The poet Juvenal mentions Messalina twice in his satires. One story told there is that she compelled Gaius Silius to divorce his wife and marry her. In his sixth satire appears the notorious description of how the Empress used to work clandestinely all night in a brothel under the name of the She-Wolf. In the course of that work, Juvenal coined the phrase frequently applied to Messalina thereafter, "meretrix augusta" (the imperial whore). In so doing, he coupled her reputation with that of Cleopatra, another victim of imperially directed character assassination, whom the poet Propertius had earlier described as "meretrix regina" (the harlot queen).