Messalla

Messalla (less correctly Messāla), ae, m.,

• a Roman surname in the gens Valeria: Corvinus primus Messanam vicit, et pri mus ex familiā Valeriorum, urbis captae in se translato nomine, Messana appellatus est: paulatimque vulgo permutante litteras, Messalla dictus, Sen. Vit. Beat. 13. The most celebrated is the orator M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus, in the time of Cicero and Augustus, Cic. Att. 15, 17, 2; 16, 16, A, 5; Tib. 4, 1, 1; Hor. A. P. 371; Sen. Contr. 2, 12, 8.—In plur., Ov. P. 4, 16, 43.

Messalla (Messāla), ae, m., Name einer Familie des valerischen Geschlechts, aus der am bekanntesten M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus, jüngerer Zeitgenosse Ciceros, später unter Augustus Gönner Tibulls, Cic. ad Att. 15, 17, 2; 16, 16. litt. A. § 5. Tibull. 4, 1, 1: bewundert als gewandter Redner, Hor. de art. poët. 371. Sen. contr. 2, 12, 8: im Plur., Verg. catal. 11, 40. Ov. ex Pont. 4, 16, 43. Sen. de clem. 1, 10, 1. – bl. Corvinus, Hor. sat. 1, 10, 29. – u. Messalīna, die unzüchtige Gemahlin des Kaisers Klaudius, Tac. ann. 11, 2 sq. Suet. Claud. 26 sqq. Iuven. 10, 333.

Messalla

Μεσσάλας, a cognomen of the Gens Valeria at Rome, was originally assumed by M. Valerius Maximus [No. 1] after his relief of Messana in Sicily from blockade by the Carthaginians in the second year of the first Punic war, B. C. 263. (Macr. 1.6; Sen. Brev. Vit. 13.) For the antiquity of the Messalla branch of the Valerian gens see Tibullus (Carm. 1.28; comp. Dionys. A. R. 4.67; Rutil. Iter. 1.169; Sidon. Apoll. Ep. 1.9). They appear for the first time on the consular Fasti in B. C. 263, and for the last in A. D. 506 ; and, during this period of nearly eight centuries, they held twenty-two consulships and three censorships. (Sidon. Apoll. Carm. 9.302; Rutil. l.c.; Symmach. Ep. 7.90.) The cognomen Messalla, frequently written Messala, appears with the agnomens Barbatus, Niger, Rufus, with the nomens Ennodius, Pacatus, Silius, Thrasia Priscus, Vipstanus, and with the praenomens Potitus and Volesus, and was itself originally, and when combined with Corvinus, an agnomen, as M. Valerius Maximus Corvinus Messalla, i. e. of Messana.

Messalla

1. M'. Valerius Maximus Corvinus Messalla, M. F. M. N., son of M. Valerius Maximus Corvinus, was consul in B. C. 263, the second year of the first Punic war. Sicily was assigned to both the consuls for their province. Their campaign was brilliant: more than sixty of the Sicilian towns acknowleged the supremacy of Rome, and the consuls concluded a peace with Hieron, which lasted the remainder of his long life, and proved equally advantageous to both Syracuse and Rome, [Hieron, No. 2.] Messalla's share in this campaign is inseparable from that of M. Otacilius Crassus [Crassus, Otacilius, No. 1], his colleague. But that his contemporaries ascribed to Messalla the principal merit of these events appears from his alone triumphing "De Paeneis et Rege Siculorum Hierone" (Fasli).as well as from the cognomen he obtained on relieving Messana from blockade, which, slightly changed in pronunciation (Messana -- Messalla), remained in the Valerian family for nearly eight centuries. A house on the Palatine hill was a more tangible recompence of his services (Ascon. in Pisonian. p. 13, Orelli); and his triumph was distinguished by two remarkable monuments of his victory-by a pictorial representation of a battle with the Sicilian and Punic armies, which he placed in the pronaos of the Curia Hostilia (Plin. Nat. 35.4.7; Schol. Bob. in Vatinian. p. 318, Orelli; comp. Liv. 41.28), and which Pliny regards as one of the earliest encouragements to art at Rome--and by a sun-dial, Horologium, from the booty of Catana, which was set up on a column behind the rostra, in the forum. (Varro, apud Plin. H. N. 7.60; Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Horologium.) Messalla was censor in B. C. 252, when he degraded 400 equites to aerarians for neglect of duty in Sicily. (Plb. 1.16, 17; Diod. Eclog. 23.5; Zonar. 8.9; Liv. xvi. Epit.; Eutrop. 2.19; Oros. 4.7; Sen. Brev. Vit. 13; Macr. 1.6; Val. Vax. 2.9.7.)

