Word: messalina
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...trade is of immemorial antiquity and rich with legends, reaching back to the days when divers with burnished copper bodies gleaming in the sun of the Egean plunged to their deaths in quest of the finest, most deeply hidden sponges for the toilets of haughty Livia, or that Messalina whose luxuriance scandalized even imperial Rome...
...Messalina. Ennio was only a Persian slave who asked nothing but to be left alone with Ela, the little Greek girl. Roman life in 41 A.D., he found, was more complicated than that. He was too handsome. Before the picture was half unreeled the Empress and one of the most luxuriously affluent Princesses were contending for his favor. Finally, he smashed up his chariot in the great race in the circus. None of this narrative, even the smash, was dangerously exciting. Probing elsewhere for values, one finds the picture useful chiefly as a reincarnation of Latin life. The forum...