Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Otho, Salvius 2.
L. SALVIUS OTHO, the son of the preceding, and the father of the emperor Otho, was connected on his mother's side with many of the most distinguished Roman families, and stood so high in the favor of Tiberius and resembled this emperor so strongly in person, that it was supposed by most that he was his son.He discharged the various public offices at Rome, was consul suffectus in A.D. 33 (Suet. Galb. 6), obtained the proconsulate of Africa, and administrated the affairs of this province, as well as of other extraordinary commands which he held, with great diligence and energy. In A.D. 42 he was sent into Illyricum, where the Roman army had lately rebelled to Claudius. On his arrival he put to death several of the soldiers, who had killed their own officers under the pretext that they had excited them to rebellion, and who had even been reward by Claudius for this very act. Such a proceeding, thought it might have been necessary to restore the discipline of the troops, gave great umbrage at the imperial court; but Otho soon afterwards regained the favor of Claudius by detecting a conspiracy which had been formed against his life by a Roman eques. The senate conferred upon him the extraordinary honor of erecting his statua on the Palatine, and Claudius enrolled him among the patricians, adding that he did not wish better children then Otho. By his wife Alba Terentia he had two sons and one daughter. The elder of his sons, Lucius, bore, says Suetonius, the surname of Titianus, but we may conclude from Tacitus (Ann. xii. 52) and Frontinus (Aquaed. 13) that he had the cognomen of Otho as well [see below, No. 3]. His younger son, Marcus, was the emperor Otho. His daughter was betrothed, when quite young, to Drusus, the son of Germanicus. (Suet. Otho, 1; Tac. Hist. ii. 50.)