Messalina was at this time meditating an enterprise which eclipsed all her former exploits and which she probably thought would conclusively determine her own future and that of her son. Thus Tacitus recounts the story: "She was so vehemently enamored of Caius Silius, the handsomest of the Roman youth, that she obliged him to divorce his wife, Julia Silana, a lady of high quality, and had him to herself. Nor was Silius blind to the danger and the malignity of his crime; but, as it was certain destruction to decline her suit, and there were some hopes of beguiling Claudius, and great rewards being held out to him, he was content to enjoy the present advantages and take the chance of what might happen thereafter. The empress proceeded not stealthily, but went to his house frequently, with a numerous train, accompanied him incessantly abroad, loaded him with presents and honors; and at last, as if the fortune of the Empire had been transferred with the emperor's wife, at the house of Silius were now seen the slaves, freedmen, and equipage of the prince." All this time, Claudius, ignorant of the conduct of his wife,--a fact which must be attributed to the complete subjection under which he was held by Messalina and the freedmen,--was exercising the functions of moral censor and rebuking the people for the immorality of their conduct. What a spectacle to men, not to speak of the ancient deities, must have been the Roman government of those days! It is easy to see the connection between the licentiousness of the times and the decline of the State. Messalina, a course of the most promiscuous and unrestrained licentiousness having produced satiety, now proceeded to an act of which the emperors had many times set the example: she repudiated Claudius, and united herself with matrimonial solemnities to Silius. Caius Caligula had dismissed one wife to make room for another with scant if any ceremony; but for a woman to do the same thing was another matter. Tacitus says: "I am aware that it will appear fabulous that any human beings should have exhibited such recklessness of consequences; and that, in a city where everything was known and talked of, anyone, much more a consul-elect, should have met the emperor's wife, on a stated day, in the presence of persons called in to seal the deeds, and that she should have heard the words of the augurs, entered the house of the husband, sacrificed to the gods, sat down with the guests at the nuptial banquet, and in every way comported herself as though she had been given away in a marriage entirely lawful. But I would not dress up my narrative with fictions to give it an air of marvel, rather than relate what has been stated to me or written by my seniors."