Messalla

2. M. Valerius Messalla, M'. F. M. N., son probably of the preceding, was consul in B. C. 226. His year of office was employed in organising a general levy of the Italian nations against an expected invasion of the Gauls from both sides of the Alps. (Zonar. 8.19; Oros. 4.13; Fasti; comp. Plb. 2.23.)

Messalla

3. M. Valerius M. F. . M'. N. Essalla, son of the preceding, was prefect of the fleet in Sicily in B. C. 210, the ninth year of the second Punic war. He was ordered by M. Valerius Laevinus [Laevinus, No. 2], the consul of that year, to effect a landing in Africa. Messalla ravaged the neighbourhood of Utica, and returned with his booty and captives to Lilybaeum fourteen days after his departure from Sicily. Laevinus being directed by the senate to nominate a dictator, named his lieutenant Messalla, but both the senate and people cancelled the appointment. (Liv. 27.5.) He is probably the same Messalla who was praetor peregrinus in B. C. 194, and consul in 188. In the latter year the province of Liguria and a consular army were assigned him, but he performed nothing memorable, and gave some offence by returning late in the year to hold the next comitia. In B. C. 174 Messalla was legatus in Macedonia, and in 172 was appointed decemvir sacrorum, in the room of M. Aemilius Papus, deceased. (Liv. 34.54, 55, 38.35, 42, 41.22, 42.28.)

Messalla

4. M. Valerius Messalla, M. F. M. N., son of the preceding, was consul in B. C. 161. His consulate was remarkable chiefly for a decree of the senate prohibiting the residence of Greek rhetoricians at Rome. (Gel. 2.24, 15.11; Suet. Clar. Rhet. i.) The "Phormion" and "Eunuch" of Terence were first acted in this year. (Titul. Phorm. et Eunuch. Terentii.) Messalla, having been once degraded by the censors, became himself censor in B. C. 154. (V. Max. 2.9.9.)

Messalla

5. -- Valerius Messalla was a legatus of the consul P. Rutilius lupus at the breaking out of the Marsic or Social War, B. C. 90. (Appian. B. C. 1.40.)

Messalla

6. M. Valerius Messalla, M. F. M. N., with the agnomen Niger, was praetor in the year of Cicero's consulship, B. C. 63, and consul in 61, the year in which Clodius profaned the mysteries of the Bona Dea, and Cn. Pompey triumphed for his several victories over the Cilician pirates, Tigranes and Mithridates. Messalla, as consul, took an active part in the prosecution of Clodius, and tried to elicit from Pompey a public avowal of his opinion and intentions. Cicero's character of Messalla (ad Att. 1.14.6) must be regarded as a mere party-sketch, heightened by the feelings and circumstances of the time at which it was drawn. Messalla was censor in B. C. 55. a member of the college of pontifices (pseudo-Cic. Harusp. Resp. 6), and a respectable orator. (Cic. Brut. 70.) In B. C. 80 he was engaged in collecting evidence for the defence in the cause of Sextus Roscius of Ameria (id. pro Seat. Rose. 51); in 62 he solicited Cicero to undertake the defence of his kinsman, P. Sulla (id. pro Sull. 6); and in 54 he was one of the six orators whom M. Aemilius Scaurus retained on his trial. (Ascon. in Scaurian. p. 20, Orelli). Messalla married a sister of the orator Q. Hortensius (Cic. Fam. 8.2, 4), by whom he had at least one son, No. 7. (D. C. 37.46; Caes. Gal. 1.2; Plin. Nat. 7.26, 8.36, 38.2; Cic. Att. 1.12, 13, 14.)

