Messalina: Empress of Rome
The Ancients
00:00
The Early Years of Messilina
We really don't encounter ancient women in historical records until their lives really sincerely cross over with those of men. So when Messilina marries Claudius, she could not possibly have foreseen that this was going to make her empress in a couple of years time. She enters this incredible, remarkable, bizarre court that has been created by Caligula. And so I think it is a real baptism of fire for a girl in her late teens to be thrown into an environment like that. We don't hear anything specifically about Messilina during these years, but it must have been an incredible educationreally in both the methods and the dangers of court politics.
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