Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/699

Rh SABINA. Annals, which were written subsequently, he had no doubt obtained satisfactory authority for the account which he there gives. Poppaea now became the acknowledged mistress of Nero, but this did not satisfy her ambition. She was anxious to be his wife. But as long as Agrippina, the mother of Nero, was alive, she could scarcely hope to obtain this honour. She therefore employed all her influence with Nero to excite his resent- ment against his mother ; and by her arts, seconded as they were by the numerous enemies of Agrip- pina, Nero was induced to put his mother to death in A. D. 59. Still she did not immediately obtain the great object of her desires ; for although Nero hated his wife Octavia, he yielded for a time to the advice of his best counsellors, not to divorce the woman who had brought him the empire. At length, howevei", Poppaea, who still continued to exercise a complete sway over the emperor, induced him to put away Octavia, in A. D. 62, on the plea of barrenness, and to marry her a few days after- wards. But Poppaea did not feel secure as long as Octavia was alive, and by working alternately upon the fears and passions of her husband, she prevailed upon him to put the unhappy girl to death in the course of the same year. [Octavia, No. 3.] Thus two of the greatest crimes of Nero's life, the mur- der of his mother and of his wife, were committed at the instigation of Poppaea, In the following year, A. D. 63, Poppaea was delivered of a daughter at Antiura. This event caused Nero the most extravagant joy, and was celebrated with public games and other rejoicings. Poppaea received on the occasion the title of Au- gusta. The infant, however, died at the age of four months, and was enrolled among the gods. In A. D. 65 Poppaea was pregnant again, but was killed by a kick from her brutal husband in a fit of passion. It was reported by some that he had poisoned her ; but Tacitus gave no credit to this account, since Nero was desirous of offspring, and cimtinued to the last enamoured of his wife. Her body was not burnt, according to the Roman custom, but embalmed, and was deposited in the sepulchre of the Julii. She received the honour of a public funeral, and her funeral oration was pronounced by Nero himself. She was enrolled among the gods, and a magnificent temple was dedicated to her by Nero, which bore the inscription Sahinae deae Veneri matronae fecerunt. Nero continued to cherish her memory, and subsequently married a youth of the name of Sporus, on account of his likeness to Pop- paea. [Sporus.] But though the emperor lamented her death, the people rejoiced at it on account of her cruelty and licentiousness ; and the only class in the empire who regretted her may have been the Jews, whose cause she had defended. It is rather curious to find Josephus (Ant. xx. 8. § 11) calling this adulteress and murderess a pious woman. Poppaea was inordinately fond of luxury and pomp, and took immense pains to preserve the beauty of her person. Thus we are told that all her mules were shod with gold, and that five hun- dred asses were daily milked to supply her with a bath. (Tac. Ann. xiii. 45, 46, xiv. 1, 60, 61, xv. 23, xvi. 6, 7, 21 ; Suet. Ner. 35, 0th. 3 ; Plut. Ga/b. 19 ; Dion Cass. 1x5. 11, 12, Ixii. 13, 27, 28, Ixiii. 26; Plin. H.N. xi. 42. s. 96, xii. 18. 8.41, xxviii. 12. s. 50, xxxiii. 1 1. s. 49, xxxvii. 3. s. 12 ; comp. Eckhel, vol. vi. p. 286.) SABINUS. 687 COIN OP POPPAEA SABINA, THE WIFE OF NERO. SABI'NIA, FU'RIA, or SABI'NA TRAN- QUILLrNA, daughter of Misitheus [Misi- THEUs], and wife of the third Gordian. From numbers exhibited upon coins of Alexandria and of Cappadocian Caesareia numismatologists have con- cluded that the marriage took place, a. d. 241, but it is not known whether they had any pro- geny, nor have any indications been preserved of her fate after the death of her father and her husband, a. d. 241. (Capitolin. Gordian. ires, 23 ; Eutrop. ix. 2 ; Eckhel, vol. vii. p. 318.) [V/.R.] SABINIA'NUS, a friend of the younger Pliny who addressed two letters to him {i-'p. ix. 21,24). SABINIA'NUS, a Roman general in the reign of Constans, who appointed him in A. d. 359 to supersede the brave Ursicinus in the command of the army employed against the Persian king Sapor or Shapur. The choice was a very bad one, for Sabinianus was not only an incompetent general, though he had seen many campaigns, but was a traitor and a coward. He had scarcely taken the command, when Ursicinus was ordered to serve under him, that he might do the work, while Sabinianus enjoyed the honour. But Sabinianus could not even secure to himself the anticipated suc- cess. Through his cowardice Amida, the bulwark of the empire in Mesopotamia, was lost, and its gar- rison massacred. Among the few who escaped the fury of the Persians was Ammianus Marcellinus, who served in the staff of Ursicinus. The reason why Sabinianus did not relieve Amida as he was urged to do by Ursicinus, was a secret order of the court eunuch, to cause as much disgrace to Ursi- cinus as possible, in order to prevent him from regaining his former influence and power. In this they succeeded completely, for after his return to Constantinople in 360, Ursicinus was banished from the court and ended his days in obscurity. A similar though better-deserved fate was destined for Sabinianus, for on the accession of Julian, he shrunk back from public life, and was no longer heard of. There was another Roman general, Sabinianus, a worthy man and distinguished captain, who was worsted by Theodoric the Great, in the decisive battle of Margas. (Amm. Marc, xviii. 4, &c., xix. 1, &c.; Zonar. vol. ii. p. 20, &c. ed. Paris.) [W. P.] SABI'NUS. 1. A contemporary poet and a friend of Ovid, known to us only from two pas- sages of the works of the latter. From one of these (Am. ii. 18. 27 — 34) we learn that Sabinus had written answers to six of the Epistolae Heroi- dum of Ovid. Three answers enumerated by Ovid in this passage are printed in many editions of the poet's works as the genuine poems of Sabinus. It is remarked in the life of Ovid [Vol. III. p. 72, a.] that their genuineness is doubtful ; but we may go