OTHO, MARCUS SALVIUS (A.D. 32-69), Roman em peror, was born on April 28, A.D. 32. He appears first as one of the wildest of Nero's court. In 58 he refused to divorce his wife Poppaea Sabina at Nero's bidding, and was thereupon sent to be governor of Lusitania, where he remained ten years. In 68 Galba, governor of the neighbouring province of Tarraconensis, rebelled against Nero, and Otho accompanied him to Rome, hoping to succeed him. In Jan. 69 Galba adopted Piso as his successor, and Otho at once organized a revolt of the praetorian guard, and on Jan. 15 had himself proclaimed emperor, murdered Galba and Piso, and was accepted by the Senate. He owed his success partly to Galba's disciplinary measures being unpopular with the guards, partly to the power of the memory of Nero, which he further enlisted by restoring his statues and the officials of his household, and proposing to complete his palace, the Golden House. News soon arrived, however, that the army in Germany had de clared for Vitellius. On March 14 he started northwards to prevent the Vitellians entering Italy. In this he failed, but his advance
guard successfully defended Placentia against Alienus Caecina, compelling him to retire to Cremona, and he held the line of the Po. Opinions were divided in Otho's camp, he himself wishing to force a decisive battle, others advising him to wait for the arrival of the troops from Dalmatia. Otho prevailed, and the main army crossed the Po to Bedriacum, Otho staying behind with the reserve at Brixellum, on the southern bank. The Othonian forces were defeated outside Cremona, and deserted to the enemy. Otho refused to renew the struggle and committed suicide in his tent on the morning of April 15, 69, and was buried at Brixellum.
See Tacitus, Histories, i. 12-5o, 71-9o, ii. 11-51; Lives by Suetonius and Plutarch ; Dio Cassius lxiv. ; L. Paul, "Kaiser M. Salvius Otho" in Mus. lvii. (1902) W. A. Spooner's Introd. to his edition (1891) of the Histories of Tacitus; B. W. Henderson, Civil War and Rebellion in the Roman Empire, A.D. 69-7o (1908).