But Pliny, notwithstanding his great attainments,
was often a retailer of stale gossip, and in like
case was Aurelius Victor, another writer who heaped
much odium on her name. Again, there is a great
hiatus in the Annals of Tacitus, a true historian,
at the period covering the earlier days of the Empress;
while Suetonius, bitter as he may be, is little more
than an anecdotist. Juvenal, another of her detractors,
is a prejudiced witness, for he started out to satirize
female vice, and naturally aimed at high places.
Dio also tells of Messalina’s misdeeds, but
his work is under the same limitations as that of
Suetonius. Furthermore, none but Pliny mentions
the excess under consideration.
However, “where there is much smoke there must
be a little fire,” and based upon the superimposed
testimony of the writers of the period, there appears
little doubt but that Messalina was a nymphomaniac,
that she prostituted herself in the public stews,
naked, and with gilded nipples, and that she did actually
marry her chief adulterer, Silius, while Claudius
was absent at Ostia, and that the wedding was consummated
in the presence of a concourse of witnesses.
This was “the straw that broke the camel’s
back.” Claudius hastened back to Rome,
Silius was dispatched, and Messalina, lacking the
will-power to destroy herself, was killed when an
officer ran a sword through her abdomen, just as it
appeared that Claudius was about to relent.
“Thenspakeyedamnedwindmill,
sirWalter”
Raleigh is thoroughly in character here; this observation
is quite in keeping with the general veracity of his
account of his travels in Guiana, one of the most
mendacious accounts of adventure ever told. Naturally,
the scholarly researches of Westermarck have failed
to discover this people; perhaps Lady Helen might
best be protected among the Jibaros of Ecuador, where
the men marry when approaching forty.
Ben Jonson in his Conversations observed “That
Sr. W. Raughlye esteemed more of fame than of
conscience.”
YE VIRGIN QUEENE
Grave historians have debated for centuries the pretensions
of Elizabeth to the title, “The Virgin Queen,”
and it is utterly impossible to dispose of the issue
in a note. However, the weight of opinion appears
to be in the negative. Many and great were the
difficulties attending the marriage of a Protestant
princess in those troublous times, and Elizabeth finally
announced that she would become wedded to the English
nation, and she wore a ring in token thereof until
her death. However, more or less open liaisons
with Essex and Leicester, as well as a host of lesser
courtiers, her ardent temperament, and her imperious
temper, are indications that cannot be denied in determining
any estimate upon the point in question.
Ben Jonson in his Conversations with William Drummond
of Hawthornden says,
