OTTONE II, EMPEROR and king of Germany. — Crowned emperor at Rome in 967, while his father was still alive, he succeeded him at the age of eighteen. Better educated than his father, but sensual, vain, and despotic, he shared all his ambitious dreams; yet he possessed neither the energy nor the political sense necessary to realize them.
He allowed himself to be swept along by events and suffered repeated setbacks. Swabia, and above all Bavaria, backed by Bohemia, turned against him; the King of Denmark attacked him. He also suffered reverses at the hands of France in 978, and it came close to King Lothair capturing him at Aachen. O. II responded vainly by invading France almost as far as Paris; but, defeated at Soissons, he was forced to come to terms with the king of France. All this was time lost in bringing the Romans, who had risen under the Crescenzi, back to obedience after they had strangled the imperial pope Benedict VI. His arrival in Rome and his understanding with Benedict VII (980–81) led O. II to believe that he could realize his father’s ambitions, all the more so because he had married the Byzantine Theophano. Using the struggle against the Saracens as a pretext, he tried unsuccessfully to win over the Greeks of southern Italy. On 13 July 982, at Stilo in Calabria, the infidels inflicted a serious defeat on him; its repercussions gave impetus to a twofold Slav and Danish offensive on the Elbe. But O., driven by his blind ambition, surrendered himself to the rash dream of conquering Sicily. Death came to interrupt his plans on 7 Dec. 983.