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
Poppaea (gens) evidence of the Poppaei prior to the first century, but from inscriptions the family seems to have been concentrated in Campania. The surname "Sabinus" suggests that they claimed Sabine ancestry. The region of Campania where the greatest number of Poppaei are found was associated with the Samnites, an Oscan-speaking people who also claimed Sabine descent. The chief praenomina of the Poppaei were "Gaius" and "Quintus". A few of the family used other names, such as "Publius, Lucius, Sextus", and "Titus". All of these were common names throughout Roman history. Poppaea (gens) The gens Poppaea was a minor plebeian family at