Messalina: Empress of Rome
The Ancients
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The Politics of Messleena
Within the first year of her reign we're starting to see Messleena move against and take down potential political rivals in the Palatine Court. So for example there's this figure of LaVilla who was one of the sisters of Caligula. She'd been very promoted at the start of her brother's reign and then she'd been accused of adultery and conspiracy and exiled. This is obviously incredibly dangerous for Messleena. But I think this is portrayed in the sources as a kind of girly catfight over who's more popular on thePalatine but this is clearly like a political move. The fact that it's done so quickly and so effectively after Messleena
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