The Scandal of Messalina
<p>Of all the women of antiquity, it is arguably Messalina who has the most damning reputation. As the third wife of the emperor Claudius — he would go on to have a fourth, his own niece Agrippina — she was for a time the most powerful woman in the Empire and by all accounts she made extensive use of her influence, plotting the ruin of anyone, man or woman, who got in her way or who refused her sexual advances. Thanks in large part to the hostility of the ancient historians Suetonius and Tacitus she has gone down in history as one of the most wanton and vicious women ancient Rome ever produced (which, given the number of supposedly nefarious women the Empire yielded, that’s saying something).</p>
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