Messalla

7. M. Valerius Messalla, son of the preceding, was a successful candidate for the consulship in B. C. 53; but, owing to the disturbances at Rome, and the repeated appointment of interreges, he could not enter upon its functions until half of his official year had expired. (D. C. 40.17, 45; Appian, App. BC 2.19; Plut. Pomp. 54 ; Ascon. ad Milonian. p. 48, Orelli.) Messalla paid high for his election (Cic. Att. 4.16.6); his success was anxiously desired by Cicero, who at that time was in daily dread of Clodius (id. ad Quint. Fratr. 3.1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 16); but he was secretly opposed by Cn. Pompey, who disliked Messalla, and wanted to be named dictator himself. (Id. ad Att. 4.9, 15.) Messalla was prosecuted for bribery at the comitia by Q. Pompeius Rufus, a grandson of Sulla's. Cicero admitted Messalla's guilt, but, in common with the bulk of the senatorian party, gave him his political support. Ad Att. 4.16, ad Quint. Fratr. 3.2.) He was defended by his uncle, Q. Hortensius (Cic. Brut. 96); acquitted of direct bribery, but found guilty of transgressing the Lex Licinia de Sodalitiis, that is, of causing and countenancing assemblies or clubs for controlling the elections. (Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Ambitus; Cic. Fam. 8.2, 4.) Messalla was stoned by the Clodian mob during his consulate. (Schol. Bob. in Or. de aere al. Milon. p. 343, Orelli.) In B. C. 47 Messalla was with Caesar in the East, and was probably the legatus of that name whom in the African war in the following year a mutinous centurion and his company besieged in Messana. (Auct. B. Afr. 28.) After the battle of Thapsus Messalla was sent to Utica. (Id. 86.) Messalla was in high repute for his skill in augury, on which science he wrote; and scanty fragments from his treatise are preserved by Gellius (N. A. 13.14, 15) and Festus (vv. "serpserit" and "vernisera"). Cicero (Cic. Fam. 6.18) mentions letters of Messalla written during the second Spanish war, in B. C. 45. He was the purchaser of the domus Autroniana. (Cic. Att. 1.13.)

