Editing Messalina (section)

==Messalina's history==
[[File:Messalinavalcng11000491obverse.jpg|thumb|left|Messalina in a coin minted in [[Crete]], c. AD 42]]
After her accession to power, Messalina enters history with a reputation as ruthless, predatory, and sexually insatiable, while Claudius is painted as easily led by her and unaware of her many adulteries. The historians who relayed such stories, principally [[Tacitus]] and [[Suetonius]], wrote some 70 years after the events in an environment hostile to the imperial line to which Messalina had belonged. There was also the later Greek account of [[Cassius Dio]] who, writing a century and a half after the period described, was dependent on the received account of those before him. It has also been observed of his attitude throughout his work that he was "suspicious of women".<ref>Adam Kemezis, ''The Bryn Mawr Classical Review'', [http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2005/2005-03-07.html 7 March, 2005]</ref> Neither can Suetonius be regarded as trustworthy. ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' suggests of his fictive approach that he was "free with scandalous gossip," and that "he used 'characteristic anecdote' without exhaustive inquiry into its authenticity."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Suetonius|title=Suetonius &#124; Roman author|website=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> He manipulates the facts to suit his thesis.<ref>Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "Suetonius as Historian", ''The Classical Review'' New Series, Vol. 36.2 (1986), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3064556?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents pp. 243–245]</ref>

Tacitus himself claimed to be transmitting "what was heard and written by my elders" but without naming sources other than the memoirs of [[Agrippina the Younger]], who had arranged to displace Messalina's children in the imperial succession and was therefore particularly interested in sullying her predecessor's name.<ref>K.A.Hosack, "Can One Believe the Ancient Sources That Describe Messalina?", ''Constructing the Past'' 12.1, 2011]</ref> Examining his narrative style and comparing it to that of the satires of [[Juvenal]], another critic remarks on "how the writers manipulate it in order to skew their audience's perception of Messalina".<ref>Nicholas Reymond, [https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/15678/1/Reymond%20Nicholas.pdf  ''Meretrix Augusta: The Treatment of Messalina in Tacitus and Juvenal''], McMaster University 2000</ref> Indeed, Tacitus seems well aware of the impression he is creating when he admits that his account may seem fictional, if not melodramatic (''fabulosus'').<ref>Katharine T. von Stackelberg, "Performative Space and Garden Transgressions in Tacitus' Death of Messalina", ''The American Journal of Philology'' 130.4 (Winter, 2009), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20616210?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents pp. 595–624]</ref> It has therefore been argued that the chorus of condemnation against Messalina from these writers is largely a result of the political sanctions that followed her death,<ref>Harriet I. Flower, ''The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture'', University of North Carolina 2011, [https://books.google.com/books?id=JSccdOtgTboC&dq=%22The+sanctions+against+the+memory+of+valeria+messalina%22&pg=PA42-IA3 pp. 182–189]</ref> although some authors have still seen "something of substance beyond mere invention".<ref name=Mcg>Thomas A. J. McGinn, ''Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome'', Oxford University 1998 [https://books.google.com/books?id=tYrwh9ZD_6wC&dq=Messalina+Juvenal&pg=PA170 p. 170]</ref>