Octavia

Octavia, Roman tragedy, the only surviving fabula praetexta, a dramatization of the fate of the emperor Nero's first wife (see (2) above). It has been handed down in the manuscripts of the plays of Seneca the Younger, who is included as a character to protest against Nero's cruelty, but it cannot be by him: the ‘prophecy’ uttered by the ghost of Nero's mother about her son's fate is so true to fact that it shows the play was written after Nero's suicide (and Seneca's own death) in AD 68. The true author is unknown. The play contains too much lamentation and mythological display to be dramatically successful.