Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World
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- Synopsis
- The shocking and scandalous story of Messalina—the third wife of Emperor Claudius—one of the most controversial women to have inhabited the Roman world.The lubricious image of the Empress Messalina as a ruthless, predatory, and sexually insatiable schemer—derived from the work of male historians such as Tacitus and Suetonius—has taken deep root in the Western imagination. Here, the classicist Honor Cargill-Martin puts this traditional narrative of Messalina to the test. She looks first at Messalina's life as it is recounted in the primary sources, before using material and circumstantial evidence to reconstruct each aspect of Messalina's character: politician, wife, adulteress, and prostitute. Finally, she explores how posterity has memorialized Messalina, whether as artist's muse, epitome of depraved pagan womanhood, or as libertine icon portrayed in literature and film. Cargill-Martin sets out not to entirely rewrite Messalina's history, or to salvage her reputation, but to look at her life in the context of her time and to reclaim the humanity of a life story previously defined by currents of high politics and patriarchy.
- Copyright:
- 1895
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- Book Size:
- 432 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9781639363964
- Publisher:
- Pegasus Books
- Date of Addition:
- 06/06/23
- Copyrighted By:
- Aubrey Beardsley
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- History, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.
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- by Honor Cargill-Martin
- in History
- in Nonfiction
- in Biographies and Memoirs