Poppaea Sabina — The Life and Death of Nero’s Empress Wife
The life of a woman in Rome was difficult and restrictive. Life was often chosen for females by the men in their families, so rising in status was difficult and often impossible.
Women had to walk a tightrope of societal expectation and familial duties while somehow being clever and charming enough to fool career politicians. So, for Poppaea Sabina to intertwine herself into the lives of two emperors was no small achievement.
This article will extensively cover the tragically short life of the clever Claudian. from her early upbringing to her death as the wife and Empress of Nero.
The Early Life of Poppaea Sabina
Poppaea Sabina was born in 30 AD in Pompeii to Titus Ollius and Poppaea Sabina the Elder. Nearly immediately, Poppaea learned how brutal and ruthless Roman politics could be. Her father was believed to be involved in a conspiracy against the emperor Tiberius and committed suicide.
Whether Titus intended to help kill Tiberius or not is a matter of some debate. It seems that the most damning evidence is that Titus Ollius was friends with Sejanus, who was up to some shady shit.
Because of her father’s death, Sabina started taking her mother’s name to remove herself from the shame brought down by her father’s (possible) actions. A child of fortune, the blow must have leveled the young girl who had otherwise been very well off.
Sabina The Elder
Meanwhile, Momma Poppaea had decided to remarry and found a suitable match in Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio. Cornelius came from a branch of the gens Cornelia, which was an incredibly prestigious family whose name dated back to the start of the Roman Republic.
All things considered, it was a pretty smooth recovery for Sabina the Elder. Unfortunately, her reputation or actions would soon catch up with Momma Poppaea.
Poppaia Sabina the Elder was well-known for her promiscuity, a reality that had made her second marriage a difficult one. The Empress Messalina had designs on the Gardens of Lucullius, which Decimus Valerius Asiaticus owned.
There was a rumor that Decimus and Sabina the Elder had a carnal friendship, enough for the Empress to bring up charges. Decimus was given the grace of committing suicide, which seems like a shitty consolation.
Sabina the Elder was given the motivation to commit suicide when Messalina started sending people to harass the women. The plot was successful.
By the age of seventeen, Poppaea Sabina was effectively an orphan. Recovering quickly, she got involved in her first marriage.
The Marriages of Poppaea Sabina
Poppaea Sabina never saw her forties; in fact, she died somewhere around the age of thirty-five. Despite this, she found herself in three marriages throughout her life, becoming the partial cause of a civil war. Her first marriage would be to the commander of the Praetorian Guard.
Rufrius Crispinus
Poppaea Sabina married an equestrian and a competent military mind. Rufrius had already proven invaluable to Emperor Claudius by dousing a would-be rebellion. Unfortunately, he had the misfortune of being perceived as loyal to Messalina, who had plotted against her husband.
The irony of Messalina’s death is that she ended up having to take her own life in the Gardens of Lucullus. The beautiful botanical plot the Empress forced two suicides to obtain had become the location of her own demise.
Technically speaking, she was unable to cut her own throat and had to get a guard to stab her, but I’m trying to be poetic. Bear with me.
In any case, with the death of Messalina, Rufrius was removed from command of the Praetorian guard. For anyone who knows Agrippina the Younger, Rufrius got off pretty light.
After some time passed and the rule of Rome changed hands, Rufrius began a career in Roman politics. A senate member, Rufrius once again found himself at odds with someone above his station.
This time, it was the always agreeable Nero — who fucking hated him. In Rufrius’s defense, Nero hated everyone. Well, everyone except a certain bald etruscan, though that’s a different story.
In any case, Rufrius was removed and banished from the senate by Nero. A year later, he was executed.
Not much is known about Poppaea and Rufrius’s relationship, though they did have a son, also named Rufrius Crispinus.
Rufrius Jr. will be fine, folks, don’t worry about him.
Otho
This is the part of the story where we begin to see the plotting mind of Poppaea Sabina. Recently widowed and waltzing around with a kid named after her dead husband, Poppaea was in a difficult position.
She wanted power and safety and knew the best place to get it. Poppaea had begun to consider the possibility that she could marry the Emperor. The problem was that she needed to get close to him.
The Emperor had a drinking buddy and personal punching bag known as Otho, who would hang close to the Emperor when Nero found it fashionable.
Poppaea had a good idea of how the world worked and had very little issue charming the inexperienced Otho. Before long, the two had tied the knot.
Somewhere nearby, Nero was wondering if Prima Nocta had been invented yet. It hadn’t.
