Messalīna Valeria

, a daughter of Me ala Barbatus. She married the emperor Claudius, and disgraced herself by her cruelties and incontinence. Her husband’s palace was not the only seat of her lasciviousne , but she prostituted herself in the public streets, and few men there were at Rome who could not boast of having enjoyed the favours of the impure Me alina. Her extravagancies at last irritated her husband; he commanded her to appear before him to answer all the accusations which were brought against her, upon which she attempted to destroy herself, and when her courage failed, one of the tribunes, who had been sent to her, despatched her with his sword, A.D. 48. It is in speaking of her debaucheries and lewdne that a celebrated satirist says, Et la ata viris, necdum satiata, rece it . Juvenal. — Tacitus , Annals , bk. 11 , ch. 37 .— Suet on i us , Claudius .— Dio Ca ius. ――Another, called also Statilia. She was descended from a consular family, and married the consul Atticus Vistinus, whom Nero murdered. She received with great marks of tenderne her husband’s murderer and married him. She had married four husbands before she came to the imperial throne; and after the death of Nero she retired to literary pursuits and peaceful occupations. Otho courted her, and would have married her had he not destroyed himself. In his last moments he wrote her a very pathetic and consolatory letter, . Tacitus , Annals .