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Full Description
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.
Contents
Chapter One: A Brief Life and a Long Afterlife
Chapter Two: Poppaea's Origins
Chapter Three: A Love Triangle
Chapter Four: The Coronation of Poppaea
Chapter Five: Poppaea's Public Life
Chapter Six: Jewish Affairs
Chapter Seven: Pompeii and the Poppaean Clan
Chapter Eight: Living in Nero's Palaces
Chapter Nine: Death and Afterlife
Chapter Ten: Poppaea on Stage: Octavia, a tragedy attributed to Seneca
Chapter Eleven: From Venice to Hollywood
Chapter Twelve: Epilogue: Poppaea Today
Appendix: The Sources for Poppaea's Life
Bibliography
Index
