Poppaea Sabina Cassius Dio, Sporus bore an uncanny resemblance to Sabina, and Nero even called him by his dead wife’s name. According to Cassius Dio, Poppaea enjoyed having milk baths. She would have them daily because she was once told "therein lurked a magic which would dispel all diseases and blights from her beauty." Fifteen centuries after her time, Poppaea was depicted in Claudio Monteverdi's last opera "L'incoronazione di Poppea" ("The coronation of Poppaea") of 1642. Her story clearly was chosen to appeal to the titillation favored in the nascent culture of the Venetian public opera theaters, and its prologue immediately explains
Brigand and His Wife in Prayer a brigand and his pregnant wife kneeling in prayer before a roadside shrine. The place of worship takes the form of a simple wooden cross located on a remote road, with vast mountains towering in the background. The couple are both dressed as people of their class and vocation would be. The husband is dressed in a frilled shirt and overcoat, and rests his musket at his shoulder. The wife is dressed in traditional peasant's garb and clutches a rosary in her right hand. They pray for the health and success of each-other, specifically for the success of the husband's