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
Vibia Sabina Vibia Sabina Vibia Sabina (83–136/137) was a Roman Empress, wife and second cousin once removed to Roman Emperor Hadrian. She was the daughter of Matidia (niece of Roman Emperor Trajan) and suffect consul Lucius Vibius Sabinus. After her father's death in 84, Sabina, along with her half-sister Matidia Minor, went to live with their mother's mother, Marciana. They were raised in the household of Trajan and his wife Plotina. Sabina married Hadrian in 100, at the empress Plotina's request. Hadrian succeeded her great uncle in 117. Sabina's mother Matidia (Hadrian's second cousin) was also fond of Hadrian and allowed him