Valeria Messalina

This article deals with the third wife of the Roman emperor Claudius. For the third wife of Emperor Nero, see Statilia Messalina .

Statue of Messalina with her son Britannicus

Valeria Messalina (* before 20 AD; † autumn 48 AD) was the third wife of the Roman emperor Claudius . In the sources, which are mostly extremely negative, she is described as greedy, cruel and dissolute; she was a nymphomaniac . Numerous high-ranking undesirable persons fell victim to their intrigues. When she broke with the powerful party of the freedmen and entered into a new marriage with Gaius Silius , she was executed at the instigation of Narcissus .

Descent and marriage to Claudius

Valeria Messalina came from the most distinguished Roman social circles. Her parents were Domitia Lepida and Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus , both grandsons of Octavia Minor , the sister of the Emperor Augustus . From her mother's second marriage to Cornelius Sulla Felix , she had a half-brother Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix .

Claudius married his niece Valeria Messalina, who was almost 30 years his junior, around 38/39 AD, i.e. before he came to power. He entered into this third marriage for political reasons, but the exact reasons are unknown. Messalina, who was probably around 20 years old when they married, gave birth to her husband two children: at the beginning of AD 40, the daughter Octavia and on February 12, 41 AD, the son Britannicus . The daughter Octavia later became the first wife of the Emperor Nero .

empress

On January 24, 41 AD, Claudius became Emperor of the Roman Empire after the fall of Caligula . This changed Messalina's life as well. Shortly afterwards, she gave birth to her son, which significantly strengthened her position as the mother of the heir to the throne. The title of Augusta , which the Senate wanted to give her after Britannicus 'birth, was denied to her - in contrast to her successor Agrippina - due to Claudius' negative attitude. So although she never officially bore the Augusta title, it appears on some coins and inscriptions made in Greek cities. Her birthday was celebrated in public by some praetors of their own accord without a formal Senate resolution. After the Roman victory over Britain (43 AD), Messalina followed Claudius' triumphal chariot in a carriage . At that time, like Augustus' wife Livia, she was granted the proedry (= presidency) over the vestals .

The fact that Claudius was not primarily advised and influenced by the senatorial upper class, but also by his wives and freedmen, met with criticism of Roman historiography, which, with deliberately negative exaggeration, claimed that the emperor completely dominated Messalina and later Agrippina as well as freedmen has been. Messalina used her influence on Claudius to eliminate unpopular people, among other things, but she does not seem to have had any great political ambitions. She worked closely with several powerful freedmen, in particular Narcissus , until shortly before her fall, and drew large financial profits from her allegedly always dearly offered service with the emperor in the award of civil rights and the procurement of high posts. In this way, she also committed herself to those men whom she had granted her favors.

Coins, portraits

Messalina's own coins were not produced in the capital Rome . There are only a few known coins of the empress minted in the eastern half of the empire (including Crete, Achaia, Nikaia) that bear her portrait and thus give an idea of ​​her appearance. A sardonyx cameo kept in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Paris National Library should show her with her two children. According to these portraits, she had a full face with a slightly curved nose and a hairstyle parted in the middle. Received statues cannot be assigned to her with certainty.

Nymphomaniac?

Tradition cites greed, cruelty and excessive debauchery as Messalina's supposedly most prominent character traits. The latter is said to have spoken out in her numerous extramarital affairs. Claudius is likely to have been genuinely in love with his much younger, fun-loving, beautiful wife and later indulgently ignored her increasingly openly criticized way of life. The young empress's amusements at parties and banquets soon had the reputation of turning into opulent and unbridled orgies. She is always portrayed as actively desiring and ruthlessly asserting her sexual needs. So she forced the famous mimes Mnester to cohabit by forcing Claudius, with false reasons, to order that Mnester must obey her in every way. In addition, she had forced other noble ladies to commit adultery in the imperial palace in front of their husbands. She is said to have taken slaves as lovers to her imperial husband and for a long time knew how to hide her own, allegedly so openly, unchaste behavior.

