Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (
64 BC -
AD 8) was a
Roman general, author and patron of literature and art. He was the son of politician
Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus. Corvinus had a sister called Valeria who married the Roman consul
Quintus Pedius (a maternal cousin to
Roman Emperor Augustus). Valeria and Pedius had a son called
Quintus Pedius Publicola, who was an orator. His great nephew was the deaf painter
Quintus Pedius, whom he raised. Corvinus had a daughter called Valeria Messalina, who was the paternal grandmother of Roman Empress
Statilia Messalina and had a son called
Marcus Valerius Messalla Messallinus, who twice consul and a Roman senator.
He was educated partly at
Athens, together with
Horace and the younger
Cicero. In early life he became attached to
republican principles, which he never abandoned, although he avoided offending
Caesar Augustus by not mentioning them too openly. He moved that the title of
pater patriae should be bestowed upon Augustus, and yet resigned the appointment of prefect of the city after six days’ tenure of office, because it was opposed to his ideas of constitutionalism. In
43 BC he was proscribed, but managed to escape to the camp of
Brutus and
Cassius. After the
Battle of Philippi (
42 BC) he went over to Antony, but subsequently transferred his support to
Octavian. In
31 BC Messalla was appointed
consul in place of Antony, and took part in the battle of Actium. He subsequently held commands in the East, and suppressed the revolted Aquitanians; for this latter feat he celebrated a triumph in 27.
Messalla restored the road between
Tusculum and
Alba, and many handsome buildings were due to his initiative. His influence on literature, which he encouraged after the manner of Maecenas, was considerable, and the group of literary persons whom he gathered round him--including
Tibullus, Lygdamus and the poet
Sulpicia--has been called "the Messalla circle." With Horace and Tibullus he was on intimate terms, and
Ovid expresses his gratitude to him as the first to notice and encourage his work.’ The two panegyrics by unknown authors (one printed among the poems of Tibullus as iv. 1; the other included in the
Catalepton, the collection of small poems attributed to
Virgil) indicate the esteem in which he was held.
Messalla was himself the
author of various works, all of which are lost. They included Memoirs of the civil wars after the death of Caesar, used by
Suetonius and
Plutarch; bucolic poems in
Greek; translations of Greek speeches; occasional satirical and erotic verses; essays on the minutiae of
grammar. As an
orator, he followed Cicero instead of the Atticizing school, but his style was affected and artificial. Later
critics considered him superior to Cicero, and
Tiberius adopted him as a model. Late in life he wrote a work on the great Roman families, wrongly identified with an extant poem
De pro genie Augusti Caesaris bearing the name of Messalla, but really a 12th-century production.
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