Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

While the emperor was away at Ostia, the nuptials were consummated. The marriage was solemnized in due and ample form, including all the ancient rites. Silius may have pretended to drag the seemingly unwilling bride from the embraces of her friends; but the yellow wedding veil was not necessary to hide any blushes that were likely to flush the cheek of Messalina. That the ceremonies were executed in due form may be concluded from the fact that Mnester, the popular actor, took part in them, probably as director.

If Messalina counted on the fidelity of the freedmen, to whose friendship she had many times confided her safety, she erred: for on this occasion they fatally betrayed her. When Claudius was not being guided by his wife for her own purposes, he was under the control of the freedmen; what their position under Silius might be was problematical. Narcissus, the most active of these courtiers, hurried at once to Ostia, taking with him Calpurnia and Cleopatra, two women who had witnessed the marriage. It was necessary that he should thoroughly arouse the phlegmatic emperor and bring upon Messalina speedy destruction, or his own doom would be accomplished. "The marriage has been made public," he said. "Unless you act promptly, Silius will be master of Rome." He induced Claudius to transfer the command of the prætorians to himself for a day. He hurried the emperor back to the city, taking every precaution that the latter should not be left alone with Messalina's friends and that she herself should not be afforded the opportunity of a personal interview.

This unwonted suddenness of action on the part of the emperor was precisely what Messalina and Silius did not anticipate. Instead of intrenching themselves by energetic preparations, they wasted the time in voluptuous revelry. It was the season of the grape harvest, and all Rome was engaged in the customary celebration of the vintage. 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. "What can you see from up there?" someone shouted. "I see," he replied, "a storm coming from Ostia." It was prophetic of what was soon to fall upon the chief participators in the scene. Rumors, quickly followed by the couriers of the emperor, announced that the latter was approaching in great indignation. Messalina was immediately deserted by all. The revellers went their own ways, and Silius repaired to the Forum as though with no thought but to attend to his official duties. The empress, thoroughly awakened at last to the gravity of her situation, began to make preparations for her defence. She saw that her only hope was in the easy, vacillating disposition of Claudius; she had never yet failed to manage him, and her assurance was great. Sending forth her two children, Octavia and Britannicus, to meet their father, she next induced Vibidia, the chief of the Vestals, to obtain audience with the emperor and implore his pardon for his guilty wife.

Deserted by all the court with the exception of three persons, Messalina traversed the city on foot; and finding on the outskirts one of the carts used to convey the rubbish of the streets and gardens, she got into it and started forth to meet her outraged husband. Coming within hearing of the emperor, she began to call upon him to listen to the mother of his children; but Narcissus drowned her voice with the story of her crime and placed in the hands of Claudius a paper reciting all Messalina's adulteries, so that, reading it, his eyes might not be turned upon his wife. Vibidia pleaded with the emperor that he should not allow the empress to be destroyed without a hearing; but she was sent away by the freedman, who advised her to attend to the proper duties of her vocation.

Had it not been for the hasty manner in which this affair was brought to a fatal termination by Narcissus, Messalina would probably have won a pardon from her doting husband. It is true that when the emperor was taken to the house of Silius and there shown valuable furniture, heirlooms from his own palace, his indignation was great; he allowed himself to be conducted to the camp, where he made a short speech to the soldiers and constituted them judges of the criminals; but after having partaken of a sumptuous repast, his good nature, or rather his indifference, returned, and he ordered his servants to go and "acquaint the miserable woman that to-morrow she may plead her cause." The freedman knew that if Messalina obtained the opportunity to talk with the emperor, her alluring methods would save her life, and Claudius would turn to make common cause with her against her accusers. Narcissus therefore hurried forth and commanded the tribune on duty to "despatch the execution," for such, he said, was the emperor's command.

The soldiers found Messalina in the gardens of Lucullus, lying upon the ground, and by her side her mother, Lepida, who was seeking to persuade her wretched daughter not to wait for the executioner, but to die becomingly by her own hand. This, however, the woman had not the courage to do. At times, she would recite to her mother the speeches with which she hoped to justify herself to her husband, and then she would give way to imprecations and vain lamentations. Thus she was employed when the door was burst open and the soldiers and Narcissus appeared before her. The freedman indulged his spite and taunted her with insolent reproaches. Then the unhappy woman, accepting the dagger from her mother's hand, held it to her breast, but dared not strike; so the tribune, in mercy as well as in justice, despatched her with his sword. The news was carried to Claudius that "Messalina was no more"; and without asking how she died or by whose hand, he called for a cup of wine and continued the feast.

Silius made no attempt to exonerate or defend himself, but simply asked for a speedy death. With him died a number of other illustrious knights, their offence being like his, though not so public or so heinous. Mnester the actor thought to save his life by reminding the emperor that it was by the latter's own command that he had been obliged to submit to the orders of Messalina; but though this plea caused some hesitation in the mind of Claudius, it was overruled by the merciless freedmen. It was thus also with Traulus Montanus, a young man of remarkable beauty; he could urge that only on one occasion had he been summoned to the apartments of the empress, and then immediately cast off; this plea, however, did not avail to save him.

It has been our purpose in this chapter to show how, in the midst of artistic surroundings, in a polished society, at a time when poetical and philosophical literature was universally cultivated, women, by the enormity of their excesses, touched the lowest depth of moral depravity. All that appeared necessary was to piece together the fragmentary information provided by the ancient historians and so present a picture of this single astounding character, Messalina. She was the ultimity of feminine vice. She did not stand alone; but in her there was a unique combination of extraordinary political power, unbounded opportunity for lawlessness, and inordinate concupiscence.

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; Agrippina contravened every other womanly instinct in order that her son might reign.

After Messalina's death, Claudius declared before the praetorians: "As I have been unhappy in my marriages, I am resolved henceforth to remain single; and if I should not, I give you leave to stab me." But he was not able to persist in this resolution; there were many women who, for the sake of bearing the name of empress, sought matrimonial union with him. Agrippina, however, had marked that position for her own, and she was intellectually the strongest, as well as one of the most beautiful women in Rome. She was now thirty-four years of age. It was no new undertaking for her to bestir herself in the search for a husband. At the age of thirteen she had been married to Cnæus Domitius Ahenobarbus; but he had died in A.D. 40, leaving her with Nero, their only child. On her retum from exile at the beginning of Claudius's reign, she had endeavored to form a union with a powerful patrician named Galba, who had a wife then living; but for her pains she got her face slapped by Galba's mother-in-law. She was soon married, however, to an orator called Passienus, who was a man remarkable for his wit, wealth, and good nature. He died before Agrippina had set her hopes upon a marriage with Claudius.