In Messalina, greed for money, ambition for power and bestial lust were combined; so that, in agreement with her freedmen, she shamelessly sold the prefectures of the armies and provinces and the highest offices of the empire, and in brothels, unbeknownst to her husband, she stimulated the most noble and beautiful of both sexes with her own lasciviousness, favouring them if they yielded, extinguishing them if they resisted: all Rome knew, except Claudius.