Talk:Claudia Antonia

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Claudia's husband[edit]

The present text reads as follows: "Cassius Dio states that Empress Valeria Messalina (out of her fear, of Pompeius being a rival to Britannicus) ordered his execution, so that Antonia could marry Messalina's half-brother to strengthen the Julian blood-line." This makes no sense. For Antonia to marry Messalina's half-brother would strengthen the Claudian blood-line, not the Julian one. In any case, Messalina would have had no interest in strengthening the Julian blood line - but she might have wanted to strengthen the Claudian line, to ensure her own son's succession, as opposed to Nero, whom some people might have considered a better candidate.

In any case, Messalina's aims are pure speculation. The text in Cassius Dio (Book LXI, 30, 6a) simply states that after the death of [Pompeius]Magnus, Claudius gave her in marriage to Cornelius Faustus Sulla, Messalina's brother.

I have removed the phrase about strengthening the Julian blood-line, which as far as I can see has no basis either in the sources or in fact. Anna Lowenstein (talk) 11:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also suspicious of that year of birth, it would make her only 13 at the time of her first marriage, and only 17 at the time of her husband's death and her 2nd marriage. PatGallacher (talk) 21:26, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"it would make her only 13 at the time of her first marriage"

Sounds about right. Our article Marriage in ancient Rome specifies: "The age of lawful consent to a marriage was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. Most Roman women seem to have married in their late teens to early twenties, but noble women married younger than those of the lower classes, and an aristocratic girl was expected to be virgin until her first marriage" Dimadick (talk) 17:31, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]