POPPEA (Poppaea Sabina). - Nero’s favourite, daughter of T. Ollius, of extraordinary beauty and intelligence, but licentious and shameless, she married Rufinus Crispinus, by whom she had a son.
She divorced and was married by Salvius Otho, who, for self-interest or out of impudence, presented her to Nero; he fell madly in love with her and made her his mistress, removing Otho from Rome by appointing him governor of Lusitania. In 62, after repudiating his wife Octavia, accused of sterility, Nero married P., by whom he had a daughter who died shortly afterwards. P. died in 65 from a kick dealt her by Nero in a fit of anger.
According to the testimony of Josephus (Antiq. Iud., 20, 8), P. appears to have been a Jewish proselyte and, as such, probably worked in favour of the Jews in order to divert from them the accusation of the burning of Rome and cast it upon the Christians.