OTTO Il. (955-983), Roman emperor, was the son of the emperor Otto the Great, by his second wife Adelaide. He was chosen German king at Worms in 961 and on Dec. 25, 967, was crowned joint emperor at Rome by Pope John XIII. On April 14, 972, he married Theophano, daughter of the eastern emperor Romanus II., and after sharing in various campaigns in Italy, returned to Germany and became sole emperor on the death of his father in May 973. After suppressing a rising in Lorraine, difficulties arose in southern Germany, probably owing to Otto's refusal to grant the duchy of Swabia to Henry II., the Quarrel some, duke of Bavaria. The first conspiracy was easily suppressed, and in 974 an attempt on the part of Harold III., king of the Danes, to throw off the German yoke was also successfully re sisted; but an expedition against the Bohemians led by the king in person in 975 was a partial failure owing to the outbreak of further trouble in Bavaria. In 976 Otto deposed Duke Henry, restored order for the second time in Lorraine, and made another expedi tion into Bohemia in 977, when King Boleslaus II. promised to return to his earlier allegiance. Having crushed an attempt made by Henry to regain Bavaria, Otto was suddenly attacked by Lothair, king of France, who held Aix in his possession for a few days ; but when the emperor retaliated by invading France he met with little resistance. He was, however, compelled by sickness among his troops to raise the siege of Paris, and on the return journey the rearguard of his army was destroyed and the baggage seized by the French. An expedition against the Poles was followed by peace with France, when Lothair renounced Lorraine.
The emperor then prepared for a journey to Italy. In Rome, where he restored Pope Benedict VII., he held a splendid court, attended by princes and nobles from all parts of western Europe. He was next required to punish inroads of the Saracens on the Italian mainland, and in September 981 he marched into Apulia, where he met at first with considerable success ; but an alliance between the Arabs and the Eastern Empire, whose hostility had been provoked by the invasion of Apulia, resulted in a severe de feat for Otto's troops near Stilo in July 982. Without revealing his identity, the emperor escaped on a Greek vessel to Rossano. At a diet held at Verona, largely attended by German and Italian princes, a fresh campaign was arranged against the Saracens. Proceeding to Rome, Otto secured the election of Peter of Pavia as Pope John XIV. Just as the news reached him of a general rising of the tribes on the eastern frontier of Germany, he died in his palace in Rome on Dec. 7, 983.
See Die Urkunden des Kaisers Otto II., ed. Th. von Sickel, in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Diplomata (Hanover, 1879) ; L. von Ranke, Weltgeschichte, Part vii. (Leipzig, i886) ; W. von Giese brecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit (Leipzig, 1881-90) ; and Jahrbiicher des deutschen Reichs unter Kaiser Otto II. (1837-40) ; H. Detmer, Otto II. bis zum Tode seines Vaters (Leipzig, 1878) ; J. Molt mann, Theophano die Gemahlin Ottos II. in ihrer Bedeutung fur die Politik Ottos I. and Ottos II. (Gottingen, 1878) ; and A. Matthaei, Die Handel Ottos II. mit Lothar von Frankreich (Halle, 1882).