POMPONIA GRECINA. - A Roman noblewoman, wife of Aulo Plauzio. According to the testimony of Tacito (Annal., XIII, 32), around A.D. 58, “superstitionis externae rea,” she was remitted to the judgment of her husband, who, according to ancient custom, judged her before her relatives concerning her life and reputation and declared her innocent.
From this passage of Tacito, in connection with the subsequent statements that for 40 years P. lived in continual sadness and wore only mourning garments, it has commonly been concluded that P. was a Christian. If this opinion, which seemed to be supported by the discovery of certain Christian inscriptions of relatives or descendants of P. (De Rossi, La Roma sotter. crist., II, Roma 1867, pp. 281-362), cannot find a direct basis in the words of Tacito, it may nevertheless be accepted by deduction.
The foreign superstition of which P. was accused could only have been the Jewish or the Christian religion, since no other was incompatible with being a Roman. As for Judaism, apart from the fact that it enjoyed favor at the imperial court, where Poppea herself, Nero’s favorite, was a proselyte (Giuseppe Flavio, Antiq. Iud., XX, 8), it would be impossible to understand who could have accused P. and brought her to trial. If, on the other hand, she is supposed to have been a Christian, the accusers could have been the Jews themselves, who from the very beginning hated Christians and were interested in striking at Christian propaganda by having one of its noblest conquests eliminated.