Lucius Valerius Catullus Messalinus
Lucius Valerius Catullus Messalinus was a Roman senator during the Flavian dynasty, and is best known as the most hated and ruthless delator or informer of his age. He was feared all the more due to his blindness.[1]
Messalinus was twice consul, the first time as the colleague of the emperor Domitian (AD 73), and the second time as the colleague of Quintus Julius Cordinus Gaius Rutilius Gallicus (AD 85).[2] He is not known to have held any other official posts.[1]
Borghesi supposed Messalinus was the son of Statilia Messalina, third wife of Nero, but by a previous marriage. However, as Ronald Syme pointed out, that "would make her older than Otho (who was born in 32), and bring her close in age to Valeria Messalina."[3] As a result, in his stemma of the descendants of Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, he makes Statilia and Catullus Messalinus sister and brother.[4] It is unclear how he is related to the suffect consul of AD 31, Sextus Tedius Valerius Catullus, the only other consular Valerius Catullus.[5]
Messalinus had died by AD 97, the date of a dinner party hosted by emperor Nerva, the successor of Domitian, where he asked, "If he had gone on living, what do you think would have become of him?"[6]
References
- ^ a b Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian (London: Routlege, 1993), p. 57
- ^ Paul Gallivan, "The Fasti for A. D. 70-96", Classical Quarterly, 31 (1981), pp. 188, 190, 213, 216
- ^ Syme, Augustan Aristocracy, (Oxford: University Press, 1986), p. 241
- ^ Syme, Augustan Aristocracy, "Table IX, Messalla Corvinus"
- ^ Olli Salomies, Adoptive and polyonymous nomenclature in the Roman Empire, (Helsinski: Societas Scientiarum Fenica, 1992), p. 26 n. 13
- ^ Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, IV.22.4-6