Talk:Messalina

message: What is the source of the anecdote about Claudius blithely asking for more wine when told of her death?  It contradicts Graves' account in Claudius the God.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.193.209.34 (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's from Tacitus (Annals 11:38. Suetonius (Claudius 39) says Claudius went to dinner immediately after having her executed, and "absent-mindedly" asked why she wasn't there. The primary sources agree he appeared unmoved by her death. Claudius the God is a work of fiction, and Graves (who translated Suetonius for Penguin Classics) was obviously taking a bit of artistic licence. --Nicknack009 22:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And note that even in the novel Claudius the God, Claudius behaves as Tacitus describes (blithe and unconcerned at Messalina's death). In the novel, this is because Claudius had been drugged by his physician so he could function; he doesn't grieve until later, when the drug is removed. Narsil 00:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claudius indifferent to her death? 

message: I found a lovely pic of Messalina at this website http://italianalmanac.org/biografie/messalina.htm, but I don't know how to create an external link from the Wikiarticle to the page in question. But since the pic is public domain I have already placed it on Messalina's page. The Fading Light 8:14, 28 March 2006
I like the new picture of Valeria Messalina. I have seen this picture on a series on the Roman Empire in the first century, when they were talking about her in the reign of Claudius. Anriz 30 March 2006.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Anriz (talk • contribs) 04:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pic of Messalina 

message: According to very reliable sources, Messalina's grandfather is not Marcus Valerius Messala Messalinus but Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus Appianus, a Claudius Pulcher by birth (son of Appius Claudius Pulcher, cos. 38BC) adopted by Marcus Valerius Messala, cos. suff. 32BC (see Levick, Claudius, Table 2 "Messalina's connections"). Also, Messalina never had a brother called Corvinus and her father was never consul (see Anthony Barrett, Agrippina, Appendix II: The husbands of Domitia and Lepida). I noticed that many wikipedia entries related to members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty contain a lot of false or erroneous information (for instance, Antonia the Elder's full name was NOT Julia (???) Antonia Cretica (???) Major but just Antonia Major; the daughter  of Drusus II was not named Claudia Livia Julia Helena but just Julia (she's generally refered to as Iulia Drusi filia, even if some writers call her Livia Julia or Julia Livilla); Agrippina the Younger's full name was not Julia VIPSANIA (????) Agrippina Minor and she's called Agrippinilla only in Robert Graves' novel I, Claudius; Domitia Lepida's sister is not named Domitia Lepida Major, but just Domitia, etc.).
I suspect some fellow to just make up information about Julio-Claudian family members. It's very sad, because this makes wikipedia a not very reliable source of information. Are there not people at Wikipedia who verify the information contained in their articles?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.172.132.11 (talk) 05:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Messalina's grandfather

message: :In keeping with the historical views at the time the novels were written (1934), Messalina is portrayed as a young teenager at the time of her marriage.
Not saying this is false, but can anyone enlighten me as to why historians changed their opinion of her birthdate/age? SnowFire 04:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Messalina's age upon marriage. 

message: Anriz, would you please stop deleting constantly referenced material regarding Messalina's grandfather and replacing it by irrelevant information. This is not very polite from you.
Thanks.
--Johnnyfrank 9:00, january 3 2008 (UTC)—Preceding undated comment added at 01:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Messalina's family

message: The unsourced "execution" section follows Tacitus's  Annals (http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.7.xi.html), all except the part about her being decapitated.  I know of no source that has her decapitated except for the BBC adaptation of I, Claudius. Even in Graves' book she isn't decapitated. Iglew (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: Can there be a section at the bottom for all the random modern uses of her name? The Asteroid 545 being named after her shouldn't be up there in the top of the page 108.41.172.143 (talk) 07:59, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Asteroids etc

message: The biographical part of the article has been radically revised after discussion with User:Cynwolfe, who tagged it as unreliable on 14 June, remarking on its 'well-intentioned content' that 'much of this is OR based on primary sources, full of interpretation without attribution to secondary sources'. Books are listed at the end, but there are no citations to back statements such as that 'in character she was very insecure' (a 20th century speculation) and that 'Ancient Roman sources...claimed her negative qualities were a result of her inbreeding'. Even if they did (and this is disputable), the general consensus now is that the historians were arguing from a biased and self-interested standpoint and cannot be taken as reliable. It is therefore necessary to take a more objective view, rather than repeating malicious and salacious tittle-tattle from the past. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? 

message: The section "Messalina's history" provides a single sentence:
'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 unconscious of her many adulteries.'
which is about as leading a sentence as you can get, and then proceeds to list the ways in which this view may be wrong. At no point does it deal with her history. The next section is spattered with pieces of information - of her 'victims'. Only does "Downfall" provide a a proper, bare-bones description of historical events, and it is reasonably well referenced.
My suggestion is that the article give an actual chronology of events, with appropriate headings, and separate sections for "reputation". I would do this myself, right now, but the reason I'm writing this is that I arrived here for a basic overview of Messalinas' history because I didn't know it, and was treated to a polemic against a reputation I knew very little about to begin with, and scoured the article for information describing the person and their place in history, with... mixed results.
It's an encyclopedia and it has a controversial reputation, and this kind of content is one of the myriad reasons why. Please provide information before you provide arguments, and don't enforce an opinion about a subject you've barely introduced and haven't given any information on. Seneillion (talk) 17:25, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Messalinas' actual history 

message: The caption for the statue at the head of the article is that it is of Messalina and her son. This is directly contradicted in the "Erasure from Memory" section. I am not experienced enough to evaluate which should remain, or if the caption should be edited, but I thought it should be brought to attention 98.212.157.201 (talk) 07:46, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: If you'd read the section you cite, you'd see that the statue is mentioned as an exception. Sweetpool50 (talk) 13:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statue depiction 

message: Where in the section on Erasure from Memory is the explicit sex picture mentioned, ? Maybe I’m reading it too fast, but the only visual media I’m seeing mentioned in this section are 3 busts and 2 sardonyxes (sardonices?). Triplingual (talk) 23:30, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion is in the third para of the next section, ending ("see above"). The picture is placed in the previous section to illustrate the calumnies against Messalina also discussed there. Sweetpool50 (talk) 00:10, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

text: Now I've had time to think the matter through, I believe you're onto a loser, . The guidelines mention that the illustration must be relevant which, given the reputation of Messalina, it certainly is. The image occurs in a section that mentions two authors (the relevant passages of whose work are freely available on scholarly sites) who describe the empress' activities in the brothel. This gave rise to the Renaissance set of sexual positions by an established Italian artist in which Messalina occurs as one, discussed in the following paragraph. What is more, the whole set of I Modi has an article to itself in which the image you question also appears. There can be no question concerning its appropriateness, therefore. But, in addition, I Modi are part of art history and worthy of scholarly consideration - and WP is meant for scholars. Your objection can only be POV and falls outside WP guidelines, which allow for relevant discussion. And to add my own POV, I don't find the Messalina image in the least titillating; it's too much of its centuries-ago age and is even amusingly so. Sweetpool50 (talk) 13:45, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture mention