The marriage was a very passionate and devoted one…for Otho. Poppaea soon became the mistress of Nero, and Otho soon became the governor of Lusitania as a brand new bachelor.
Nero made his friend divorce his wife so the Emperor could be with her and shipped him off to the edge of the empire. Otho was furious, and Poppaea’s game would inadvertently bring about a civil war years later.
Poppaea’s Ruthless Ascension
Poppaea, up to this point, was a bit callous regarding her romantic partners, but she certainly didn’t seem evil. When she started spending more time with Nero, however, a very different side of the future Empress started to reveal itself.
Poppaea was ready to stack some bodies of her own.
Agrippina The Younger
Fred Romero from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
She started a propaganda campaign directed solely at Nero. Poppaea called him a momma’s boy and said horrific things like, “Everyone thinks you slept with your mom,” and, “No, seriously — did you?”
She also lightly suggested that he should have his mother murdered.
In fairness, The author of this brief biography has started a bit of a propaganda campaign against Nero as well. I’ve been throwing his incestuous tendencies into every article I can. Despite this, there is no direct evidence that he slept with Agrippina the Younger outside of unreliable historians.
It still makes me laugh whenever I bring it up, however, so expect more slander in the future.
In any case, Nero was tired of the constant criticism and insults from his pestering paramour, so he tried to have his mother poisoned. Say what you will about Agrippina the Younger (god knows I do), the woman was hard to kill.
According to Suetonius, Nero tried and failed three times to poison Agrippina. Others say she was so well-equipped with preventative panaceas that he gave up before the plan began.
Poppaea had to be sweating bullets at this point. Agrippina had been killing rivals, lovers, and loose acquaintances for decades; just ask Claudius. It was starting to look like the Emperor and his mistress were out of their depths.
Even worse, Agrippina was starting to make moves of her own. It was rumored she was supporting Gaius Rubellius Plautus along with some notable senators. She also decided it was high time she let the public, the senate, and Nero’s wife know about Nero’s new homicidal sidepiece, Poppaea Sabina.
Assassination attempt number four was rigging her ceiling tiles to collapse and crush her while she slept. She was made aware of this almost immediately and avoided the attempt with relative ease.
Nero quietly muttered, “Well, shucks,” and kept at it.
Assassination attempt number five was a pretty impressive achievement by the standards of the time. Depending on the historian, Nero built a boat that would break open underneath, collapse, or ram itself into another ship.
Whichever account you believe, the boat that Agrippina was on did sink, and the Empress was stranded at sea while various soldiers surrounded the shipwreck.
A friend of Nero’s mother, thinking quickly, shouted, “It’s me, Agrippina!” believing the ruse would get her onto a boat faster. Instead, the soldiers started beating her to death with oars until she drowned.
Identity theft has never been more beneficial.
Agrippina decided that she would have to swim ashore alone if she planned to survive. Miraculously, she did make it to shore, greeted by a crowd of uniquely impressed Romans.
Word got back to Nero and the rest of Rome that Agrippina survived, which was not well-received. Finally, Nero talked to three of his soldiers and said, “What if you guys just stab her?”
So they did, and it worked. Yeah, I know.
Claudia Octavia
With Nero’s ruthless and durable mother out of the way, Poppaea only had one thing standing between her and becoming empress: the current empress. Despite a marriage falling apart at the seams, Nero had a balancing act between wanting to get rid of her and keeping the Roman public happy.
Claudia Octavia, daughter of Emperor Claudius and Messalina, was beloved. She was also very experienced with Nero’s bullshit, who had not only had two affairs but had also murdered her brother Britanicus.
Nero was regularly abusive to her, cruel, and open about his extramarital activities. There were several times he even tried to choke her to death, though better judgment got the best of him at the last second.
When Nero had gotten Poppaea Sabina pregnant, the emperor decided it was high time Claudia found somewhere else to call home. He divorced her under the pretense that she was unable to give him an heir.
Within two weeks of the divorce, Nero had gotten hitched to Poppaea. The two made a cruel duo, and the Poppaea’s propaganda machine started warming up its engine.
They accused Claudia of adultery, even torturing former servants until they agreed with the false accusations. Despite this, both patricians and plebeians alike could smell the stink of their collective bullshit. Claudia Octavia, nevertheless, was sent to Campania in exile.
This was a terrible decision on Nero and Poppaea’s part, and massive riots occurred throughout the capital. What was more concerning was that the people were especially furious with Poppaea.