According to the satirist Iuvenal , Messalina was so instinctual that she offered herself as a prostitute under the name Lycisca (for example: wolf woman ; the Latin word lupa means both she- wolf and prostitute ). In order to conceal her identity, she wore a blonde wig over her black hair. When the brothel keeper locked, she was exhausted but not satisfied. The best-known anecdote from Pliny ' Naturalis historia is that Messalina challenged a well-known Roman prostitute to a competition. While she gave up after 25 lovers, Messalina is said to have continued into the morning. But these and other depictions of Messalina as one of the “greatest nymphomaniacs in history”, especially in the reports of Iuvenal and the historian Cassius Dio, lack a reliable basis. How this exaggerated characterization, which emerged early on, is unclear. Speculations that Agrippina spread rumors about Messalina's supposedly unbridled sex life in order to arouse doubts about Britannicus' marital parentage and thus increase the chances of her son Nero's successor are unsatisfactory.

Elimination of adversaries

Messalina is said to have influenced her husband to pronounce death sentences against people who have bothered, insulted, sexually rejected or given little attention. For the latter reason, among other things, her cousin, the Caligula sister Iulia Livilla , is said to have feuded with her in AD 42 . In addition, the Empress was jealous of the great beauty of her cousin and her regular private meetings with Claudius. Messalina probably saw in her a competitor who was her equal in terms of her parentage and whose favor with Claudius she might fear. Accused of adultery with Seneca at Messalina's instigation , Iulia Livilla was exiled and murdered not much later, while Seneca escaped exile.

Senator Gaius Appius Junius Silanus also fell victim to a conspiracy between Messalina and the influential freedman Narcissus in AD 42. Silanus had administered the province of Hispania Tarraconensis , then returned to Rome in AD 41 on imperial orders and became the third husband of Messalina's mother, Domitia Lepida. He now played an important role at court, but apparently soon became hatred by Messalina and Narcissus. They therefore worked towards his fall. Cassius Dio admittedly gives the only motive for Messalina's enmity that her stepfather refused her offer of love. According to the emperor's biographer Suetonius , Narcissus told the Princeps that he had dreamed that Silanus wanted to murder him, the emperor, whereupon the Messalina present, apparently astonished, assured that she had had the same dream several times. When the news arrived that Silanus was near - with which he was only obeying an order to come to the palace at that time - the terrible Claudius had been convinced of the truth of the dreams, so that he immediately had Silanus executed.

In the next year 43 AD Messalina is said to have arranged for the removal of another Juliet , a granddaughter of the emperor Tiberius , because she had aroused her jealousy. In the sources, however, it is not specified in more detail why the Empress was jealous of this Julia. In the same year Messalina also had the Praetorian prefect Catonius Iustus murdered because he wanted to tell the emperor about her extramarital relations. Under Messalina's influence, Lucius Lusius Geta and Rufrius Crispinus were appointed Praetorian prefects in AD 47 , who were particularly devoted to the empress, as they had advanced to their new high-ranking positions at her instigation.

No information is available about Messalina's life in AD 44 and 45. In 46 AD she poisoned Marcus Vinicius , the husband of Iulia Livilla, whom she had eliminated four years earlier, because he allegedly had not wanted to enter into an affair with her. In late 46 or early 47 AD, the young Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus , who was married to Antonia , the daughter of Claudius and his second wife Aelia Paetina , was put out of the way. According to a variant of tradition, he was executed because it had been discovered that Pompey Magnus had a homosexual relationship. According to a different, more accurate version, however, Messalina was responsible for Pompey's killing. Possibly the Empress was concerned that the imperial son-in-law, showered with high honors, would be considered as heir to the throne of Claudius and would thus be a dangerous competitor of her son Britannicus. The family and, above all, the position of one's own son was the ultimate goal for Messalina as for any other Roman woman. Antonia was now married to Messalina's half-brother Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix.