Messalla

8. M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus, M. F. M. N., son of the preceding, was born, according to Eusebius, in B. C. 59, in the same year with Livy the historian. (Hieron. in Euseb. Chiron. Olmp. 180. 2.) Since, however, Messalla had gained some reputation for eloquence before the breaking out of the civil war in B. C. 43, the earlier date assigned by Scaliger (ad loc. Euseb.) for his birth, about B. C. 70, seems preferable. (Ellendt, Proleg. ad Cic. Brut. p. 131, comp. Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 183, B. C. 59.) He was partly educated at Athens (Cic. Att. 12.32), where probably began his intimacy with Horace and L. Bibulus. (Hor. Sat. 1.10. 81-86; Appian, App. BC 4.38; comp. Plut. Brut. 24.) In the interval between Caesar's death and the formation of the triumvirate, Messalla returned to Italy. (Cic. Att. 15.17.) He attached himself to the senatorian party, and especially to its leader, Cassius, whom, long after, when he had become the friend of Augustus, he was accustomed to call " my general." (Tac. Ann. 4.34; D. C. 47.24; Plut. Brut. 40; Veil. 2.71.) Messalla was proscribed; but since his kinsmen proved his absence from Rome at the time of Caesar's assassination, the triumvirs, notwithstanding his wealth and influence (Appian, l.c.; Cic. Att. 16.16), erased his name from the list, and offered him security for his person and property. Messalla, however, rejected their offers, followed Cassius into Asia, held the third place in the command of the republican army (Vell. 2.71), and at Philippi, in the first day's battle, turned Augustus's flank, stormed his camp, and narrowly missed taking him prisoner. (Plut. Brut. 41.) To Messalla, on the night before the battle, Cassius made his protest that, like Cn. Pompey at Pharsalia, he was compelled to set his country's fortune on a single stake. (Id. ib. 40.) After the death of Brutus and Cassius, Messalla, with a numerous body of fugitives, took refuge in the island of Thasos. His followers, though defeated, were not disorganised and offered him the command. But he induced them to accept honourable terms from Antony (Appian, App. BC 4.38), to whom he attached himself until Cleopatra's influence made his ruin certain and easy to be foreseen. Messalla then, for the third time, changed his party, and served Augustus effectively in Sicily (Appian, App. BC 5.102-103, 110-113) B. C. 36; against the Salassians, a mountain tribe, lying between the Graian and the Pennine Alps, B. C. 34 (D. C. 49.38; Appian, App. Ill. 17; Strab. iv. p.189), and at Actium, B. C. 31. A decree of the senate had abrogated Antony's consulship for B. C. 31, and Messalla was appointed to the vacant place. (D. C. 1. 10.) At Actium he commanded the centre of the fleet, and so highly distinguished himself, that Augustus remarked, Messalla had now fought as well for him as formerly at Philippi against him. " I have always taken the best and justest side," was Messalla's adroit rejoinder. (Plut. Brut. 53.) At Daphne in Syria, Messalla proved himself an unscrupulous partisan, by dispersing among distant legions and garrisons Antony's gladiators, and finally destroying them, although they had not submitted until life and freedom had been guaranteed them. (D. C. 51.7.) He was proconsul of Aquitaine in B. C. 28-27, and obtained a triumph for his reduction of that province. (Fasti; Dio Cass. liii 12; Appian, App. BC 4.38; Tib. 1.7, 2.1. 33. 2.5. 117, 4.1, 4.8. 5.) Shortly before or immediately after his administration of Aquitaine Messalla held a prefecture in Asia Minor. (Tib. 1.3.) He was deputed by the senate, probably in B. C. 30, to greet Augustus with the title of " Pater Patrine; " and the opening of his address on that occasion is preserved by Suetonius. (Aug. 58; comp. Flor. 4.12.66; Ovid. Fast. 2.127, Trist. 2.39, 181; D. C. 56.8, 41.) During the disturbances at the comitia in B. C. 27, Augustus nominated Messalla to the revived office of warden of the city; but he resigned it in a few days, either because he deemed its functions unconstitutional--incivilem potestatem (Euseb. 1991),--or himself unequal to their discharge--quasi nescius imperandi (Tac. Ann. 6.11; comp. D. C. 54.6). Messalla soon afterwards withdrew from all public employments except his augurship, to which Augustus had specially appointed him, although, at the time of his admission, there was no vacancy in the augural college. (D. C. 49.16.) About two years before his death, which happened about the middle of Augustus's reign, B. C. 3-A. D. 3 (Dialog. de Orat. 17), Messalla's memory failed him, and he often could not recall his own name. (Hieron. ad Euseb. 2027; Plin. Nat. 7.24.) A statue erected by Augustus in his own forum to M. Valerius Corvus, consul in B. C. 348, was probably either a tribute to his living or a memorial of his deceased friend Messalla. (Gel. 9.11; comp. Suet. Aug. 21.) He left at least one son, Aurelius Cotta Messallinus [Cotta, No. 12]; and he had a brother who bore the name of Gellius Poplicola. (D. C. 47.24.) His tomb was of remarkable splendour. (Mart. 8.3, 10.2.)

