OTHO III., who was only three years old at his father's death, was at once crowned king of the Germans at Aix-la-Chapelle in 983. from which period till 906, when he received the imperial crown at Rome, the government was administered with nary skill and discretion by three female relatives of the boy-king—viz., his mother, Theophania; his grandmother, Adelheid; and his aunt, Matilda, abbess of Qin:tiling. burg. who, in conjunction with the learned Willegis, archbishop of Mainz, directed his education. The princes of the imperial family disputed the right of these royal ladies to the custody of time young king; and Henry of Bavaria, the nearest agnate, having seized the person of Otho, tried to usurp the supreme power; lint opposed by the majority of the other princes of the empire, he was compelled to release him, in eration of receiving back his forfeited duchy. Otho early showed that he hail inherited the great qualities of his forefathers, and when scarcely 15 years of age, at the head of his army, defeated the troops of the patrician .Cresccntius, the self-styled consul of Rome, and thus restored order m the Roman territories. In 906 lie was crowned emperor by his relative Gregory V.; and having settled the affairs of Italy returned to Germany. where he defeated the Slaves, who had long carried on war against the empire; and having forced Micislav, duke of Poland, tc do him homage, he subsequently raised the Polish territories to tlie rank of a in favor of Micislav's successor, Boleslas. The renewed rebellion of Crescent ins, who drove Gregory from the papal throne, corn. pelled Otho. to return to Italy, where success, as usual, attended his measures. Ivho had thrown himself into St. Angelo, was seized and beheaded, together
with twelve of his chief adherents; time antipope, John XVI., imprisoned; Gregory restored; and on the speedy death of the latter, Otho's old tutor, Gherbert, bishop of Ravenna, raised to the papacy under the title of Sylvester II. Otho elated with his success, took up his residence in Rome, where he organized the ment. erected new buildings, and showed every disposition, notwithstanding the cca led dissatisfaction of the Romans, to convert their city into the capital of the western empire. The near approach of the year 1000, to which so many alarming prophesies were then believed to point as the end of the world, induced Otho to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he founded an archbishopric. On his return, after visiting Charlemagne's grave at Aix-la-Chapelle, and removing the consecrated cross, suspended from the emperor's neck, he again repaired to Rome, to consolidate his scaemes of establishing a Roman empire. The insurrection of the Romans frustrated his plans, and escaping from Rome at the risk of his life, he withdrew to Ravenna, to await the arrival of powerfld re-enforeements from Germany : but before they had crossed the Alps, Odin died in 1002, at the age of 22, apparently from poison, which was said to have been administered to him by the widow of Cresceutius, who, it is said, had deliberately set herself to win his affections that she might have an opportunity of avenging the death of her husband; and with him the male branch of the Saxon imperial house became extinct. See Wilman's Jahrbizeher des Deatschen Reiehs Rater Kaiser Otto III. (Berl. 1840).
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