Suetonius, a Roman writer of the early second century, wrote The Twelve Caesars, short lives of the emperors from Julius Caesar through Domitian. This chapter is Otho, one of the men who seized power in AD 69, the year after Nero died. The story is set in Rome and northern Italy, with armies coming from the German frontier.

Otho had been Poppaea’s husband, then a courtier of Nero, then governor of Lusitania — roughly Portugal. He takes Rome with the Praetorians, the emperor’s guard, and holds it only until Vitellius’s German legions cross the Alps. The fight at Bedriacum, in northern Italy, goes against him. He dies by his own hand. His last letters try to spare those who backed him. After Otho, Vitellius comes on from the Germanies. The Guard can install a Caesar. It cannot secure the Rhine.