Roman Emperor (69). Marcus Salvius Otho is the son of a double of the Tibère emperor, who counts among the favorites of the court.

He is born on on April 28th, 32 in Ferentium, Etrurie, north of Viterbe. Its family is integrated by Claude into the group that this last will promote to replace former patricians people, almost all extinct. His/her mother is called Albia Terentia. Of high birth, it will have three children: L. Titianus, Marcus and a girl, that her father will promise in Drusus, the son of Germanicus. The parents of Marcus Otho hardly deal with its education. It leads a rolliking life, which does not improve, on the contrary, with the death of his father: introduced by a courtesan into the entourage of Néron, it then shares all excesses which make the life of the intimate circle of this emperor.

Difficult to speak about Othon without evoking a woman, whose historians tell the operations in various ways, in as many episodes which point out a little the subjects of the current magazines being interested in the “crowned heads”. One learns by Suétone inter alia, that Othon, whose short size and the knock knees do not contribute to a physique of large seducer, bound to Poppaea Sabina, Poppée, an ambitious mistress of Néron that this last had temporarily lent to Marcus. Who would have even sought to marry it and would have resisted to the emperor, come in person to try to take again the object of his covetousness on the threshold of the residence of Othon.

After the incident, Néron made break this union if it were, and sent of it Othon in Lusitanie, which made mine be a good player, managing this province ten years with tact, but which ruminated its revenge there. Thus it in Galba in the insurrection of 68 is combined, and hopes it to be made adopt by the new leader, who, hard reverse for Othon, prefers his Pison favorite to him. With final, Othon will buy the assassination of Bent with the Praetorian guard. This order will be delivered and the made murder on on January 15th, 69, in due form.

The Senate adopts the cause of Othon, while he rehabilitates with prolifically the senators proscribed by Néron, returning to them what there remain imperial confiscations and choosing among them important magistrates. Othon will continue the policy of its predecessors as regards established among: in Beats, the people, very powerful, from Lingons (of which the territory corresponded to the southern half of Haute-Marne, with the third of the Coast-D' But, east of departments of the Paddle and Yonne), receives this right. But Othon will reign only three months. While it is supported by the armies of the Danube, the East and Africa, those of the Rhine hold for their Vitellius chief, who walks then on Rome with more than 70 ' 000 men. Othon will advance imprudently, without awaiting any reinforcement, and will be defeated in Bétriac, between Crémone and Vérone. So that its enemy does not complete it, Othon plants a dagger in the heart. It was on on April 16th, 69.

Sources: Suétone, Life of the Twelve Césars, VII and Plutarque, Lives parallel, XVII.

The principal work for the present note: Roman Emperors, François Zosso, Christian Zingg, Wandering, 1994.