POPPEA (Poppaea Sabina). — Favourite of Nero, daughter of T. Ollius, of extraordinary beauty and intelligence, but dissolute and shameless, she was married to Rufrius Crispinus, by whom she had a son.
She divorced and was married by Salvidienus Otho, who, for gain or impudence, presented her to Nero, who became passionately infatuated with her and made her his mistress, sending Otho away from Rome by appointing him governor of Lusitania. In 62, after repudiating his wife Octavia, accused of sterility, Nero married Poppaea, by whom he had a daughter who died soon after. Poppaea died in 65 from a kick given her by Nero in a fit of rage.
According to the testimony of Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud., 20, 8), it seems that Poppaea was a Jewish proselyte and as such would probably have worked in favour of the Jews to divert from them the accusation of the fire of Rome and shift it onto the Christians.