Busenello condensed historical events from a seven-year period (AD 58 to AD 65) into a single day's action, and imposed his own sequence. He was open about his intention to adapt history for his own purposes, writing in the preface to his libretto that "here we represent these actions differently." Thus he gave his characters different attributes from those of their historical counterparts: Nerone's cruelty is downplayed; the wronged wife Ottavia is presented as a murderous plotter; Seneca, whose death in reality had nothing to do with Nerone's liaison with Poppea, appears as more noble and virtuous than he was; Poppea's motives are represented as based on genuine love as much as on a lust for power; the depiction of Lucano as a drunken carouser disguises the real life poet Lucan's status as a major Roman poet with marked anti-imperial and pro-republican tendencies.