Marcus Popilius, a consul who was informed, as he was offering a sacrifice, that a sedition was raised in the city against the senate. Upon this he immediately went to the populace in his sacerdotal robes, and quieted the multitude with a speech. He lived about the year of Rome 404. Livy, bk. 9, ch. 21.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 7, ch. 8.——Caius, a consul, who, when besieged by the Gauls, abandoned his baggage to save his army. Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium, bk. 1, ch. 15.——Lænas, a Roman ambassador to Antiochus king of Syria. He was commissioned to order the monarch to abstain from hostilities against Ptolemy king of Egypt, who was an ally of Rome. Antiochus wished to evade him by his answers, but Popilius, with a stick which he had in his hand, made a circle round him on the sand, and bade him, in the name of the Roman senate and people, not to go beyond it before he spoke decisively. This boldness intimidated Antiochus; he withdrew his garrisons from Egypt, and no longer meditated a war against Ptolemy. Valerius Maximus, bk. 6, ch. 4.—Livy, bk. 45, ch. 12.—Paterculus, bk. 1, ch. 10.——A tribune of the people who murdered Cicero, to whose eloquence he was indebted for his life when he was accused of parricide. Plutarch.——A pretor who banished the friends of Tiberius Gracchus from Italy.——A Roman consul who made war against the people of Numantia, on pretence that the peace had not been firmly established. He was defeated by them.——A senator who alarmed the conspirators against Cæsar, by telling them that the whole plot was discovered.——A Roman emperor. See: [Nepotianus].
Poplicŏla, one of the first consuls. See: [Publicola].
Poppæa Sabīna, a celebrated Roman matron, daughter of Titus Ollius. She married a Roman knight called Rufus Crispinus, by whom she had a son. Her personal charms, and the elegance of her figure, captivated Otho, who was then one of Nero’s favourites. He carried her away and married her; but Nero, who had seen her, and had often heard her accomplishments extolled, soon deprived him of her company, and sent him out of Italy, on pretence of presiding over one of the Roman provinces. After he had taken this step, Nero repudiated his wife Octavia, on pretence of barrenness, and married Poppæa. The cruelty and avarice of the emperor did not long permit Poppæa to share the imperial dignity, and though she had already made him father of a son, he began to despise her, and even to use her with barbarity. She died of a blow which she received from his foot when many months advanced in her pregnancy, about the 65th year of the christian era. Her funeral was performed with great pomp and solemnity, and statues were raised to her memory. It is said that she was so anxious to preserve her beauty and the elegance of her person, that 500 asses were kept on purpose to afford her milk in which she used daily to bathe. Even in her banishment she was attended by 50 of these animals for the same purpose, and from their milk she invented a kind of ointment or pomatum, to preserve beauty, called poppæanum from her. Pliny, bk. 11, ch. 41.—Dio Cassisus, bk. 65.—Juvenal, satire 6.—Suetonius, Nero & Otho.—Tacitus, [♦]Annals, bks. 13 & 14.——A beautiful woman at the court of Nero. She was mother to the preceding. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 11, ch. 1, &c.
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Poppæus Sabīnus, a Roman of obscure origin, who was made governor of some of the Roman provinces. He destroyed himself, &c. Tacitus, bk. 6, Annals, ch. 39.——Sylvanus, a man of consular dignity, who brought to Vespasian a body of 600 Dalmatians.——A friend of Otho.
Populonia, or Populanium, a town of Etruria, near Pisæ, destroyed in the civil wars of Sylla. Strabo, bk. 5.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 10, li. 172.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 5.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 5.
Porata, a river of Dacia, now Pruth, falling into the Danube a little below Axiopoli.
Porcia, a sister of Cato of Utica, greatly commended by Cicero.——A daughter of Cato of Utica, who married Bibulus, and after his death, Brutus. She was remarkable for her prudence, philosophy, courage, and conjugal tenderness. She gave herself a heavy wound in the thigh, to see with what fortitude she could bear pain; and when her husband asked her the reason of it, she said that she wished to try whether she had courage enough to share not only his bed, but to partake of his most hidden secrets. Brutus was astonished at her constancy, and no longer detained from her knowledge the conspiracy which he and many other illustrious Romans had formed against Julius Cæsar. Porcia wished them success, and though she betrayed fear, and fell into a swoon the day that her husband was gone to assassinate the dictator, yet she was faithful to her promise, and dropped nothing which might affect the situation of the conspirators. When Brutus was dead, she refused to survive him, and attempted to end her life as a daughter of Cato. Her friends attempted to terrify her; but when she saw that every weapon was removed from her reach, she swallowed burning coals and died, about 42 years before the christian era. Valerius Maximus says that she was acquainted with her husband’s conspiracy against Cæsar when she gave herself the wound. Valerius Maximus, bk. 3, ch. 2; bk. 4, ch. 6.—Plutarch, Brutus, &c.
Porcia lex, de civitate, by Marcus Porcius the tribune, A.U.C. 453. It ordained that no magistrate should punish with death, or scourge with rods, a Roman citizen when condemned, but only permit him to go into exile. Sallust, Catilinae Coniuratio.—Livy, bk. 10.—Cicero, For Rabirius Postumus.
Porcina, a surname of the orator Marcus Æmilius Lepidus, who lived a little before Cicero’s age, and was distinguished for his abilities. Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium, bk. 4, ch. 5.