The highly respected two-time consul Decimus Valerius Asiaticus was undoed by his great wealth in AD 47, whereby Messalina was particularly interested in the gardens of Lucullus which he had acquired . Another motive for his fall was supposedly his relationship with Poppaea Sabina , the mother of Nero's later wife of the same name, of whose beauty Messalina was jealous. The delator Publius Suillius Rufus appeared in this case as well as on other occasions, for example in the proceedings against the Tiberius granddaughter Iulia, in the service of Messalina as a prosecutor. The tutor of Britannicus, Sosibius , also worked in the interests of the empress and warned Claudius that Asiaticus was planning an overthrow and wanted to break out into the Germanic armies for this purpose. Due to his origin from Vienna , a colony in the province of Gallia Narbonensis , he has influential family ties there and can easily incite the peoples of his homeland. Claudius, thus terrified, had the suspect consul arrested by the Praetorian prefect Rufius Crispinus.

Asiaticus was taken to the imperial private chambers and accused by Suillius of demoralizing the soldiers and of adultery with Poppaea Sabina. The defendant's speech in defense impressed the emperor and is said to have moved Messalina, who was present at the interrogation, to tears. This left the room, but gave the three-time influential consul Lucius Vitellius , who apparently stood up for Asiaticus, the task of bringing about the conviction of the accused in any case. Lucius Vitellius, the father of the later Princeps Vitellius , was an allegedly deep admirer of the Empress and always wore one of her slippers between toga and tunic, which he kissed every now and then. In a hypocritical speech, he reminded Claudius of Asiaticus' merits and asked that the accused may choose his own way of death. The emperor therefore believed in an admission of guilt and complied with the request. At least that is the Tacitus report . With apparently stoic calm, Asiaticus killed himself by slitting his veins in the gardens of Lucullus, which now passed into Messalina's possession. Poppaea was also driven to suicide by the empress by threatening her with imprisonment. Claudius is said not to have known about it. Furthermore, two Roman knights, nicknamed Petra, were killed because they had allowed intimate meetings between Poppaea and the mime Mnester to take place in their home.

Also in AD 47, at Messalina's instigation, the influential freed man Polybius , who is said to have had an affair with her, was overthrown and killed . As a result, however, her relationship with other powerful freedmen, on whom she had previously been able to rely, cooled down considerably. A representative of this influential group, Narcissus, took care of Messalina's own case the next year.

Fall

Messalina's fall was triggered by her love affair with the 30-year-old Senator Gaius Silius , which had existed since AD ​​47 , and who, according to Tacitus, was the “most beautiful young man in Rome”. Tacitus gives a very detailed account of the fall of the empress, which essentially coincides with the much shorter parallel report by Cassius Dios.

Marriage to Silius

Through Messalina's influence, Silius was designated consul for 48 AD. He entered into the affair with her and divorced his wife Junia Silana because of her, although he recognized the dangerousness of this relationship. Obviously he thought a refusal to get involved with the Empress was no less threatening and hoped to be able to keep his relationship with her a secret. As a reward, Messalina showered him with gifts of money and positions of honor, had numerous servants of the imperial court transferred to Silius' services and allegedly often visited him openly with large entourage. Nevertheless, Claudius is said not to have noticed anything.

After about a year of liaison, Silius finally wished that Messalina would become his wife, which also meant her divorce from Claudius. When the emperor left for a longer stay in Ostia because of an act of sacrifice , Messalina, who allegedly stayed behind in Rome because of an illness, celebrated her wedding with Silius in the autumn of 48 with festive pomp and in the presence of numerous invited guests. According to a tradition told by Suetonius with a certain degree of doubt that Tacitus cannot find Claudius himself signed a dowry regulation for Messalina in her marriage contract with Silius because he was led to believe that it was just a sham wedding. This would be necessary, had been led to believe, in order to divert a danger to his life - indicated by certain omina - to another person.

