Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger was a senator of the Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

.

He was praetor

Praetor

Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...

 in the year of Cicero

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...

's 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...

ship, 63 BC

63 BC

Year 63 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Cicero and Hibrida...

, and consul in 61

61 BC

Year 61 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Calpurnianus and Messalla...

, the year in which Publius Clodius profaned the mysteries of the Bona Dea

Bona Dea

Bona Dea was a divinity in ancient Roman religion. She was associated with chastity and fertility in women, healing, and the protection of the Roman state and people...

, and Gnaeus Pompeius

Pompey

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...

 triumphed

Roman triumph

The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...

 for his several victories over the Cilicia

Cilicia

In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...

n pirates, Tigranes the Great

Tigranes the Great

Tigranes the Great was emperor of Armenia under whom the country became, for a short time, the strongest state east of the Roman Republic. He was a member of the Artaxiad Royal House...

 and Mithridates VI of Pontus

Mithridates VI of Pontus

Mithridates VI or Mithradates VI Mithradates , from Old Persian Mithradatha, "gift of Mithra"; 134 BC – 63 BC, also known as Mithradates the Great and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia from about 120 BC to 63 BC...

. Messalla, as consul, took an active part in the prosecution of Clodius. Messalla was censor

Censor (ancient Rome)

The censor was an officer in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances....

 in 55 BC

55 BC

Year 55 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Crassus and Pompey...

.

As an orator, Messalla was thought to be respectable. In 80 BC

80 BC

Year 80 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sulla and Metellus...

 he was engaged in collecting evidence for the defence in the cause of Sextus Roscius

Sextus Roscius

Sextus Roscius , tried in Rome for patricide in 80 BC, was defended successfully by the young Cicero in his first major litigation...

 of Ameria. In 62 BC

62 BC

Year 62 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Silanus and Murena...

 he solicited Cicero to undertake the defence of his kinsman, Publius Cornelius Sulla. And in 54 BC

54 BC

Year 54 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Appius and Ahenobarbus...

 he was one of the six orators whom Marcus Aemilius Scaurus

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (praetor 56 BC)

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was a Roman politician of the 1st century BC and son of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and Caecilia Metella Dalmatica.Scaurus lost his father when he was very young, but his education was insured by several other family friends...

 retained on his trial.

Messalla married a woman named Polla, by whom he had a son, Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus

Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus

Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus was a Roman general, author and patron of literature and art.-Family:He was the son of politician Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger Although, some dispute his parentage and claim another descendant of Marcus Valerius Corvus to be his father.Messalla Corvinus is...

 and two daughters, both named Valeria, who married Quintus Pedius

Quintus Pedius

Quintus Pedius was a Roman who lived during the late Roman Republic. Pedius was the son of a Marcus or Quintus Pedius and nephew or great nephew of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar....

and Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of the consul of 51 BC, respectively.