predisposed to inhumanity and licentiousness, and it only needed the
presence of favorable conditions for the introduction upon the imperial
stage of a company of women upon whose actions the world has ever since
gazed with profound amazement. Such conditions were then present in Rome
in such a degree as they have never been at any other time or among any
other people. The age was propitious and the circumstances were ripe for
a climax in human depravity. The spoil of the conquered world provided
Rome with incalculable riches; the Empire was the prize of him who could
win and hold it, and of her who could maintain her position by the side
of the ruler; power and the absence of restraint gave free rein to
impulses which the existent conditions necessarily rendered evil. This
was the _entourage_ of the women of Rome under the first emperors. The
ladies of the nobility were trained and urged to cruelty and
prostitution by the exigencies of their position; the women of the
common class, for whom tributary bread and sanguinary spectacles were
freely provided, were impelled in the same direction by example and
idleness.
The acme of female turpitude was attained by Messalina, whose name has
ever since served as a byword for unparalleled incontinence. Valeria
Messalina was the great-granddaughter of Octavia, the sister of
Augustus, both on her father's and her mother's side; thus in her veins
united a twofold stream of the sacred Julian blood, which fact she never
allowed herself to forget while insisting upon her demands, though it
had no restraining effect upon her conduct. When only sixteen years of
age, she became the third wife of the feeble, half-imbecile Claudius;
one of her predecessors was Plautia Urgulanilla, the daughter of that
proud Urgulania whose debts Livia Augusta had been compelled to pay.
Plautia was divorced for "scandalous lewdness" and on the suspicion of
murder, after she had given birth to two children, the youngest of whom
Claudius exposed, being convinced that it had no just claims upon his
paternal authority. But his honor as a husband was far less safe with
Messalina than it had been with Plautia. That she should have any
affection for the doddering, gormandizing old man--he was nearly
fifty--was hardly to be expected. During the first three years after the
marriage, her position was comparatively private, her husband having no
expectation of attaining to the imperial throne.
During the reign of the demented Caligula, the women of the court
present no figure of political importance, and are not interesting
except as they illustrate the depravity of the times.
This emperor was
possessed with an exaggerated idea of the divinity that was inherent in
the Augustan race. Therefore he deemed that, like the kings of Egypt, he
should conserve that dignity by marrying his own sister.
Suetonius will
have us believe that all three of the sisters of Caligula were
dishonored by their brother; but Drusilla was his favorite. She had been
given to Cassius Longinus, but Caligula took her from him and kept her
as though she were his lawful wife. He made a will appointing her
heiress of his private estates and also of the Empire; and at her death
he ordered for her a public mourning, and threatened capital punishment
against any person who should laugh or bathe or seek any amusement
during the period. It was also declared that she had been received among
the heavenly deities; and as Panthea, the universal goddess, her worship
was enjoined upon all the cities of Italy and the provinces.
The other sisters, Agrippina and Julia, became involved in a conspiracy
with Marcus Æmillius Lepidus against the life of their brother; and when
the plot was discovered, though the lives of these women were
spared,--probably owing to Caligula's intense respect for the Julian
blood,--their property was confiscated and they were both sent into
exile. Agrippina, however, was first compelled to perform a most
unpleasant office. The family of Lepidus begged that his ashes might
rest in the family mausoleum at Rome, and the disordered mind of
Caligula recalled a journey which his mother had made, bearing the ashes
of Germanicus. So he forced Agrippina, who had schemed to marry Lepidus
in the hope of gaining for him the succession, to carry the urn that
contained his remains from Germany to Rome, and never once allowed her,
night or day, to rest from bearing her burden.
Of the wives of Caligula, Suetonius says: "Whether in repudiating them
or retaining them he acted with greater infamy, it is difficult to say."
Being at the wedding of Caius Piso with Livia Orestilla, he ordered the
bride to be carried to his own house; but within a few days divorced
her, and two years after banished her, because, as was thought, upon her
divorce she had returned to her former husband. Lollia Paulina, who was
married to a man of consular rank in command of an army, having been
mentioned to Caligula as much resembling her grandmother, who had been
a famous beauty, the emperor suddenly called her from the province where
she resided with her husband, and married her; but he soon repudiated
her, interdicting her from ever afterward marrying another man. He loved
with a most passionate and constant affection Cæsonia, who was neither
handsome nor young, and who was the mother of three daughters by another
man; but she was a woman of excessive wantonness. He would frequently
exhibit her to the soldiers, riding by his side, dressed in a military
cloak, with shield and helmet. To his friends he showed her in a guise
far less elaborate and much more improper. After she had borne a child
to him, she was honored with the title of wife. Caligula named the
infant Julia Drusilla, and, carrying it around the temples of all the
goddesses, he laid it on the lap of Minerva, from whom he begged the
care of bringing up and instructing this daughter. He considered her as
his own child, for no better reason than that her temper was so savage
that even in infancy she would attack with her nails the faces and eyes
of the children at play with her.
