Otho was the second emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors.
15 Facts About Otho
2.
Otho is said to have been of moderate height, splay-footed and bandy-legged, but almost feminine in his care of his person.
3.
Otho had the hair of his body plucked out, and because of the thinness of his locks wore a wig so carefully fashioned and fitted to his head, that no one suspected it.
4.
Juvenal, in a passage in the Satire II ridiculing male homosexuality, specifically mentions Otho as being vain and effeminate, looking at himself in the mirror before going into battle, and "plaster[ing] his face with dough" in order to look good.
5.
Otho married the emperor's mistress Poppaea Sabina; Nero forced Otho to divorce Poppaea so that he himself could marry her.
6.
Otho exiled Otho to the province of Lusitania in 58 or 59 by appointing him to be its governor.
7.
Otho proved to be capable as governor of Lusitania, yet he never forgave Nero for marrying Poppaea.
8.
Otho allied himself with Galba, governor of neighboring Hispania Tarraconensis, in the latter's rebellion against Nero in 68.
9.
Otho accepted, or appeared to accept, the cognomen of Nero conferred upon him by the shouts of the populace, whom his comparative youth and the effeminacy of his appearance reminded of their lost favourite.
10.
Any further development of Otho's policy was checked once he had read through Galba's private correspondence and realized the extent of the revolution in Germany, where several legions had declared for Vitellius, the commander of the legions on the lower Rhine River, and were already advancing upon Italy.
11.
Otho remained behind with a considerable reserve force at Brixellum on the southern bank of the Po.
12.
When this decision was taken, Otho's army had already crossed the Po and were encamped at Bedriacum, a small village on the Via Postumia, on the route by which the legions from Dalmatia would naturally arrive.
13.
Otho was still in command of a formidable force as the Dalmatian legions had reached Aquileia and the spirit of his soldiers and their officers was unbroken.
14.
Otho was resolved to accept the verdict of the battle that his own impatience had hastened.
15.
Otho's funeral was celebrated at once as he had wished.