Roman Empress. Daughter of Domitia Lepida and Marcus Valerius Messala Barbato, she was born in 25 A.D. into a noble family related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. At the time that Caligula came to the throne, Messalina was only twelve but she was already one of the most desired women of Rome for her beauty. She was forced by the new Emperor to marry Claudius a man older than her to thirty years with whom she had two sons. In 41 A.D. after the assassination of Emperor Caligula, she and her husband Claudius were elected emperors of Rome. Their first order as new rulers of Rome was to order the death of the assassins of Caligula and exiling from the empire Seneca and Giulia Livilla (younger sister of Caligula and lover of Seneca). According to historians Messalina disliked court life and lived a dissolute and transgressive life. Of her it is said that had incestuous relationships with her brothers, who worked as prostitute in brothels of Rome under the false name of Licisca where, completely shaved, nipples sprinkled with gold dust, eyes marked by a mixture of antimony and carbon black, she used to offer herself to sailors and gladiators for a few hours a day. According to Pliny the Elder, she challenged the most famous prostitute of the time in a race, winning it after having twenty-five concubitus (sexual intercourse) in twenty-four hours. She was proclaimed "invicta" (invincible) and according to Juvenal, "lassata viris, nondum satiata, recessit" (tired, but not satisfied, she stopped). Messalina was very generous with complacent men to her whims but was also getting ready to get rid with ease of men who were not acquiesce to them. After becoming one of the most powerful women in ancient Rome and having had adulterous relations with governor Appius Silanus and with several other men of power, Messalina fell in love with Gaius Silius, husband of Julia Sila. Gaius Silius repudiated his wife becoming the lover of Messalina and in 48 A.D. while the Emperor Claudius was at Ostia during a Dionysian festival, the two lovers were married. Upon hearing the news the Emperor decreed the death of the two lovers, perhaps fearing that his rival would succeed him on the throne. Gaius Silius did not resist and asked for a quick death but Messalina took refuge at the Horti Lucullani (Gardens of Lucullus) and was killed by a tribune who as grabbed her by the hair and pierced, would exclaimed: "If your death will be weeping by all your lovers, weep half Rome!" Messalina paid with life all intrigues and murders committed during her life and in addition was applied on her "damnatio memoriae", the removal of her name from the documents and monuments of Rome and the destruction of her statues. Her son Britannico never became Emperor and at her death, Claudius married Agrippina appointing as his successor his stepson Nero who according to some historians after the death of Claudius would ordered the murder of Britannico.