J. had already expatiated on Messalina at 6.115–32, while trying to persuade the addressee of that poem from marrying by parading before him a series of awful Roman wives. When reading Satire 10 that earlier passage immediately comes to mind, especially because at 329ff. we find another extended narrative about Messalina with thematic links (see below) and with close similarities in the very negative treatment of the empress, combining criticism of her (as corrupt, perverse, adulterous, etc.) with hard humour. The impact of the Messalina exemplum in 10 is heightened by her earlier appearance. The picture of her already established in Satire 6 at quite some length and in memorable detail means that she brings to 10 other repulsive associations by way of reinforcement. In Satire 6 she was so depraved that she worked as a prostitute in a foul brothel, dirtying herself and demeaning herself by association with the pimp and his clientele, while proving unable to satisfy her lust with a series of customers. Silius was in fact but the last in a long line of men, including the low characters who frequented brothels. So, bearing in mind what we have been shown at 6.115ff., at the first mention of Messalina in X we are led to infer that the petitioner's prayer for beauty is exposing her supposedly chaste son to the very opposite of chastity, to disgusting, degraded and insatiable persons who will certainly have no respect for his purity but will very probably be offended and angered by it.

The criticism of Messalina in VI is dense and hard-hitting: