Welcome to my Oikos! As you wander through my house you will discover places that serve as my homebase for certain activities. In the Courtyard I conduct my social activities here at AncientWorlds and in Athens. My Library is for my historical and academic pursuits. Finally, in my Study you will find my game playing scores, statistics and artifacts. Thanks for visiting my home!

The Valeria gens was one of the most ancient and most celebrated at Rome; and no other Roman gens was distinguished for so long a period, although a few others, such as the Cor­nelia gens, produced a greater number of illustrious men. The Valerii are universally admitted to have been of Sabine origin, and their ancestor Volesus or Volusus is said to have settled at Rome with Titus Tatius.

The Valeria gens enjoyed ex­traordinary honours and privileges at Rome. Their house at the bottom of the Velia was the only one in Rome of which the doors were allowed to open back into the street. In the Circus Maximus a conspicuous place was set apart for them, where a small throne was erected, an honour of which there was no other example among the Romans. They were also allowed to bury their dead within the walls, a privilege which was also granted to some other gentes; and when they had exchanged the older custom of in­terment for that of burning the corpse, although they did not light the funeral pile on their burying-ground, the bier was set down there, as a sym­bolical way of preserving their right.

Among the branches of the Valerii, there were those who bore the cognomen Messalla. Messalla was originally assumed by Manius Valerius Maximus Corvinus Messalla after his relief of Messana in Sicily from blockade by the Carthaginians in the second year of the first Punic War, 263 BC. They appear for the first time on the consular Fasti in 263 BC, and for the last in 506; during these nearly eight centuries, they held twenty-two consulships and three cen­sorships.