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Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus
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. Valeria, a female relative of Corvinus, perhaps a sister, 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.
Corvinus had a daughter called Valeria Messalina, who was perhaps the paternal grandmother of Roman Empress Statilia Messalina, and a son called Marcus Valerius Messalla Messallinus, who was a Roman senator and twice consul. Messalla Corvinus 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 progenie Augusti Caesaris which bears the name of Messalla, but in fact is a 12th-century production.Places associated with Messalla
The Casale Rotondo, a cylindrical tomb near the sixth milestone on the Appian Way, has been identified as being the tomb of Messalla Corvinus. Messalla was also the owner of the famed Gardens of Lucullus (Horti Lucullani) located on the Pincian Hill where the Villa Borghese gardens are today. Messalla is also recorded in an inscription as being one of the three friends of Gaius Cestius responsible for erecting statues that once stood at the site of the famous Pyramid of Cestius which is located close to the Porta San Paolo in Rome.Legendary ancestor of Hungarian Royalty
The Wallachian-Hungarian family of Korvin, which came to prominence with Janos Hunyadi and his son, Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi, King of Hungary and Bohemia, claimed to be descended from Messalla. This was based on the assertion that he became a big landowner on the Dacian-Pannonian frontiers, the future Hungary, that his descendants continued to live there for the following 1400 years, and that the Hunyadis were his ultimate descendants - for which there is scant if any historical evidence. The connection seems to have been made by Matthias' biographer, the Italian Antonio Bonfini, who was well-versed with the classical Latin authors. Bonfini also provided the Hunyadis with the The epithet Corvinus. This was supposedly due to a case in which Messalla, while on the battlefield, accepted a challenge to single combat issued to the Romans by a barbarian warrior of great size and strength. Suddenly, a raven flew from a trunk, perched upon Messalla's helmet, and began to attack his foe's eyes with its beak so fiercely that the barbarian was blinded, and the Roman could beat him easily. memory of this event, Messalla's agnomen Corvinus (from Corvus, "Raven") was interpreted as derived from this event. The Hunyadis called themselves "Corvinus" and had their coins minted displaying a "raven with a ring". This was later taken up in the coat of arms of Polish aristocratic families connected with the Hunyadis, and also led to Messsala's exploits being commemorated in the pediment of the Krasi?ski Palace in Warsaw.This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Marcus_Valerius_Messalla_Corvinus". The list of authors you can find on this page.