Poppaea Sabina that it is not a drama that promotes the triumph of virtue. Poppaea is portrayed as cynically plotting to become empress of Rome by manipulating the emperor Nero into marrying her, and her machinations include the execution of Seneca the Younger, who opposes her plans, which are successful at the end of the drama. Poppaea is a principal character also in Handel's opera "Agrippina" of 1709, but as a victim, not a perpetrator, of deceit and manipulation. Here the schemer is Agrippina, Nero's mother, intent on promoting her son's claim to the throne. Poppaea, the ingenue, is portrayed as the
Vibia Aurelia Sabina in honor of the late Roman Empress "Vibia Sabina", who was the wife of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and her late father the distinguished suffect consul "Lucius Vibius Sabinus". Vibia Sabina was a relative of her parents, as she was a great aunt to her parents who was half maternal sister to Rupilia Faustina. Rupilia Faustina was the paternal grandmother of Marcus Aurelius and the maternal grandmother of Faustina the Younger. Throughout her childhood, Aurelia Sabina had travelled extensive with her parents throughout the Roman Empire. Sometime before her father died in 180 AD, Aurelia Sabina was betrothed to the