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
Poppaea Sabina name of her maternal grandfather. After Titus Ollius's death, Poppaea's mother married Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio the Elder, suffect consul, in 24. Her siblings included step-brother Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio the Younger, consul in 56, and half-brother Publius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, suffect consul in 68. Poppaea's first marriage was to Rufrius Crispinus, a man of equestrian rank. They married in 44, when Poppaea was 14 years old. He was the leader of the Praetorian Guard during the first 10 years of the reign of the Emperor Claudius until 51 when Claudius' new wife Agrippina the Younger removed him from this