Some historians doubt whether this was actually a legally valid new marriage of Messalina or not just a ceremony underlining the basic marriage intent of both partners. But since the oldest surviving source, the drama Octavia , which is relatively benevolent towards Messalina, speaks of a legal marriage, the tradition of Messalina's marriage to Silius can be considered certain. What drove the Empress to take this step - besides being in love - could have been the concern that Britannicus' chances would be diminished by the popularity of Agrippina, the daughter of the still benevolent Germanicus , and her young son Nero. The latter seemed to enjoy greater affection from the people of Rome than Britannicus and, according to modern speculations, Messalina might have feared that Claudius would get involved with Agrippina and appoint her son as heir to the throne. According to Tacitus, however, the childless Silius was ready to adopt Britannicus, so that Messalina may have promised greater security for her son's successor from her new marriage. But on the other hand, she was initially not happy about Silius' proposal to marry and feared that her lover might reject her once he was at the top. In addition, although their adventurous wedding could not be kept secret, the couple had apparently taken no precautions for the necessary consequences arising from it. So it apparently hadn't planned a real plot to remove Claudius, or at least taken measures to protect against the expected vengeance of the emperor, but married without much thought about the future.

Judgment and death

The most important imperial freedmen, Narcissus, Callistus and Pallas , feared a possible overthrow of Claudius, since they could maintain their position of power only through his favor. But they hesitated to pursue the case of the empress, considering that Claudius, who was always very indulgent towards his wife, might be ready to forgive her despite her very insulting behavior. But then Messalina would retaliate against her opponents. After all, only Narcissus dared to take action against the empress. He had the Princeps, who was still in Ostia, informed about Messalina's wedding with Silius through two of his trusted mistresses, Calpurnia and Cleopatra , and only confirmed, afterwards called, their statements, which the head of the grain supply, Gaius Turranius Gracilis , and the Praetorian prefect Lusius Geta also did. The emperor was frightened by the reference to the danger he was in, and worried about his rule troubled him more than his anger at Messalina's behavior. He was advised to ensure the loyalty of the Praetorians.

A few days after their wedding, Messalina celebrated the vintage festival with Silius in the palace. The guests were in a good mood. Women danced dressed as bacchantes , Messalina herself had loosened her hair and was swinging the thyrsus staff . Also present at the party was Vettius Valens , who was probably her personal doctor and allegedly also a former lover. He climbed a tree and said that a terrible storm was approaching from Ostia. This remark is said to have been the first bad omen for the impending doom of Messalina. Soon there was more certain news that Claudius was aware of her actions and wanted to return to Rome to punish her. The guests then dispersed, but many of them were arrested. While Silius went anxiously to the forum, Messalina went to the Luculli Gardens and decided to go to meet the emperor and try to persuade him to be lenient through a personal conversation. Their children and the head of the Vestals, Vibidia , should support them in this. Then she crossed the whole city on foot and then rode a cart down the road to Ostia.

Meanwhile Narcissus, since he did not trust the Praetorian prefect Lusius Geta, who was devoted to Messalina, had Claudius transfer his authority for a day. He also sat in the princeps 'carriage, with which he traveled back to Rome, so that the other two inmates, Messalina's supposed admirer Lucius Vitellius and Claudius' friend Gaius Caecina Largus , could not change the mind of the fickle emperor during the journey. When Messalina came near the imperial vehicle and asked for a hearing, Narcissus knew how to prevent this by pointing out her marriage to Silius and her previously recorded affairs. The freedman also made sure that Britannicus and Octavia could not get through to their father. Vibidia succeeded in expressing Claudius in response to her demand that Messalina should have the opportunity to defend her. Narcissus finally swarmed the Vestal Virgin with a vague promise that the Emperor would still hear his wife.

Narcissus tried to increase Claudius' anger against Messalina by taking him into Silius' house and pointing to the picture of Silius' father hanging in the vestibule, which, since the latter had been condemned under Tiberius, would have destroyed all of his portraits Need to become. The freedman also demonstrated that Silius had appropriated large holdings of the imperial inheritance. Then he escorted the emperor to the Praetorian camp, where he described the situation to the soldiers in a short speech. The cohorts called for the guilty to be punished immediately. The emperor then held court himself and had Silius fetched, who did not deny his guilt, but only manfully asked for a swift execution. Other noble Romans were also executed in this context, such as Titius Proculus , who was appointed Messalina's guardian by Silius , the doctor Vettius Valens, Pompeius Urbicus , Saufeius Trogus , the prefect of the fire watch, Decrius Calpurnianus , the gladiator trainer Sulpicius Rufus and the senator Iuncus Vergilianus . The pantomime Mnester wanted to save his life by reminding Claudius of his command that he, Mnester, obey all Messalina's wishes. The emperor did not ignore this argument, but the actor had to suffer the death penalty after the freedmen objected. Only Suillius Caesoninus and Messalina's former lover Plautius Lateranus were spared.

