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MESSALLINA, VALERIA

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 189 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MESSALLINA, See also:VALERIA , the third wife of the See also:Roman See also:emperor See also:Claudius '(q.v.). She was notorious for her profligacy, avarice and ambition, and exercised a See also:complete ascendancy over her weak-minded See also:husband, with the help of his all-powerful freedmen. During the See also:absence of Claudius from the See also:city, Messallina forced a handsome youth named Gains Silius to See also:divorce his wife and go through a See also:regular See also:form of See also:marriage with her. The freedman See also:Narcissus, warned by the See also:fate of another freedman See also:Polybius, who had been put to See also:death by Messallina, informed Claudius of what had taken See also:place, and persuaded him to consent to the removal of his wife. She was executed in the gardens of LucuIlus, which she had obtained on the death of See also:Valerius Asiaticus, who through her machinations had been condemned on • a See also:charge of See also:treason. She was only twenty-six years of See also:age. By Claudius she was the See also:mother of the unfortunate See also:Britannicus, and of See also:Octavia, wife of See also:Nero. See See also:Tacitus, See also:Annals, xi. 1-38 ; Dio. See also:Cassius lx. 14-31; See also:Juvenal vi. 115-135, x.' 333, xiv.

331; Suetonius, Claudius; See also:

Merivale, Hist. of the See also:Romans under the See also:Empire ch. 5o; A. Stahr, " See also:Agrippina " in Bader aus.demAlterlhume, iv. (1865).

End of Article: MESSALLINA, VALERIA

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