It's called panegyric, people.

Bust once thought to show Poppaea Sabina

I might be missing something about the new poem praising Poppaea Sabina, second wife of Nero. MSNBC implies that its sentimental theme shows a "very different side to this ancient couple." Nero, of course, is said to have murdered his first wife Octavia to marry Poppaea, and to then caused Poppaea to miscarry by kicking her in the stomach.

MSNBC also ponders why the poem "was written nearly 200 years after Nero died … why [would] someone so far away from Rome bother composing or copying it at such a late date." The article explains some possibilities below, such as a "deification poem" or a "poem of circumstance" comparing an Egyptian official and his dead wife to Nero and Poppaea.

That's all well and good, but this notion that the romantic relationship in the poems shows a "different side" of Nero is silly. Should the poet have represented Poppaea as trapped in a relationship with a crazed despot?

My spouse and I debate the point of classics education sometimes, but I hope we at least teach our students not to take everything they read at face value.

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