Cæsonia could hardly have enjoyed her position, especially on those
occasions when her demoniacal husband would amuse himself with the idea
of having it in his power to sever her neck at any time that it might
please him so to do. She was killed at the time of his assassination;
and, fortunately, her vicious offspring perished with her. The manner in
which Cæsonia met her death seems to indicate that the woman not only
possessed courage, but also that she cherished some sort of affection
for her husband. The conspirators hesitated over the question as to
whether she should share his fate; but it was only for a few minutes. It
was believed by many that it was through her love philtres and
licentious practices that his mind had become disordered and that
therefore she was, in a sense, the author of his evil doings. It being
determined that she should die, the men who went in search of her found
Cæsonia embracing the body of Caligula as it lay upon the ground, and
they heard her bewailing the fact that he had not been governed by her
advice. Whether that advice had been to restrain himself in his madness,
or to follow with vengeful measures a clue which she had given him in
regard to the conspiracy, those who heard her could not decide. Their
minds were predisposed to believe in the latter explanation. When she
saw Lupus, the man who had her death in charge, approaching, she sat up,
all besmeared as she was with her husband's blood, and, baring her
throat, requested the assassin not to be awkward in finishing the
tragedy. She received the death stroke cheerfully, and the little
daughter, who was by her mother's side, perished by the same sword.
To his own intense astonishment, Claudius suddenly found himself
proclaimed and accepted as Emperor of the Romans. There is no evidence
to show that Messalina had anticipated this change of fortunes any more
than had her husband. Finding herself, however, in the position of
empress, she had no mind to do otherwise than maintain herself secure in
its enjoyment. The times were such that this could be done only by means
of merciless expedients. This fact should constantly be kept in mind as
we study the women of imperial Rome. 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; in fact, she represents the
climax of immorality. There were two causes which led her freely to
dispense destruction among her associates. First, there were plenty of
women who would gladly have rivalled her in the affection of the amorous
Claudius; and while she did not in the least reciprocate her husband's
affection, its retention was necessary to the maintenance of her
position. Again, her innumerable amours were constantly furnishing
weapons against herself, and it was only by inspiring dread that she
could restrain her enemies from making use of them to her own
destruction.
In such a position as she found herself, and among such surroundings, it
is not surprising that Messalina was bad. Raised, when only a mere girl,
to a dizzy height; flattered and sought after by all the most dissolute
of the imperial court; the wife of a doting husband who, as she quickly
discovered, was absolutely under her influence; all this would have
tested a woman in whose character good impulses were perceptibly
present. So far as can be learned, Messalina possessed no such impulses;
on the contrary, everything in her contributed to the strength of the
evil influences of her environment. Her glaring immoralities, combined
with the consummate art with which she contrived to befool her husband,
have rendered this woman's history a monument of conjugal infidelity for
all the ages.
We may be fairly certain as to Messalina's personal appearance, for
there are a number of cameos and busts of her in existence, though, of
course, some of these are ideal and others are not well executed. Baring
Gould, who has made a careful study of the sculptured portraits of the
Cæsarian family, regards it as certain that in the onyx cameo which is
in the Cabinet of Antiques at Vienna and in the bust now preserved in
the Uffizi Palace we have what may be considered correct representations
of Messalina. Of the former, he says: "The hair is arranged in small
curls covered with a species of crown wreathed with corn. This is the
usual mark of the deification of an empress as Ceres.
The brow is low,
the nose straight and a little retrousse at the end, the mouth
remarkable for the thinness of the lips; the chin is not prominent, and
a peculiar feature is the slope from the chin to the throat, forming a
marked contrast in formation to that of Livia opposite.
The mouth turns
down, but there is a slight contraction in the corner."
Of the bust, he
tells us: "The profile there has a remarkable likeness to the
type-giving face on the cameo. The hair is in curls, but hangs down in
plaits behind, the brow is low, the eyes full, and the mouth with its
thin lips and cruel expression seems thoroughly to express the character
of the woman as known to us by history. The head is flat. There is
insolence in the mouth, and a curl in the corner, noticeable also in the
gem. One eye is larger than the other. They are not in line. The nose
has been restored, so that we cannot compare it with that on the cameo.
The rest agrees perfectly, though the slope from the chin is not so
perceptible in the bust owing to the difference in position of the head.
