Poppaea Sabina turning his 'loyal subjects' the Roman populace against him. (This form of murder may have been suggested to the screenwriters by Tacitus' claim that Nero had made several unsuccessful attempts at strangling his first wife, Octavia, when drunk.) Another portrayal of Poppaea is featured in the 1932 film "The Sign of the Cross". She is seen bathing in asses' milk. Daringly for the time, she is portrayed (by Claudette Colbert) as being openly bisexual, suggestively inviting a female slave to bathe with her in the asses' milk, but lusting after Roman soldier Marcus Superbus (Fredric March). In the 1976 BBC
The Problem (play) their home, she immediately reveals her hugely pregnant stomach to her husband who seems to not have noticed that she was ever pregnant. The Husband is completely unfazed and uninterested and almost leaves, until the Wife presents him with the possibility that the baby may not be his. The husband stays, remarkably and comically, calm . He only becomes slightly surprised when the Wife states that they have not had sex in five years; he does not realize it has been so long. While the Husband becomes apologetic for this lack of intimacy, the Wife assures him not to worry