Poppaea Sabina: The Life and Afterlife of a Roman Empress
Jun 2025 · Oxford University Press
Ebook
192
Pages
Tools
info
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
Like many famous figures from antiquity, we must work through layers of fantasy in order to uncover the life of Poppaea Sabina (c. 30-65 CE). As the ancient sources tell it, Poppaea pushed the young emperor Nero to murder his mother, execute his wife Octavia, marry her and make her his empress--and then, a few years later, kick her to death in a drunken rage. Poppaea's genuine motives and actions, however, cannot be easily recovered from the extant sources. Her narrative comes to us already fictionalized by ancient authors employing her story to induce moral panic. In this book, Neil Bernstein critically examines these sources to produce the first modern biography of Poppaea Sabina. Her brief marriage to the emperor Nero occasioned political, religious, and social innovation. Nero was the first emperor to represent his wife as a near-equal on his official coinage, and the couple was also celebrated by a group of claquers called "Neropoppaeans." Their daughter Claudia would be the first child to receive posthumous divine honors. Poppaea also received a unique form of posthumous commemoration. Nero castrated Sporus, one of his male slaves, and addressed them thereafter as "Poppaea". For many scholars and creative artists, however, Poppaea's brief life also epitomizes the scandal of Nero's reign. Gossip about her began from the moment she appeared in the emperor's court. Her scandalous parentage, affair with the emperor, and implication in a murder plot presented an unforgettable narrative template, and is principally why we continue to see Poppaea, Nero, and Octavia recur throughout plays, operas, novels, and movies.
Like many famous figures from antiquity, we must work through layers of fantasy in order to uncover the life of Poppaea Sabina (c. 30-65 CE). As the ancient sources tell it, Poppaea pushed the young emperor Nero to murder his mother, execute his wife Octavia, marry her and make her his empress--a...
Discover more
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