To Poppaea’s credit, she stayed the course. She insisted that Claudia be made an example of and that the public outcry was not citizens but the agents of his former wife, Claudia Octavia. She also said that if the former empress did remarry, it could become a potential civil war, which is actually a fair point.
Nero got a man to admit to a false charge of adultery in exchange for a villa, wealth, and a cozy exile in Sardinia. For those wondering how hard a life of exile in Sardinia would be, google it. I’d start making up steamy stories, too.
The irony of this false charge is that Nero claimed Claudia had gotten an abortion to hide any evidence of his imaginary extramarital tryst. Nero previously claimed that Claudia was incapable of having kids.
Do you see why Nero is a dipshit?
In any case, they exiled Claudia further from society, placing her on a small, remote island now known as Ventotene. This was to lessen the likelihood of anyone noticing the soldiers who were sent there to kill her.
After a very poor attempt to make her death look like a suicide, Claudia Octavia was suffocated and beheaded. The soldiers then took her head back to Poppaea, who was really starting to take after her husband at this point in her life.
While it may have seemed initially like the two lovebirds had gotten away with their murder, the death of Claudia Octavia created some very ominous rumblings for Nero.
A Wife and Empress
With Octavia and Agrippina dead and firmly haunting Nero’s dreams for years to come, Poppaea Sabina had finally gotten what she wanted: the title of Empress. The lofty and luxurious life she had worked for often felt cursed, however.
Poppaea birthed a daughter, who died four months after being born. Unlike her predecessor, Poppaea Sabina did not have the love of her people and was often viewed very negatively. This is seen most clearly in the opinion of primary sources, as historians of the time slander her pretty viciously.
Nero did love her, though, passionately. That passion caused a lot of vicious fights between the two that would last well into the night.
Nero and Poppaea were also dealing with a growing problem that Romans called “The consequences of your own actions.”
Nero was quite literally burning the empire to the ground with each narcissistic, callous decision he made. The Great Fire of Rome, which Nero likely orchestrated to build a massive statue of himself and a grossly decadent palace, did not help.
Pubicly blaming Christians and forcing them to be fed to animals, ignited while alive, or nailed to a crucifix was another misstep.
Christians were not a popular group in Rome at this time by any stretch of the imagination. Yet the treatment and torture of the religious group was so horrific that even Romans who believed them responsible thought it extreme.
Nero started spending a lot of time in revelry, which Poppaea did not particularly care for, considering she was in the midst of another pregnancy. His tendency to party never went away, and one night, after spending too much time at the race track, Poppaea confronted him.
The two had one of their usual vicious fights, and the screams got louder than usual. Nero had a ferocious temper, and as the red overtook his vision, the emperor started kicking his wife, Poppaea Sabina.
When sanity returned, Nero was staring at the corpse of his wife and Empress.
I really don’t want to add this disclaimer because it ruins the tension I’ve been working so hard to build, but it has to be said. Several historians doubt the validity of this story and think Poppaea may have died from complications during childbirth.
The truth is not absolute in either case, and we may never know precisely how Poppaea Sabina died. Being historically accurate kills the vibe sometimes — sorry, gang.
The Death of Poppaea Sabina
The loss of his wife caused the emperor to fall into a long-lasting depression. While Nero seemed to quickly bounce back from the loss of his mother and former wife, his most human moment was the death of Poppaea. Regrettably, Nero has an incredible ability to lose all sympathy almost immediately.
Nero was walking through the market two years after Poppaea had died when he spotted his long-dead wife shifting through passing Romans. The emperor couldn’t believe it and raced after the ghost of his greatest love. When he grabbed the shoulder of Poppaea, he saw a small, feminine boy.
The boy would later be known as Sporus, and his life was about to get really fucked up and dark. Nero decided that the boy must immediately be made a eunuch and then married the child.
Despite giving him the name Sporus — a reference to Seed and the boy’s infertility — Nero regularly would call him Poppaea.
How sweet.
Putting Poppaea to Rest
Poppaea Sabina was not a good woman, though she had to deal with a lot of loss and trauma at a very early age. Her parents were killed before she reached eighteen, and her first husband was put to death by her third husband. Still, you get the sense that she and Nero really deserved each other.
Her marriage to Nero lasted only three years and was one filled with torment and the misery of losing a child.
Nero went on to kill himself after Poppaea’s second husband (Otho) aided Galba in overthrowing the universally despised despot. Otho would then go on to become ruler himself for roughly eight weeks. So, technically speaking, Poppaea started a love triangle with two emperors. Can’t say she wasn’t impressive.
Till next time,
Jack
