Silius made no attempt to exonerate or defend himself, but simply asked for a speedy death. With him died a number of other illustrious knights, their offence being like his, though not so public or so heinous. Mnester the actor thought to save his life by reminding the emperor that it was by the latter's own command that he had been obliged to submit to the orders of Messalina; but though this plea caused some hesitation in the mind of Claudius, it was overruled by the merciless freedmen. It was thus also with Traulus Montanus, a young man of remarkable beauty; he could urge that only on one occasion had he been summoned to the apartments of the empress, and then immediately cast off; this plea, however, did not avail to save him.
It has been our purpose in this chapter to show how, in the midst of artistic surroundings, in a polished society, at a time when poetical and philosophical literature was universally cultivated, women, by the enormity of their excesses, touched the lowest depth of moral depravity. All that appeared necessary was to piece together the fragmentary information provided by the ancient historians and so present a picture of this single astounding character, Messalina. She was the ultimity of feminine vice. She did not stand alone; but in her there was a unique combination of extraordinary political power, unbounded opportunity for lawlessness, and inordinate concupiscence.
But one human life is not sufficient in which to display all the possible varieties of moral unrestraint. Messalina died, and Agrippina reigned in her stead. In the daughter of Germanicus was exemplified a character very different from that of the woman we have just dismissed. Agrippina was less wanton, but she was not more womanly. Messalina sacrificed human life in caprice, Agrippina assigned men to death in cold calculation. The aim of the one was pleasure, the object of the other was power. Messalina was a most unworthy mother; Agrippina contravened every other womanly instinct in order that her son might reign.
After Messalina's death, Claudius declared before the praetorians: "As I have been unhappy in my marriages, I am resolved henceforth to remain single; and if I should not, I give you leave to stab me." But he was not able to persist in this resolution; there were many women who, for the sake of bearing the name of empress, sought matrimonial union with him. Agrippina, however, had marked that position for her own, and she was intellectually the strongest, as well as one of the most beautiful women in Rome. She was now thirty-four years of age. It was no new undertaking for her to bestir herself in the search for a husband. At the age of thirteen she had been married to Cnæus Domitius Ahenobarbus; but he had died in A.D. 40, leaving her with Nero, their only child. On her retum from exile at the beginning of Claudius's reign, she had endeavored to form a union with a powerful patrician named Galba, who had a wife then living; but for her pains she got her face slapped by Galba's mother-in-law. She was soon married, however, to an orator called Passienus, who was a man remarkable for his wit, wealth, and good nature. He died before Agrippina had set her hopes upon a marriage with Claudius.