[Born, uncertain. Died at Rome, A.D. 48.]
The third wife of the Emperor Claudius I. Her name has become a bye-word
for profligacy. A murderess. Herself pierced through the breast by the
sword of a tribune entrusted with the execution of one of her victims.
The slave of lust, avarice, and ambition. Difficult to find in history a
woman more blackened by crime than Valeria Messalina.
[From the marble in the Capitoline Museum, at Rome.]