Otho

Family: Otho · Role: emperor · First appears: Otho

As emperor, Otho gave Virginius Rufus the consulship and restored the remaining fortunes of senators recalled from exile, though he had first been entreated by Virginius Rufus to accept the empire or act as mediator. He ordered Tigellinus to be sent for, and Tigellinus killed himself with a razor; Otho also did not refuse to be called Nero in the theater and ordered Crispinus to bring him the seventeenth cohort from Ostia. Mucianus and Vespasian sent favorable letters assuring him of their support, while his overtures to rival Vitellius turned from civilities to angry words.

Otho sent Dolabella to Aquinum to give encouragement there, and dispatched his brother Titianus with Proculus to the army. He sent for his brother’s son Cocceius, whom he had meant to adopt as his son; named Lucius, Vitellius’s brother, without new marks of favor or displeasure; and made Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian’s brother, governor of Rome. Secundus was his secretary, and Mestrius Florus had been compelled to attend him. After Pollio urged the soldiers to swear allegiance to Vitellius, Otho’s soldiers later broke in, accusing themselves of neglecting the life laid down to preserve theirs. At Brixillum, Otho “held his sword upright under him with both his hands, and falling upon it, expired”; his soldiers buried him and raised a modest monument bearing his epitaph.

Relationship record

Life events

• Otho gave Virginius Rufus the consulship and restored remaining fortunes to senators recalled from exile.(Otho)
  • With: Virginius Rufus
  • “He was to have been consul for part of that year himself, but he gave the office to Virginius Rufus”
• Tigellinus killed himself with a razor when Otho ordered him arrested.(Otho · 📍 Sinuessa)
  • With: Tigellinus
  • “and so took that opportunity, and with his razor dispatched himself.”
• Otho committed suicide by falling upon his sword.(Otho · 📍 Brixillum)
  • “As soon as he was gone, he held his sword upright under him with both his hands, and falling upon it, expired”
• Otho's soldiers buried him and raised a modest monument bearing his epitaph.(Otho · 📍 Brixillum)
  • “They placed the remains of Otho in the earth, and raised over them a monument”