Messalla was as much distinguished in the literary as in the political world of Rome. He was a patron of learning and the arts, and was himself an historian, a poet, a grammarian, and an orator. He wrote a history, or, more properly, commentaries on the civil wars after Caesar's death, from which both Suetonius (Suet. Aug. 58, 74) and Plutarch (Plut. Brut. 40, 41, 45, 53) derived materials. (Tac. Ann. 4.34; Tib. 4.1. 5.) Towards the close of his life he composed a genealogical work, De Romanis Familiis (Plin. Nat. 34.13, 35.2; Suet. Aug. 74.) The treatise, however, de Progenie Azugusti, which sometimes accompanies Eutropius and the minor Roman historians, is the forgery of a much later age. Messalla's poems were probably occasional--vers de société merely--and of a satirical or even licentious character. (Plin. Ep. 5.3.) His writings as a grammarian were numerous and minute, comprising treatises on collocation and lexicography, and on the powers and uses of single letters. The titles of two of these treatises have been preserved, " Liber de S. Litera" (Quinct. Inst. 1.7.23, 1.5.15, 9.4.38) and " Liber de involute Dictis" (Fest. v. Sanates); and Suetonius (Ill. Gr. 4) cites part of a grammatical work or letter of Messalla's. (Quinct. Inst. 1.5.61, 6.42, 8.3.24, 9.4.38.) His eloquence reflected the character of his age. It was an era of transition from the decaying forms of an aristocratical republic to the vigorous centralisation of the imperial system of Trajan and the Antonines. The ancient freedom of the forum was extinct; no great public causes survived; the measures of the government and the person of the ruler were hazardous topics, and the orator addressed not a mixed multitude, but a select audience. A scholastic spirit was rapidly encroaching upon the province of eloquence, and preparing the way for the rhetorical finesse of the later Roman schools. Messalla was not chargeable with all the vices of the rhetoricians, but neither had he retained the purity of the preceding age. He was preferred to Cicero, and the preference is a proof of the incompetence of his critics. More smooth and correct than vigorous or original, he persuaded rather than convinced, and conciliated rather than persuaded. His health was feeble, and the prooemia of his speeches generally pleaded indisposition and solicited indulgence. (Quint. 4.1.8; Dialog. de Orat. 17, 18, 21.) Of his speeches the following titles have been transmitted: 1. Contra Aufidiam (Quinct. 10.1.22); 2. Pro Liburnia, of which there is a fragment in Festus (s. v. tabem); 3. Pro Pythodoro (Sen. Contr. 2.12, p. 171, Bipont. ed.); 4. Contra Antonii Literas (Charis. p. 103); and 5. De Antonii Statuis (id. p. 80), both of which were probably delivered in B. C. 32, 31. Messalla mostly took the defendants' side, and was frequently associated in causes with C. Asinius Pollio. (Quinct. Inst. 10.1.24.) He recommended and practised translation from the Greek orators; and his version of the Phryne of Hyperides was thought to exhibit remarkable skill in either language. (Quinct. 10.5.2). Messalla was somewhat of a jurist in his diction, preferring native Latinisms to adoptive Greek words: e. g. funambulus to schoenobates (Schol. Cruqu. ad Hor. Sat. 1.10, 28), and archaisms to novelties in expression and orthography. In the age of Domitian Messalla had become nearly obsolete; beside the gaudy ornaments and measured declamation of the rhetoricians, he appeared tame and insipid. (Sen. Excerpt. Contr. iii. Prooem. ; Dialog. de Orat. 21; Meyer, Fragm. Or. Rom. p. 208; Schott, de Rhet. ap. Sen. Memor.)

His political eminence, the wealth he inherited or acquired in the civil wars (Casaub. in Pers. Sat. 2.71), and the favour of Antony and Augustus, rendered Messalla one of the principal persons of his age, and an effective patron of its literature. (Quinct. 12.10.11, 11.28.) His friendship for Horace (Od. 3.21, Sat. 1.6. 42, 10. 29, 85, A. P. 371) and his intimacy with Tibullus are well known. In the elegies of the latter poet, indeed, even where he is not (as in elegies 1.7, 4.1) the immediate subject of the poem, the name of Messalla is continually introduced. The dedication of the " Ciris," a doubtful work, is not sufficient proof of his friendship with Virgil; but the companion of " Plotius and Varius, of Maecenas and Octavius" (Hor. Sat. 1.10. 81), cannot well have been unknown to the author of the Eclogues and Georgics. He directed Ovid's early studies (ex Point. 4.16), and Tiberius sought his acquaintance in early manhood, and took him for his model in eloquence. (Suet. Tib. 70.) Some of Messalla's bon mots, which were highly relished by his contemporaries, have been handed down to us. (Sen. Suas. 1, 2, 3.) He was a man well suited to the era in which he lived. He was courtly, cautious, and serviceable to the government both abroad and at home; and his early passion for liberty easily subsided into reasonable acquiescence in a government that at least protected life and property. If he merited his own description of Dellius [Dellius], a man who had danced through a revolution (Sen. Suas. 1), he atoned for his compliance by his zeal in behalf of his friends (Plut. Brut. 53), by his encouragement of literary aspirants (Sen. Suas. 6), and by his intimacy with the best and wisest men of his generation.