The brows are straight, not arched. Not only are the eyes of different
shapes, but the chin is on one side. The end of the chin is square, the
mouth is small, the lips fuller on the left side than on the right, and
the right corner drawn up. The expression of the face is different when
seen from each side, owing to the singular lack of uniformity in the
sides of the face. In the same gallery is a so-called young Britannicus,
and the resemblance of this child, as far as the formation of the lower
part of the head goes, to the Messalina above described is remarkable.
Still more remarkable is that of the beautiful statue in the Lateran,
where the resemblance is very close. The boy's lips are fuller, but the
whole structure of the jaws and chin, and the curl of the lower lip,
are the same as in the Messalina of Florence. If this be Britannicus,
then the bust at Florence is that of his mother; and it is hard to say
who else can be intended by this charming statue in military costume.
"A medical man of large experience, who at my request studied the bust
of Messalina in the Florence gallery, informs me that it is that of a
woman physically unsound; the flattening of the top of the head
indicates an imperfect mental development, and the general aspect of the
face, evidently a close study from life without any attempt at hiding
blemishes and idealizing, is that of a woman whose span of life would
naturally be short. There would probably be malformation of the chest.
The face is that of one with feverish blood, whose flame of life burnt
too fast. The face is not in itself sensual, nor at all animal, but it
is insolent and cruel. The low, flat brow as well as the low, flat head
show that she was deficient in all the higher and nobler qualities. In
this bust the formation of the throat is peculiar. M.
Mayor remarks:
'Thin lips, evil smile, ears hardly visible, jaw advancing and
remarkably massive, eyes close together, profoundly sunk under their
arcade, nostrils fine and flexible, lips asymmetrical, the upper lip
lifted on the right, as in a beast prepared to bite, the same
characteristic feature observed in Caligula and commented on by Darwin.
Facial asymmetry. The left eye highest and furthest from the nose (the
same noticeable in Nero and Claudius, etc.). The look cruel rather than
voluptuous. An ironical smile, the by no means uncommon mask worn by
pathological corruption and nymphomania,'" M. Menière, in a book
entitled _Medical Studies from the Latin Poets_, also gives it as his
opinion that Messalina was a victim of nymphomania. He says: "At the
Salpêtrière, there are Messalinas, cases which have absolutely nothing
to do with morals." This probably may safely be accepted as the true
explanation of the case, if one can rid one's mind of two suspicions.
The first of these is that this much-talked-of asymmetry may be nothing
other than inferior or careless artistic work. The sculptor may not have
been able, or he may not have given himself the time, to carve both
sides of the face so absolutely alike as to defy the criticism of sharp
scientists, bent on discovering a cause for the poetical effect found in
Juvenal and others. The mention of the satirist suggests our second
suspicion, which is that in his astonishing account of the criminal
appetites of Messalina he is straining after effect.
Now, in regard to the first of these suspicions, we have the assurance
of eminent students of art that, in their sculpture, the Romans were
exceedingly jealous of exact representation. Viktor Rydberg says: "It is
impossible to reproach the Roman art of portraiture with flattery. It
gave what the Romans insisted on--rigid fidelity to nature. It made no
exception in favor of the Cæsars and their house, not even for the
women. Proofs of this almost repulsive fidelity to nature are to be
found. An empress, arrived at a more than mature age, is to be
represented as Venus. It is possible that she would be glad to decline
the honor. She belongs to that period in life when old ladies drape
their withered beauties; but she has duties as Cæsar's spouse, and must
resign herself to her fate. The goddess of love was the ancestress of
the Julian race; and so her attributes, but not her beauty, descend to
the empress. The artist has to immortalize her undraped charms, and he
does it with almost brutal frankness, so that the little cupid, with
finger to his mouth, at her feet, seems to sigh: 'Oh!
for a curtain.'"
All this may be very true of particular instances; but we know that
there were cases when the artist did idealize, as would any sculptor who
would place the head of a Cæsar on the trunk of a Greek god, if he were
so required. Again, at no period of the world's history has the
fraternity of artists been undiversified by members of varying ability,
and the task of representing Messalina may have fallen into the hands of
an inferior workman. Yet, after all, it is quite possible that the
asymmetry in question may have characterized the face of the voluptuous
empress; still, it should require something more than a little
inequality of feature in a statue not absolutely identified to cause to
accept, without a large grain of salt, Juvenal's statement in regard to
the wife of Claudius. That Messalina was in the habit of stealing forth
from the imperial palace at night to occupy a booth in a brothel as a
common demirep under the name of Lycisca is almost too improbable for
credence. It is possible that in this Juvenal enlarges on some allusion
made by Agrippina the Younger, who wrote the empress's memoirs and who
was never a friend to Messalina.
