← Back to the front page

40 Things About The Outlandish Math Cult Leader, and Other Unusual Facts From the Ancient World

Khalid Elhassan May 22, 2020 33 min

Democritus and Protagoras - Odysseus and Nausicaa (Ulysses and Nausicaa) — 'Pythagoras and the Fishermen', by Salvatore Rosa. Wikimedia

19. Killing One Wife, and Getting Killed by Another Wife

Claudius had terrible luck when it came to marriage. He had divorced his first wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, for adultery after she became pregnant by one of Claudius’ freedmen. She was also suspected of murdered her sister-in-law. His second marriage, to Aelia Paetina, also ended in divorce, because she mentally and physically abused him. His first two wives cheated on or abused Claudius, but at least they did not try to murder him. His third wife did.

Valeria Messalina seemingly slept with half of Rome, publicly wed another man while still married to Claudius, and plotted with her lover and bigamous husband to murder her imperial hubby and usurp his throne. That marriage ended in Messalina’s execution. An incorrigible optimist, Claudius married for a fourth time, this time wedding his niece Agrippina Minor (15 – 59 AD), thirty-three years his junior. That marriage ended with her poisoning him to death.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.