Poppea
Poppea (Poppaea Sabina) (v. 30 - 65 ) is the second wife of the Roman emperor Nero.
With the exception of Flavius Josephus , the historians of antiquity he found few qualities outside of her beauty and emphasize his intrigues to become empress.
Fifteen centuries later, Claudio Monteverdi was represented in a more favorable light in his last opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea , stressing her love for Nero.
Summary |
Biography
Family Origins
The People Poppaea is a rich family Pompeian. The villa found in 1964 on the site of Oplontis during archaeological excavations of Torre Annunziata have belonged to Poppea.
Poppaea Sabina was the daughter of Titus Ollius a quaestor of the reign of Emperor Tiberius as his friendship with Sejanus ruined before he holds public office. Originally from the province of Picenium (current Marche ), it occupies a minor role in the politics of the Empire and is little known.
Her mother, also named Poppaea Sabina, however, is a distinguished woman, whose ancient sources describe the buxom beauty and class. Tacitus describes her as one of the most amiable women of her time. She committed suicide in 47 , the innocent victim of the intrigues of the Empress Messalina.
On the death of his father in 31 , his mother remarried Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio (I), who served as division commander in 22 , as consul in 24 and then as senator. Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio (II) is probably the half brother of Poppea. He was consul in 56 and also a senator.
The maternal grandfather of Poppea, Caius Poppeus Sabinus , a man of humble birth, was consul in 9. It is causing such a law referred to natalist the Lex Papia Poppaea. During the reign of Tiberius, he was honored by a triumph for military ended a revolt in Thrace in 26. Of 15 at his death he served as proconsul in imperial Greece and in other provinces. This competent administrator enjoyed the friendship of the imperial family. He died at 35. Poppea takes his name after his death.
Marriage Rufrius Crispinus
At 44, Poppaea Sabina wife Rufrius Crispinus, a member of the equestrian order, the head of the Praetorian Guard during the reign of Emperor Claude. In 51 , Agrippina , wife of Claude and then Empress, removes him from office because he remains faithful to the memory of Messalina and he supports his children Octavia and Britannicus. He was replaced by Sectus Afranius Burrus and will subsequently executed. Poppaea gave him a son the same name, after the death of his mother, was drowned during a fishing expedition by the emperor Nero.
Marriage with Otho
She then married Otto , a friend of Nero, perhaps only to be closer to his true goal, the Emperor Nero. After becoming the mistress of the latter, Poppea divorce Otho 58 and devotes all its efforts to become Empress of Rome. Otto is "promoted" Governor Lusitania. He became emperor briefly ten years later, after Nero's death as a result of Galba.
Empress after marriage with Nero
the school of Fontainebleau ( XVI century )
According to Tacitus, Poppea is ambitious and unscrupulous. Agrippina, Nero's mother, seeing the danger sought to persuade his son to leave her. This dispute with Poppea was one of the reasons why Nero finally killed his mother. Agrippina offside, the influence of Poppaea became the emperor as its pressure brought Nero to divorce his first wife Octavia (later to enforce it) in order to marry Poppaea in 62. Octavia, originally exiled in Campania is finally trapped on the island of Pandateria (place of banishment for members of the imperial family fell from grace), on charges of adultery. According to some sources clergy, it would not Poppea and Nero who have instigated persecutions against Christians, in order to hide its misdeeds.
The historian Flavius Josephus , however, presents a very different Poppea. He speaks of her as a deeply religious woman (perhaps until proselytizing ) that drove Nero to show compassion towards the Jewish people.
By 63 , she gave birth to a daughter, greeted with unbridled joy by Nero, Claudia Augusta , who died four months later. At Claudia's birthday, Nero honors mother and daughter the title of Augusta.
According to Suetonius , Poppaea was pregnant in the summer of 65 when she receives Nero's rage kicked in the stomach deadly because it openly criticized him for spending too much time on games. Many modern historians believe she died from complications of pregnancy. And indeed, Nero is particularly distressed by his death. The body of Poppea is not burned, it is fragrant with spices and placed in the mausoleum of Augustus. Nero gave his second wife a state funeral. He made his own eulogy and gave him divine honors, leading the disgust of those who hated and remembered his cruelty and his immorality.
According to Dio Cassius , Poppea was the perfection of her body to the point of wanting to die before the irremediable. She was milked every day five hundred donkeys who came down to bathe in their milk.
Representations of Poppea
Apart from the writings of ancient authors, few traces of the famous beauty of Poppea came to us.
We have a tetradrachm representing his draped bust combined with head of Nero struck.
A marble bust is on display at Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome.
The Louvre Museum in Paris presents the marble bust of a Pseudo-Poppaea, a Roman work dated around 55-60 AD. AD, portrait of a young woman, perhaps a princess Eastern High in Rome, identified a time, because of its beauty, like the Empress.
An anonymous master of the school of Fontainebleau in the second half of the sixteenth century has shown a painting exhibited at the museum of art and history of Geneva.
The incoronazione di Poppea , the last opera composed in 1642 by Claudio Monteverdi , libretto by Gian Francesco Busenello, traces his life from a more positive light, emphasizing his love for Nero. Poppea is also a key character in the opera Agrippina by George Frideric Handel , libretto after a Vincenzo Grimani , shown in Venice during the Carnival season 1709-1710, she served the scheming Agrippina who wants to her son Nero's successor Claudius.
In May 2006, Zurich director Christoph Marthaler created KunstenFESTIVALdesArts in Brussels , Winch Only , a play drawn from Monteverdi's opera, based on texts by the Flemish writer Hugo Claus. Paraphrasing Magritte : "This is not a ... Poppea" , Marthaler keeps the opera by Monteverdi crime, hunger for power and thirst for destruction, which became infamous family secrets in his staging.
Sources
- (In) This article is partially or entirely from the article in English entitled " Poppaea Sabina "(see the list of authors )
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