Messalina

[ mes-uh-lahy-nuh ]

noun

1. Valeria, died a.d. 48, third wife of Claudius I.

Messalina

/ ˌmɛsəˈliːnə /

noun

1. MessalinaValeria48FRomanMISC: wife of Claudius Valeria (vəˈlɪərɪə). died 48 ad , wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, notorious for her debauchery and cruelty

Example Sentences

In his “Lives of the Caesars” Suetonius gossips about the depravity of Emperor Claudius’s wife, Messalina, while Procopius’s “The Secret History” lingers over the sexual fetishes of the Byzantine Empress Theodora, a party girl who slept her way to the top.

From Washington Post

Director Joe D’Amato’s follow-up to Messalina … Orgasmo Imperiale and Unleashed Perversions of Emanuelle didn’t get much of a trailer for its home video release, but how much of a trailer do you need when your visual aesthetic is “Mad Max, but cheaper,” and your logline is “A telepathic mutant recruits a post-World War III TV game-show warrior to lead her band of mutants to safety?”

From Slate

Oscillating between Mary Whitehouse and Messalina depending on my place in the hormonal carousel, I’d probably describe my own politics as “sex ambivalent”.

From The Guardian

For those unfamiliar with ancient history, Messalina became the most powerful woman in the Roman Empire, notorious for her promiscuity, who plotted against her husband, the emperor Claudius.

From BBC

"Myra Hindley and I once loved each other. We were a unified force, not two conflicting entities. The relationship was not based on the delusional concept of folie a deux but on a conscious/subconscious emotional and psychological affinity. She regarded periodic homicides as rituals of reciprocal innervation, marriage ceremonies theoretically binding us ever closer. We experimented with the concept of total possibility. Instead of the requisite Lady Macbeth, I got Messalina. Apart, our futures would have taken radically divergent courses."

From BBC