The Roman historian Suetonius (70 AD – 130 AD) wrote The Twelve Caesars in clear straightforward prose. The modern world derives much knowledge of Roman rulers and Roman society, Roman culture and Roman decadence from his writing. Suetonius’s philosophic temper reveals itself in the many vivid comments he makes on that most esteemed of Roman virtues: strength of character. I find this to be particularly true in his life of Otho who ruled as Roman Emperor for 3 months at age 38. Below are quotes taken from text along with my brief comments.

“He was from his earliest youth so riotous and wild, that he was often severely scourged by his father. He was said to run about in the night-time, and seize upon any one he met, who was either drunk or too feeble to make resistance, and toss him in a blanket.” ---------- No question, the future emperor was a hellraiser as a teenager. My sense is Suetonius wants us to keep in mind how famous leaders were once very human youngsters.

“He is said to have been greatly frightened that night in his sleep, and to have groaned heavily; and being found, by those who came running in to see what the matter was, lying upon the floor before his bed, he endeavored by every kind of atonement to appease the ghost of Galba, by which he had found himself violently tumbled out of bed.” ---------- Suetonius routinely includes omens and dreams in his chapters on all the Caesars. For Emperor Otho, who had a hand in orchestrating Emperor Galba’s murder, to have such a ghastly nightmare does not bode well for his future.

"Otho, before his advancement to the empire, had such an abhorrence of civil war, that once, upon hearing an account given at table of the death of Cassius and Brutus, he fell into a trembling, and that he never would have interfered with Galba, but that he was confident of succeeding in his enterprise without a war." ---------- Otho was under the impression that with Emperor Galba’s death, he would take over as the next clear-cut emperor. Turns out, this was a catastrophic misjudgment – there was a Roman general in German territory by the name of Vitellius staking his own claim to be emperor. And Vitellius had an entire army of Roman soldiers willing to advance on Rome in his support.

Otho gathers his own army in an attempt to stop Vitellius. But, after marching north, Otho makes a rash decision to do battle without waiting for his reinforcements. His army engages Vitellius but is beaten back. This one decisive defeat is disastrous news for the Roman Empire: there now looms a very real prospect of a long civil war. Assessing the plight, Otho makes a courageous decision. Suetonius writes. “At last, after quenching his thirst with a draught of cold water, he took up two poniards, and having examined the points of both, put one of them under his pillow, and shutting his chamber-door, slept very soundly, until, awaking about break of day, he stabbed himself under the left pap.” ---------- Rather than plunging the entire empire into a bloody civil war, Otho took own life. Such self-sacrifice for the sake of his country was so admired that Suetonius writes: “Many of the soldiers who were present, kissing and bedewing with their tears his hands and feet as he lay dead, and celebrating him as "a most gallant man, and an incomparable emperor," immediately put an end to their own lives upon the spot, not far from his funeral pile.”

“The person and appearance of Otho no way corresponded to the great spirit he displayed on this occasion; for he is said to have been of low stature, splay-footed, and bandy-legged. He was, however, effeminately nice in the care of his person: the hair on his body he plucked out by the roots; and because he was somewhat bald, he wore a kind of peruke, so exactly fitted to his head, that nobody could have known it for such.” ---------- He certainly didn’t look the part of a hero (and Romans put such high premium on one’s good looks) but that didn’t stop Otho, given the dramatic and historic situation, from acting like a hero. Suetonius understand how fate can provide us with an opportunity to define our entire life by one noble act.

“He was not, so far as we can learn, a follower of any of the sects of philosophers which justified, and even recommended suicide, in particular cases: yet he perpetrated that act with extraordinary coolness and resolution; and, what is no less remarkable, from the motive, as he avowed, of public expediency only. It was observed of him, for many years after his death, that "none ever died like Otho."”---------- The Roman Stoics and other philosophic schools considered suicide a noble act when done for noble reasons. Otho’s noble suicide was adjudged akin to the suicides of philosophers such as Seneca and Cato the Younger. Quite high praise, indeed.
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