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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Poppaea Sabina Biography POPPAEA SABINA (?-66 A.D.). A wife of the Emperor Nero. She was the daughter of Ollius, a client of Sejanus (q.v.), but took the name of her mother's father, who was consul in the year 9. She married Rufius Crispinus, prętorian prefect., but, after becoming the mistress of Otho (q.v.), was divorced from Crispinus. She then married Otho and soon aroused the desires of Nero, who sent her husband to Lusitania, made her his mistress, put his mother (Agrippina) to death at her instigation then divorced and killed Octavia for her sake. Poppaea bore him a daughter in 63. The child died when but four months old. Poppaea was killed by a kick from her husband when she was again pregnant. She was entirely unscrupulous, luxurious, and proud, if we are to trust the highly colored narrative of Tacitus (Annales, xiv, 60 ff.; xv, 23). Besides her beauty her only good point seems to be that she urged on Nero clemency to the Jews, wherefore she won high praise from Josephus. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 59. |