The shocking and scandalous story of Messalina—the third wife of Emperor Claudius—one of the most controversial women to have inhabited the Roman world.
The lubricious image of the Empress Messalina as a ruthless, predatory, and sexually insatiable schemer—derived from the work of male historians such as Tacitus and Suetonius—has taken deep root in the Western imagination.
Here, the classicist Honor Cargill-Martin puts this traditional narrative of Messalina to the test. She looks first at Messalina's life as it is recounted in the primary sources, before using material and circumstantial evidence to reconstruct each aspect of Messalina's character: politician, wife, adulteress, and prostitute. Finally, she explores how posterity has memorialized Messalina, whether as artist's muse, epitome of depraved pagan womanhood, or as libertine icon portrayed in literature and film.
Cargill-Martin sets out not to entirely rewrite Messalina's history, or to salvage her reputation, but to look at her life in the context of her time and to reclaim the humanity of a life story previously defined by currents of high politics and patriarchy.
"Lively and sardonic. In Messalina, Honor Cargill-Martin looks at the limited evidence with empathy, arguing that a notorious empress was also a canny politician. Best of all, though lust and power will always be with us, Cargill-Martin doesn’t try to draw parallels with politics today."
“Honor Cargill-Martin’s book throws an academic bucket of cold water over steamy male fantasy. Cargill-Martin has attempted to rediscover Messalina, her endeavour part of a wider movement to give voice to the silent women of history and myth. I am all for this enterprise and this book is an erudite and entertaining example of the form. Splendid.”
“As a doctoral student working on political sex scandals in ancient Rome, [Cargill-Martin] can handle the sources––and their endless problems––with sophistication, while keeping it palatable for the general reader. She guides us deftly through the warren of high politics and the famously confusing Julio-Claudian family tree. Her writing achieves a rare, old-fashioned, waspish elegance.”
"Classicist Cargill-Martin reexamines the life of a notorious Roman empress in this vibrant tome. Cargill-Martin does an excellent job of bringing the tumult, intrigue, and danger of the Julio-Claudian dynasty to life, mining original sources to get to the heart of who this complicated woman was in the world in which she lived."