Messalina, who was meanwhile in the gardens of Lucullus, wrote a petition to Claudius. Despite her desperate situation, she is said to have hoped for a change in her fate for the better and to seek revenge on Narcissus. When the emperor, who had returned home, had eaten, he was actually more conciliatory and wanted to give Messalina the opportunity to justify her the next morning. Then Narcissus conveyed to a tribune and the centurions the order, supposedly from Claudius, to murder the empress. The men in charge of the execution then set about carrying out the order, together with the freed man Euodus , who was acting as supervisor and executor . Although Messalina had not had a particularly close relationship with her mother Domitia Lepida, she stood by her side for the last hour, according to Tacitus, and asked her to commit an honorable suicide. The empress was unable to do this. When the murder squad broke into the Lukullischen Gardens, she tried to stab herself trembling, which failed until the tribune put her life to an end with a stab in the back. Her mother was allowed to look after her corpse, but the damnatio memoriae was imposed on her by a resolution of the Senate . When Claudius was informed of her death without further explanation, he is said to have continued his drinking binge unmoved.

swell

The earliest and the only not entirely negative source about Messalina is the drama Octavia, attributed to Seneca, about the life of her daughter Octavia. Only Nero uses the expression Incesta genetrix - unchaste mother-in-law in the second act , as an argument to accuse Octavia of adultery, while Messalina appears more passive in the marriage with Silius.

The account in Tacitus ' Annals of Claudius' first years of reign is lost; the surviving second part of this work begins with the description of Valerius Asiaticus' fall in Book 11. Hence more details are known from Messalina's last year of life. Tacitus' picture, however, is marked by clear aversion, based on his criticism that Claudius did not seek advice from the senators , but from people who, in their eyes, were unsuitable, such as women and freedmen . In Sueton's De vita Caesarum , which was written at about the same time, Messalina is almost only mentioned in connection with her wedding to Silius, to which Iuvenal also refers in his 10th satire. A parallel report on Tacitus is provided by Cassius Dio (Book 60) , which has only been handed down in excerpts .

Image in posterity

As a result of the representations of the ancient writers, Messalina is described as immoral and cruel to this day. Since intrigues, conspiracies and the brutal pursuit of one's own interests were the order of the day in the nobility of the Roman empire, Messalina was neither an exception nor an extreme example of these “virtues”. When describing the atrocities and scandals of Messalina and her contemporaries, one must also bear in mind the moral and cultural climate of the time.

Reception in literature, music, art and film

It was not until the 19th century that Messalina, usually characterized as a femme fatale , was made the protagonist of important literary works. In the poem The Masque of Queen Bersabe (1866) by the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne , she appears like other important ancient female figures ( Cleopatra , Semiramis ) as a woman who brings ruin to the men she desires. The Italian playwright Pietro Cossa describes her in his tragedy Messalina (1876) as a woman who is completely uncontrolled in her desire for love. The French writer Alexandre Dumas the Younger also dealt with Messalina in the comedy La femme de Claude (1873) and the French poet Alfred Jarry in his novel Messaline (1901; German 1971).

Messalina operas were created by the Italian composer Carlo Pallavicino ( Messalina , libretto by Francesco Maria Piccioli , world premiere in Venice 1680), the German composer Reinhard Keizer ( The seduced Claudius , libretto by Heinrich Hinsch , world premiere in Hamburg 1703) and the English composer Isidore de Lara ( Messaline , first performance Monte Carlo 1901). A ballet that focuses on the Roman Empress comes from Luigi Danesi ( Messalina , 1877). Since 1910, a number of films dealing with this topic have been made, none of which have any important directors or actors. Only the English film, television and theater actress Sheila White received brilliant reviews for her portrayal of Messalina in the BBC television series Ich, Claudius, Kaiser und Gott from 1976.

