Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics

The betrayal of Valeria Messalina, dramatically recounted by Tacitus in Annales 11.26-11.38, represents one of the greatest scandals of Emperor Claudius’ reign. Messalina’s boldness in choosing a new husband, Gaius Silius, in Claudius’ place and without his knowledge demonstrated the Emperor’s frailty in curbing the excesses of his own household. Tacitus’ account of the entire episode bears uncanny structural, conventional, and spatial resemblances to the customs of Greek tragedy – parallels which imbue the Messalina affair with a greater sense of didacticism and drama. It is through this tragedic lens that Tacitus, with his usual cynicism and disdain, successfully conveys how far the Principate had strayed from the idealized Augustan values upon which it was founded.