But yet, though Seneca had every reason to
loathe her character and to detest her memory, though he could not have
rendered to his patrons a more welcome service than by blackening her
reputation, he never so much as mentions her name. And this honourable
silence gives us a favourable insight into his character. For it can
only be due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messalina, bad as
she undoubtedly was, had been judged already by a higher Power, and had
met her dread punishment at the hand of God. It has been conjectured,
with every appearance of probability, that the blackest of the scandals
which were believed and circulated respecting her had their origin in
the published autobiography of her deadly enemy and victorious
successor. The many who had had a share in Messalina's fall would be
only too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly
implacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar
gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the
acts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to
supplant.
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