[6] Claudius was informed by one of his advisors, the freedman Narcissus, and hurried back to Rome, concerned that the wedding was part of an attempt to overthrow him and make Silius emperor.

Several candidates were proposed by his advisors; they included his former wife Aelia Paetina and Lollia Paulina, a wealthy noblewoman who had been married to Caligula for a short time.

[17][16][18] She had Octavia's fiancé Silanus publicly accused of incest with his sister; he was forced to resign from his position of praetor and commit suicide.

The convenient timing of his death – Britannicus was rapidly approaching adulthood and might displace Nero as heir – led the ancient sources to accuse Agrippina of killing him, possibly with poisoned mushrooms.

[26][27][28] Although modern historians consider the death suspicious and Agrippina possibly guilty, they also note that Claudius was in his sixties and never in the best of health.

[48][49] Nero began to have affairs, first with Claudia Acte, a freedwoman, and then with Poppaea Sabina, the wife of his friend Marcus Salvius Otho.

[48][58][59] Although Tacitus describes Octavia as "a noblewoman of proven virtue"[60] and having a "modest demeanour",[61] Nero had no interest in her and hated their marriage, preferring having affairs with Acte and Poppaea.

[65][66] In 62, Nero no longer had the chief advisors of his early reign, as praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus died, and Seneca the Younger retired.

This led to a shift in Nero's conduct that historian Barry Strauss referred to as "a turning point in the reign", as he increasingly exiled or executed those he considered his enemies.

[74] As part of the divorce, he gave her properties previously belonging to Burrus and Rubellius Plautus, another Julio-Claudian relative he recently had killed.

[77] In an attempt to damage Octavia's reputation and with it her popularity, Nero and Poppaea also accused her of adultery with Eucaerus, a flute player from Alexandria.

[78][75][76] One of the new praetorian prefects, Ofonius Tigellinus, questioned Octavia's maidservants, including Pythias, under torture in order to corroborate this charge, but was largely unsuccessful.

[85][86] Nero asked Anicetus, his ally in the murder of Agrippina, to confess to adultery, offering him the options of rewards and a comfortable life in exile or death.

[85][87][88] Nero also accused Octavia of covering up this adultery with an abortion, even though his initial basis for divorce was a claim that she was sterile.

Her veins were cut in an attempt to simulate suicide, but when that took longer than expected, she was brought into a room full of hot steam to suffocate.

Let all who make their acquaintance with the history of that period in my narrative or that of others take so much for granted: as often as the emperor ordered an exile or a murder, so often was a thanksgiving addressed to Heaven; and what formerly betokened prosperity was now a symbol of public calamity.

[112] Some works took considerable creative liberties with the historical events, such as Giovanni Battista Bassani's Agrippina in Baia (1687), which contains a happy ending where all the characters survive and are successfully reconciled with each other.

She is the main character of the historical biographical novel Octavia: A Tale of Ancient Rome by Seymour van Santvoord (1923).