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The death of Claudius's wife Messalina in the Gardens of Lucullus (as reported by Tacitus) was the subject set for candidates for the Prix de Rome in 1870. The historian relates that her killing was a hurried affair, ordered by the Emperor's freedman Narcissus when Claudius showed himself inclined to mercy.
In 1870 the French committee for the Prix de Rome set Messalina's death as the competition subject for that year. The winning entry by Fernand Lematte, The Death of Messalina, is based on the description of the occasion by Tacitus. Following the decision that she must die, "Evodus, one of the freedmen, was appointed to watch and complete the ...
Statilia Messalina (c. AD 35 – after 68) was a Roman patrician woman, ... After Nero's death, Otho promised that he would marry her, before his suicide in 69 AD.
The gardens became the favourite playground of Claudius's Empress Messalina (after she forced the then owner, Valerius Asiaticus, to commit suicide – Tac. Annals XI.1), and was the site of her murder in 48 AD on the orders of the Emperor Claudius, her husband.
In the following year (AD 42), Silanus was put to death by Claudius, allegedly because he had plotted to assassinate Claudius, but the rumor circulated that Messalina had framed him after he resisted her advances. Lepida was the maternal grandmother to Messalina's children Claudia Octavia (step-sister and first wife of Nero) and Britannicus.
Claudius had Messalina, Silius and others who knew of the affair put to death. Messalina was given a knife to kill herself, but a tribune of the Praetorian Guard had to force it through her neck. [11] Images and statues of Silius and his associates were ordered to be destroyed. [16] [17]
Jacques François Fernand Lematte (26 July 1850 - 1929) was a French painter. He was born at Saint-Quentin, Aisne and studied in Alexandre Cabanel's studio at the École des beaux-arts de Paris, winning the Prix de Rome with The Death of Messalina (1870) and staying at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1871 to 1874.
Messalina became Nero's mistress, and then his third wife, after the death of Poppaea Sabina. Messalina was one of the few who survived the downfall of Nero. Otho, who had lost his wife to Nero, promised to marry her, but he fell in the year of the four emperors. [69] [70] [71]