperor to send the unfortunate woman back to exile, where she was quickly followed by an assassin under the orders of the empress. ”

“ I cannot think you a false wife, Valeria, though you may be an unloving one. I have thought for a long time that the sweet words, and sweeter smiles which have made the light of my life might mean very little—might mean just the daily sacrifice which a young wife makes to an old husband, and nothing more. Yet I have contrived to be happy, Valeria, in spite of all such doubts; and now this man's foul taunt comes like a blast from a Polar sea, and freezes my blood. What did it mean, Valeria? I thought Bothwell Grahame was my friend. ”

“ Messalina, in the gardens of the palace, was enacting a Bacchanalian scene. Men were treading the grapes and wine was flowing into casks; women in the scant attire of Bacchantes were dancing around them; and Messalina, with the symbolic thyrsus in her hand, joined in the revelry, accompanied by Silius, who was crowned with ivy. The utmost licentiousness of speech and action was the order of the day. At last, Vettius Valens, who himself had been a lover of the empress, climbed to the top of a high tree. ”

“ And this was the woman for whose sake she, Valeria, had been flung away like an old glove—this girl-face, with its candid blue eyes and babified bloom, its broad white forehead ringed round with infantile curls of golden brown, its delicately pencilled eyebrows, its coral lips, and small white teeth.
"For people who admire babies the girl is well enough," thought Lady Valeria. ”

“ It is needless to recall here the notorious women who followed in the footsteps of Julia, and added to all her sins a cruelty which she had not. The world is familiar enough with the crimes of Messalina, the second Agrippina, Poppæa, and others whose names have become a by-word and a reproach to womanhood. Men, and sometimes women, gravely tell us that these moral monsters are a measure of Roman standards, and a logical result of the culture of the feminine intellect. That two things exist at the same time does not prove that one is the result of the other. ”

“ Thirty battles were subsequently fought, and several years of incessant conflict passed, before Britain was fairly reduced to the condition of a Roman province.
Messalina, the wife of Claudius, has attained the unenviable notoriety of having been the worst, the most shameless woman earth has ever known. The renown of her profligacy has survived the lapse of eighteen centuries. The story of her life can now never be told: modern civilization would not endure the recital. ”

“ XXXIX. Amongst other things, people admired in him his indifference and unconcern; or, to express it in Greek, his meteoria and ablepsia. 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. When he was meditating his incestuous marriage with Agrippina, he was perpetually calling her, "My daughter, my nursling, born and brought up upon my lap." ”

“ It finally resolved itself into a tragic scandal, which, if we could believe Suetonius and Tacitus, would certainly have been the most monstrous extravagance to which an imagination depraved by power could have abandoned itself. According to these writers, Messalina, at a loss for some new form of dissipation, one fine day took it into her head to marry Silius, a young man with whom she was very much in love, who belonged to a distinguished family, and who was the consul-designate. ”

“ In Valeria's terror-stricken heart maternal love had pushed all else aside, and only one thought possessed her—the thought of keeping Nancy out of danger, out of reach of Edith's light breath, out of reach of Edith's tender kisses; while Nino, seeing her with little Nancy on her lap or at her side all day, gradually grew to look upon her in the light of Valeria the mother, and lost sight of her as Valeria the betrothed. A child on its mother's breast forbids and restrains passion. ”

“ The cry of the Empress as the little serpent stung her cheek brought a swarm of attendants and slaves into the room, among them black Juba and the officer of the guard who was responsible for the Empress' safety. Valeria had fainted and lay pale as ashes on her couch, a crimson stream flowing from her cheek.
"Dear heart!" exclaimed Juba, with an ostentatious exhibition of well-feigned grief, "let her inhale this fragrant elixir. It is a potent restorative in such deadly faints," and she attempted to complete her desperate crime by thrusting the poisonous perfume under Valeria's nostrils. ”

“ But now—Adèle was nowhere; and La Villari was in Milan packing her trunks; and here was Valeria, with her dark head and her dimples.
"Valerietta!" he said; and she raised her eyes. "It is May-day. Come out into the fields."
So Valeria put away her letter, and went to look for her hat. As she passed the schoolroom she heard voices, and peeped in. There was her little Nancy, pen in hand, wild-eyed and happy, and Edith bending over her, reading half-aloud what the inspired child-poet had just written.
"I am going into the fields with Nino," said Valeria. "Edith dear, won't you come, too?" ”

“ In her native Nubia she had an evil reputation as a sorceress, and in Rome she still carried on by stealth her nefarious art. It was hinted, indeed, in the palace, that by her subtle, deadly potions she fulfilled her own prophecies of ill against the objects of the hatred of her employers.
"'Tis certain," hissed through her teeth the spiteful old Fausta, while murder gleamed from her sloe-black eyes, "that Galerius will not include in the Imperial rescript that painted doll, Valeria. She exerts unbounded fascination over him. It must be the spell of her false religion." ”

“ Valeria had never known what passionate feeling meant till she gave her friendship to Bothwell Grahame. She had never thrilled at a man's voice, or listened for a man's footstep, till she began to start at his voice and listen for his tread. The fatal love came upon her like a fever, struck her down in the strength of her proud womanhood, made her oblivious of duty, blind to honour, mastered her like a demoniac possession, and from a spotless wife she became all at once a hypocrite and an intriguer. ”

“ As soon as the party arrived in the city Narcissus conducted the emperor to the house of Silius, and entering it he showed to the emperor there a great number of proofs of the guilty favoritism which the owner of it had enjoyed with 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. ”

“ Naturally, you can't help being disturbed by this stupid gossip. Even strangers like ourselves were sorry for him and had to be kind to him. But everything in our town is made a crime at once. You have no idea what terrible, terrible people live here!"
"Terrible people," repeated Valeria quietly, in a clear, fragile voice and shivered from head to foot as if she had come in contact with something unclean.
"You ask him yourself," said Darya. "Just look at him; he's still a mere child. ”