Nero (2004 film) recitals, and at one of these, accidentally kills his new pregnant wife, Poppaea Sabina. He kills several members of the senate and orders his mother to be stabbed, where she says: "Strike the womb, for that is what bore him." Nero's madness soon causes a riot, causing himself to flee the city in disguise, and slit his wrists under the saddened embrace of Claudia Acte, his once passionate lover. The movie in many ways tries to show Nero as a good soul gone mad, beginning as a brilliant young prince enduring injustice, then hailed enthusiastically at the beginning of his
Mnester performance of “the same tragedy which the tragedian Neoptolemus had produced at the games during which King Philip of Macedon was killed.” During the reign of Caligula’s successor Claudius, Mnester retained the favor of the imperial court. Mnester was one of the lovers of Poppaea Sabina the Elder (mother of the empress Poppaea), and subsequently became the lover of Empress Messalina who was the wife of Claudius. Messalina had a statue of Mnester cast in bronze. At first he rejected Messalina's advances, but then she persuaded her way in to his heart. Mnester became her lover after Messalina convinced her