MARCUS SALVIUS**, a Roman emperor, was descended from an ancient Etruscan family, and was born A.D. 32. He was proclaimed emperor in 69; and he stabbed himself in the same year, ninety-five days afterwards. (See Roman History.)

**OTTO or Otto I.,** surnamed **The Great**, Emperor of Germany, was the son of Henry the Fowler, and succeeded his father in the throne in 936. The early part of his reign was occupied in simultaneously extending his power and supporting the cause of the church. In the course of a long series of civil broils his unruly vassals were subdued, and part of their wealth and influence was transferred to the abbeys and convents. He concluded a successful invasion of Denmark by compelling the Danes to become Christians; and he pardoned Boleslaus, the rebel duke of Bohemia, only on condition that all the Bohemians should receive baptism. After he had extended the limits of the kingdom of Germany on every side, Otto turned an ambitious eye towards Italy. An application from Adelaide, the widow of Lotharius, King of the Lombards, for aid against the treacherous usurper Berengarius, furnished him with an opportunity for executing his projects. He defeated Berengarius in 951, married Adelaide, and before departing to his own kingdom, was acknowledged by all the towns of Lombardy as their liege lord. His regular instalment in the sovereignty of the country took place in 961, when he returned flushed with the decisive victory which he had gained over the Hungarians at Augsburg. In that same year he was crowned at Milan with the iron crown of the Longobards; and in the following year he was crowned at Rome as emperor of the West by Pope John XII. Otto now proved that he was not unworthy to be the successor of Charlemagne. He vindicated his temporal jurisdiction over the supreme pontiffs; and, amid much resistance from the Romans, succeeded in establishing the law, that no pope could be chosen without the previous consent of the emperor. He also laid the foundation of municipal government by encouraging the growing spirit and enterprise of the citizens of the great Italian towns. The death of Otho took place in Germany in 973.

**OTTO or Otto II.,** the son of the preceding, was born in 955, and succeeded to the imperial throne on the death of his father in 973. His reign was occupied in maintaining by the sword those dominions which had been bequeathed to him. No sooner had he been crowned, than he was summoned to Germany to suppress the rival claims of his cousin Henry, Duke of Bavaria. After this rebellion had been suppressed, he involved himself in a war with the King of France touching the fief of Lorraine; and it was not until his army had been routed on the banks of the Aisne, and he had been forced to concede part of the disputed territory, that the contest was brought to a close. Then a revolt among the Romans, and the continued occupation of Calabria and Apulia by the Saracens and Greeks, recalled him to Italy, and drove him to take the most sanguinary measures. He entered Rome without opposition; overawed the malcontents; and, enticing the principal movers of the rebellion to a banquet, put them to death in cold blood. His defeat immediately afterwards by the Greeks and Saracens at Bassentello checked his success, but did not divert him from his determined course of action. He struck terror into the hearts of his disaffected subjects by surrendering the treacherous city of Benevento to the pillage of the soldiery. He was also preparing another expedition against the Saracens, when he was cut off in 983, a short time after his son Otho had been declared his successor by an assembly of the states of Italy and Germany.

**OTTO or Otto III.,** the only son of the preceding, was twelve years of age when his father died. During his minority civil broils, both in Italy and Germany, threatened the complete overthrow of good government. Yet, no sooner had he formally assumed the power, than he began to restore and maintain order with vigour and rapidity. In 996 he crossed the Alps at the head of a large army; forced his way into Milan to be crowned with the crown of the Lombards; and was invested with the imperial title by his relative Pope Gregory V. He then, in the following year, hastened northward to stem the incursions of the Slavic hordes of the Elbe and the Oder. The intelligence that a patrician named Crescentius was endeavouring to restore the old Roman republic, had expelled the pope, and had placed in the pontifical chair a Greek, with the title of John XVI., soon recalled him to Italy. Crushing the rebellion with relentless severity, he put the anti-pope to death by slow and savage tortures, and hanged Crescentius from a lofty tree. His next important action was the erection of Poland into a kingdom, on condition that it should be a fief of the empire. After this he undertook a successful campaign against the Saracens of Apulia and Calabria. He was then, in 1002, engaged in contending against a fresh revolt of the Romans, when the widow of Crescentius poisoned him. Otho left no children, and was succeeded by Henry, Duke of Bavaria.

**OTTO or Otto IV.,** the son of Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria, was duke of Saxony when in 1197 the Emperor Henry VI. died, leaving his crown to his infant son Frederick. Disregarding the true heir, the Guelphs conferred the imperial title upon Otho; while the Ghibelines conferred it upon Philip, Duke of Swabia. The former now commenced a series of ineffectual struggles to confirm his title. A civil war of eight years ended by placing his rival upon the throne, and by forcing himself to flee to his uncle, King John of England. Even after the assassination of the Emperor Philip had left him in possession of the empire in 1207; and after he had been formally crowned in Rome in 1209, his claims still continued unsettled. By the intrigues of Pope Innocent III., he was soon involved in a war with Frederick, King of the Two Sicilies, and the rightful heir to the imperial crown. The struggle in a short time was transferred from Italy to Germany; and in 1214 the cause of Otho was irrevocably ruined by the French king, Philip Augustus, at the celebrated battle of Bouvines. The remaining years of the degraded emperor were spent in privacy in the exercises of penitential devotion. He died at Brunswick in 1218.

**OTTO, or Otto, of Freisingen,** a celebrated chronicler of the twelfth century, was the son of Leopold, margrave of Austria, and of Agnes, daughter of the Emperor Henry IV. Although born in such a high sphere of society, he descended to the condition of an obscure scholar and a self-denying ecclesiastic. He studied at the universities of Nuremberg and Paris; entered the order of St Bernard in the abbey of Morimond; and in 1136 became abbot. His half-brother, the Emperor Conrad III., removed him to the see of Freisingen in 1136. The rest of his life, with the exception of an interval during which he accompanied the imperial troops to Palestine, was passed in the assiduous and pious discharge of the duties of his diocese. He died in 1158, while on a visit to his old residence, the Abbey of Morimond. Otho left behind him a Latin chronicle of the world from the creation till his own time. Of the seven books into which it is divided, the first four are a mere selection of passages from Orosius, Eusebius, and others. It was published in fol., Augsburg, 1515. He was also the author of a treatise concerning the end of the world, and a history of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, entitled De Gestis Frederici Emobarbari Libri Duo. This latter work is inserted in Muratorii's Rerum Italicae Commentarii Scriptores.