Roman society beauty and voluptuary who before her marriage to the Emperor Nero (62) had been the wife of his playboy friend, the future Emperor Otho. She shared the then fashionable interest in Judaism, and has been thought by many to have encouraged Nero in his vicious attack on the Christians in the aftermath of the Fire of Rome (64).
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Poppaea Sabina (c.
Life
Ancestry and Early Life
Poppaea Sabina was the only child and daughter to Titus Ollius and an elder Poppaea Sabina. Poppaea had borne him a son a younger Rufrius Crispinus, who later after her death, would be drowned on a fishing trip by the Emperor Nero.
Marriage to Otho
Poppaea Sabina then married Otho, if only as a stepping stone to reach her ultimate goal: Emperor Nero. After attaining a 'position' as his mistress, she divorced her husband Otho (who later became emperor after Nero's death in succession to Galba) and focused her attentions solely on becoming empress of Rome.
Empress
Ambitious and ruthless, Poppaea was initially Nero's favourite mistress. It is said that Nero's mother Agrippina the Younger, saw the danger and tried to persuade Nero to get rid of her. This dispute over Poppaea was one of the reasons that saw Nero finally murder his mother. With Agrippina gone, Poppaea's influence over Nero became so great that due to the pressure she put on him, he divorced (and later executed) his first wife Octavia in order to marry Poppaea in 62 AD.
She bore Nero one daughter, Claudia Augusta, born on 21 January 63 AD, who died at only four months of age.
According to Suetonius, while she was awaiting the birth of her second child in the summer of 65 AD, she quarreled fiercely with Nero over his spending too much time at the games.
When Poppaea Sabina died in 65 AD, Nero was in complete mourning.
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