Messalina, the wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius, was infamous for her licentiousness, her intrigues, and her obscene amours. Historical testimony relates that she had amorous encounters with fourteen athletes, and in consequence assumed the honorific of Invincible. In commemoration of the episode she also dedicated fourteen wreaths to the Priapic god.
Apuleius, the Roman novelist who flourished in the second century A.D., alludes to an ancient Roman list of ingredients in the preparation of love-potions:
They dig out all kinds of philtres
from everywhere:
they search for the agent that
arouses mutual love:
pills and nails and threads,
roots and herbs and shoots,