Category:Poppea (subject)

• BACK TO THE PEOPLE--INDEX

Poppea (Poppaea Sabina, 30 CE – 65 CE) was the mistress and then second wife of the Emperor Nero. According to ancient sources, she was at the center of many intrigues at the imperial court.

<Fiction : Poppea (literature) -- Poppea (music) -- Poppea (cinema) -- Poppea (art)>

Overview

Poppea came from a wealthy and politically influential Roman family. When she was 14 years old, she was married first to Rufrius Crispinus, a man of equestrian rank and the leader of the Praetorian Guard.

Poppea's next husband was Otho, a good friend of the new Emperor Nero (and a future Emperor himself). Poppea divorced him in 58, becoming the mistress and then the wife of Nero.

Suetonius, Tacitus, and Cassius Dio describe her as an ambitious and ruthless woman, who urged Nero to murder his mother Agrippina and divorce Octavia.

It is said that Poppea died in 65 as a consequence of a miscarriage after Nero kicked her in a fit of rage, but the exact circumstances of her death are obscure.

Poppea, the Jews and the Christians

Josephus calls Poppea a deeply "religious woman" (maybe a "God-fearer") who urged Nero to show compassion to the Jewish people. In 64, however, she supported the nomination of Gessius Florus as governor of Judea, which proved to be a very harmful choice at the eve of the Jewish War.

There is no evidence of any direct involvement of Poppea in the persecution of the early church.

Seneca (fiction)

Already in the first century, Poppea was a character in the tragedy Octavia by the Pseudo-Seneca. In 1374 Giovanni Boccaccio included her biography in De mulieribus claris, among the most renowned women of antiquity. The editiones princepes of the two works at the end of the 15th century renewed the interest in Poppea as a dramatic persona in dramas and librettos.

External links

• Wikipedia