Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus (c. 104/3 - 26 BC), was a Roman politician, and consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

 in 53 BC.

Family

Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus was the son of an otherwise unknown Marcus Valerius Messalla and Hortensia (sister of the consul of 69 BC). He had a sister named Valeria Messalla

Valeria Messala

Valeria was the fourth wife of Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla. She was the daughter of Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger and sister to consul of 53 BC, Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus....

, who became the fourth wife of the Roman Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix , known commonly as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He had the rare distinction of holding the office of consul twice, as well as that of dictator...

.

Messalla Rufus married an unknown Roman woman, by whom he had two sons: Marcus Valerius Messalla (consul 32 BC) and Potitus Valerius Messalla (suffect consul 29 BC).

Career

He was twice accused of illegal practices in connection with the elections; on the first occasion he was acquitted, in spite of his obvious guilt, through the eloquence of his uncle Quintus Hortensius

Quintus Hortensius

Quintus Hortensius Hortalus was a Roman orator and advocate.At the age of nineteen he made his first speech at the bar, and shortly afterwards successfully defended Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, one of Rome's dependants in the East, who had been deprived of his throne by his brother. From that time...

; on the second he was condemned. He took the side of Gaius Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 in the civil war

Caesar's civil war

The Great Roman Civil War , also known as Caesar's Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire...

. After Cicero's

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 divorce (prior to his execution) he apparently married the widow Terentia. He was augur for fifty-five years and wrote a work on the science of divination

Divination

Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...

.