Poppea
Poppea (Poppaea Sabina, 30 CE – 65 CE) was the mistress and then second wife of the Emperor Nero, who according to ancient sources at the center of many intrigues at the imperial court.
<Fiction : Poppea (literature) -- Poppea (music) -- Poppea (cinema) -- Poppea (art)>
Overview
Poppea came from an influential Roman family. When she was 14 years old, she married Rufrius Crispinus, a man of equestrian rank and then the leader of the Praetorian Guard.
Poppea then married 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 convinced Nero to murder his mother Agrippina and divorce Octavia.
Poppea died
Poppea, the Jews and the Christians
Josephus calls Poppea a deeply religious woman who urged Nero to show compassion to the Jewish people. In 64, however, she supported the nomination of Gessius Florus as governor of Judea--a very harmful choice at the eve of the Jewish War.
There is no evidence of any 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. The "rediscovery" of the play during the Renaissance renewed interest in her as a dramatic persona in dramas and librettos.