The Italian painter Federico Faruffini made a portrait around 1850 showing the ruler as a house servant. In 1874 Gustave Moreau painted a painting that also took up the subject of Messalina.

literature

• Alexander Demandt : The private life of the Roman emperors. 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42510-0 .
• Werner Eck : The Julian-Claudian family. In: Hildegard Temporini-Countess Vitzthum (Hrsg.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms. From Livia to Theodora. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-49513-3 , pp. 103-163, in particular 116-133.
• Gertrud Herzog-Hauser , Friedrich Wotke : Valerius 403). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VIII A, 1, Stuttgart 1955, Col. 246-258.
• Franesco Mazzei: Messalina. Heyne, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-453-55124-9 .
• Annette Simonis: Messalina. In: Peter von Möllendorff , Annette Simonis, Linda Simonis (ed.): Historical figures of antiquity. Reception in literature, art and music (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 8). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02468-8 , Sp. 677-682.

Web links

Commons : Messalina  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Valeria Messalina in the catalog of the German National Library
• Donna Hurley: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Since, according to Werner Eck (in: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (Hrsg.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms , p. 117) Messalina was already over 20 years old at the time of her wedding to Claudius, and not, as often read, only 14 , she must have been born before AD 20.
2. ↑ Cassius Dio 60.12.5.
3. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,12,4.
4. ^ Suetonius , Claudius 17.3.
5. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,22,2.
6. ↑ Gertrud Herzog-Hauser and Friedrich Wotke: Valerius 403. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen antiquity science (RE). Volume VIII A, 1, Stuttgart 1955, Col. 246 f.
7. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,22,4 f .; Tacitus , Annals 11,36,1.
8. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,18,1 ff.
9. ↑ Iuvenal, 6. Satire 115-132 with Scholien.
10. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 10,83,172.
11. ↑ Werner Eck, in: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (ed.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms , p. 119f.
12. ↑ Dio 60,8,4 ff .; Tacitus, Annals 14,63,2; Sueton, Claudius 29.1 et al .; Werner Eck, in: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (Ed.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms , p. 121f.
13. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,14,3 f .; Suetonius, Claudius 37.2; see. Tacitus, Annals 11,29,1; Werner Eck, in: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (Ed.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms , p. 122ff.
14. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,18,4; Suetonius, Claudius 29.1; Tacitus, Annals 13,32,3 and 13,43,2.
15. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,18,3; Seneca , Apocolocyntosis 13.5.
16. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,27,4.
17. ^ Suetonius, Claudius 29.2.
18. ↑ Zonaras 11.9; Cassius Dio 60,29,6a.
19. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,27,2; 60,29,6a; 60.31.5; Tacitus, Annals 11,1,1.
20. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 11,1,1 ff.
21. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,2,1.
22. ^ Suetonius, Vitellius 2.5.
23. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11.2.2-11.4.1.
24. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,31,2; Zonaras 11.10.
25. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,12,2.
26. ↑ Tacitus, Annales 11.12 and 11.26-38; Cassius Dio 60,31,2-5 and in Zonaras 11,10; shorter remarks: Suetonius, Claudius 26.2; 29.3; 36; 39.1; Seneca, Octavia 257-269; among others
27. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,12,2-11,13,1.
28. ↑ Cassius Dio 60,31,4.
29. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 11.26 f.
30. ^ Suetonius, Claudius 29.3.
31. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,26,2.
32. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,26,3.
33. ↑ Werner Eck, in: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (ed.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms , p. 129ff.
34. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11.28.1-11.31.1.
35. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,31,1; Suetonius, Claudius 36.
36. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 11,31,2-11,32,3.
37. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11: 33-11, 34, 3.
38. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,35,1-11,36,4.
39. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11,37,1-11,38,3.
40. ↑ Seneca, Octavia 536.
41. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11: 1-3 and 11: 26-38.
42. ↑ Eric M. Moormann, Wilfried Uitterhoeve: Lexicon of ancient figures. With their continued life in art, poetry and music (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 468). Kröner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-520-46801-8 , pp. 448f.