Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the
unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the
child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia
Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he
divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal
infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the
younger for her unscrupulous ambition.
Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old,
yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of
the most unblushing wickedness.
But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own
jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and
Agrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than
herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to
make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the
supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their
wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal
fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when
the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy.
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