The palace of Claudius was full of freedmen--men who had been
emancipated from slavery and had found the means to amass wealth and
attain influence--and of Greek adventurers. These men performed services
for the emperor and his wife which as yet were not submitted to by the
aristocratic or even the equestrian families. Such men as these had been
the only associates of Claudius before his advancement, and they
retained great influence with him during his reign.
Messalina also was
obliged to consider them. Their silence, in regard to her intrigues, had
to be purchased; she was obliged to ally herself with them, in order
that she might retain her influence over her husband; their selling of
appointments and taking of bribes she had to countenance; and at last
she fell into their toils and was brought to ruin by their
machinations.
At the commencement of the reign of Claudius, the two sisters of
Caligula, Julia and Agrippina, were recalled from exile and their
property restored to them. They were the daughters of Germanicus,
descendants of the great Augustus; therefore, it was not long before
they were the centre of a clique of dissatisfied nobles.
Julia, who was
as unprincipled as she was beautiful, seemed to attract the attention of
Claudius. This was an offence which Messalina could not brook. Whatever
might be the extent of her own failings, she could not afford to run the
slightest risk of encountering a rival in the affections of the emperor.
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. This incident is all the
more memorable on account of the fact that Seneca, whose conduct never
very closely conformed to his teaching, was accused of being the
accomplice of Julia and was banished at the same time.
The fate of her
sister was a warning to Agrippina. She saw how necessary it was to use
wariness in order that she might not offend, or at least that she might
not fall under the power of the empress; and Messalina, though she far
outdid her in vice, was no match for the clever politician, Agrippina.
It would prove as tiresome as it would be unprofitable to recount all
the instances with which history illustrates Messalina's cruelty and
licentiousness; and even though our object be to show to what depths of
iniquity woman may descend under certain conditions, we will only refer
to a few incidents in the empress's profligate career.
The first victim
of her power and criminality was her own stepfather, Silanus; Suetonius
conjectures that the reason for her resentment against her relative was
that he disdained her improper advances. The manner of his taking-off
was unique and indicates a genius for the invention of plots which may
well be envied by the modern romancist. One morning, Narcissus, a
favorite freedman, rushed into the presence of Claudius, showing signs
of the intensest alarm. He had dreamed that the emperor had been killed
by the hand of Silanus. Soon afterward, Messalina appeared and inquired
with much perturbation of manner as to the safety of her husband. Her
rest had been broken and her mind alarmed by a dream similar to that of
Narcissus. Other things were insinuated which seemed to warrant this
great and concurrent alarm on the part of the emperor's friends, so
that, his fears being thus cunningly worked upon, he at once gave orders
for the execution of Silanus.
Messalina was bent on acquiring for herself two desirable pieces of
property. One was the beautiful gardens which had been commenced by
Lucullus, and completed on a most magnificent scale by Valerius
Asiaticus; the other was Mnester, a famous actor of that time. The
gardens were owned by Asiaticus; and Poppæa, who was one of the most
beautiful women of her day, seemed to interest the actor more than did
the empress. The latter determined to remove both these hindrances to
her desires at one stroke. She bribed Suillus, a man in high position
and notoriously venal, to accuse Asiaticus and Poppæa of being engaged
in an improper intrigue. Against the former, charges of a baser nature
were included and acts prejudicial to the safety of the emperor were
insinuated. Tacitus informs us that the unfortunate man was not allowed
a hearing before the Senate, but was tried privately in a chamber of the
palace and in the presence of Messalina. When speaking in his own
defence, he wrought so powerfully upon the feelings of Claudius that he
would certainly have been acquitted; but Messalina, who could not
restrain her own tears, as she left the room, whispered to Vitellius:
"Let not the accused escape." Then followed an exhibition of perfidy in
which it is doubtful if a mere Judas would have been unprincipled enough
to take the leading part. Vitellius began in the most sympathetic manner
to plead with the emperor--who was already meditating the acquittal of
Asiaticus--to remember the great services which had been rendered by the
accused to the State, and to exercise clemency by allowing Asiaticus to
choose his own mode of death; a sort of clemency to which Claudius
readily consented. Thus Messalina's purpose was so far attained. "She
hastened herself to accomplish the doom of Poppæa, by suborning persons
to drive her to a voluntary end by the terrors of imprisonment; a
catastrophe of which the emperor was so utterly unapprised, that a few
days after, as her husband Scipio was at table with him, he asked why he
had not brought his wife. Scipio answered that she was no more."
The Vitellius who accomplished the