Sexuality in ancient Rome preoccupied with the risk of it. Cicero offers no examples in either the gossipy parts of his letters or in court cases where he attacks the reputation of a woman: he accuses Clodia of incest and of running her house like a brothel, but not of sleeping with slaves. Not even Messalina or Sallust's Sempronia is accused in the hostile sources of having sex with a slave. Sex with a slave was among the trumped-up charges against Claudia Octavia, the wife of Nero, when Poppaea Sabina campaigned to take her place, but mostly it was a matter for innuendo or
Mnester performance of “the same tragedy which the tragedian Neoptolemus had produced at the games during which King Philip of Macedon was killed.” During the reign of Caligula’s successor Claudius, Mnester retained the favor of the imperial court. Mnester was one of the lovers of Poppaea Sabina the Elder (mother of the empress Poppaea), and subsequently became the lover of Empress Messalina who was the wife of Claudius. Messalina had a statue of Mnester cast in bronze. At first he rejected Messalina's advances, but then she persuaded her way in to his heart. Mnester became her lover after Messalina convinced her