Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World

Honor Cargill-Martin
3.97/5 (519 ratings)
Read Now Download Now
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 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.
Format:
Kindle Edition
Pages:
415 pages
Publication:
2023
Publisher:
Pegasus Books
Edition:
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
1639363963
ISBN13:
9781639363964
kindle Asin:
B0BHTNWNSF

Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World

Honor Cargill-Martin
3.97/5 (519 ratings)
Read Download
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 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.
Format:
Kindle Edition
Pages:
415 pages
Publication:
2023
Publisher:
Pegasus Books
Edition:
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
1639363963
ISBN13:
9781639363964
kindle Asin:
B0BHTNWNSF

More Books

Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore

Emma Southon

A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire

Emma Southon

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome

Emma Southon

Cleopatra's Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen

Jane Draycott

The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Pox Romana: The Plague That Shook the Roman World (Turning Points in Ancient History)

Colin Elliott

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Bettany Hughes

House of Lilies: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France

Justine Firnhaber-Baker

Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King

Dan Jones

Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World

Mary Beard

Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

Natalie Haynes

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power

Leah Redmond Chang