521 The Empress Messalina (with Honor Cargill-Martin) | My Last Book with Robert Chandler
The History of Literature
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The Dangers of Women's Power in the New Imperial System
The exaggerations were a way of saying she wasn't just someone who was sexually liberated and doing things like the men where she was out of control. And I think they reveal a huge amount about kind of what the contemporary anxieties are, which is really fascinating. Women become this symbol of what people fear about this new kind of more monarchical, potentially more tyrannical system of government.
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