Messalla's life forms the subject of several monographies, e. g. De Burigny, Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscript. xxxiv. p. 99 ff.; D. G. Moller, Disputat. de M. Val. Corv. Messalla, Altorf. 1689, 4to.; L. Wiese, de M. Val. Messall. Corvin. Vita et Studiis Doctrinae, Berol. 1829, 8vo.; to which add Ellendt. Proleg. ad Cic. Brut. pp. 131-138.

Messalla

9. Potitus Valerius Messalla, was one of the supplementary consuls in B. C. 29. He was probably father of No. 11.

Messalla

10. M. Valerius Messalla Barbatus, M. F. M. N., with the agnomen Appianus, was consul in B. C. 12, and died in his year of office. He was the father (or grandfather) of the empress Messallina [Messallina, No. 1]; and Suetonius (Suet. Cl. 26) calls him cousin of the emperor Claudius I. Strictly speaking, however, he was cousin only by marriage; and there is some difference of opinion as to the name of his wife. Lipsius (ad Tac. Ann. 11.37) and Perizonius (Ep. ad N. Heins. Collect. Burmann. iv. pp. 801-802) make Messalla to have married Domitia Lepida, daughter of Antonia major, and granddaughter of M. Antony and Octavia. Claudius, son of Antonia minor, was therefore Domitia Lepida's first cousin, but Messalla's cousin only by marriage. The following stemma will show their respective relationship:--

Ryckius (ad loc. Tao.), on the other hand, and Brotier (Tac. Supplem. Stemm. Caes.), make two Messallae Barbati, father and son, of whom the elder married Marcella major, daughter of Claudius Marcellus, consul B. C. 50, and Octavia, and the younger Domitia Lepida. (D. C. 54.28; Tac. Ann. 11.37.)

Messalla

11. L. Valerius Potiti F. Messalla Volesus, son probably of No. 9, was consul in A. D. 5, and afterwards proconsul of Asia, where his cruelties drew on him the anger of Augustus and a condemnatory decree from the senate. According to Seneca, Messalla in one day decapitated 300 persons, and walked among the headless trunks exclaiming "a royal spectacle, and more than royal, for what king ever did the like !" (Tac. Ann. 3.68; Sen. de Ira, 2.5; Fasti.)

Messalla

12. M. Valerius Messalla, M. F., consul in A. D. 20, moved at the first meeting of the senate under Tiberius, in A. D. 14, that the oath to the emperor (sacramentum) should for the future be repeated annually instead of at intervals of five or ten years (Tac. Ann. 1.8, 3.2; Fasti.)

Messalla

13. M. Valerius Messalla, great-grandson of M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (No. 8), was Nero's colleague in the consulship A. D. 58. His immediate predecessors had squandered the wealth of his ancestors; and Messalla, who had been content with honourable poverty, received from the treasury an allowance to enable him to meet the expences of the consulship. (Tac. Ann. 13.34 ; comp. Suet. Nero 10.)

Messalla

14. L. Vipstanus Messalla, was legionary tribune in Vespasian's army, A. D. 70. He rescued the legatus Aponius Saturninus from the fury of the soldiers who suspected him of corresponding with the Vitellian party. Messalla was brother of Aquilius Regulus, the notorious delator in Domitian's reign (Plin. Ep. 1.5). He is one of Tacitus' authorities for the history of the civil wars after Galba's death, and a principal interlocutor in the dialogue De Oratoribus, ascribed to Tacitus. (Tac. Hist. 3.9, 11, 18, 25, 28, 4.42, Dialog. de Orat. 15-25.) [W.B.D]

Messalla , Si'lius

was consul suffectus from the 1st of May, A. D. 193, and was the person who formally announced to the senate the deposition of Didius Julianus and the elevation of Septimius Severus. He is apparently the Messalla who stands in the Fasti as consul for A. D. 214, and who subsequently (A. D. 218) fell a sacrifice to the jealous tyranny of Elagabalus. (D. C. 73.17, 79.5.) [W.R]