Identifier: historyofallnati08wrig (find matches)
Title: A history of all nations from the earliest times; being a universal historical library
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Wright, John Henry, 1852-1908
Subjects: World history
Publisher: (Philadelphia, New York : Lea Brothers & company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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eful turn. NicephorusPhocas fell; and his cousin,John Zimisces, made hasteto become reconciled withOtto. The sixteen-year-oldTheophano, the beautiful,cultivated, and noble daugh-ter of the emperor RomanusII., was betrothed to OttoII., who was then eighteenyears of age. She receivedthe Greek possessions inLower Italy as her dowry.The wedding was held atRome in the spring of 972.More fortunate thanCharlemagne, Otto hadgained a complete success,even in the south. He couldregard his life-work as fin-ished. His son, whose mar-riage with the Greek prin-cess entitled him to greatclaims for the future, stoodby his side as emperor andking to maintain and carryon the work. So Otto nowreturned at last to Germany,forathearthe was thoroughlyGerman. Many changes hadtaken place there in the mean-while ; and the group of hisconfidential associates, which had always been a small one,Fig. 71. — Equestrian statue of Emperor Utto , , , in- it I., at Magdeburg. (From Förster.) had been much thinned. In
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DEATH OF OTTO. 259 968 had died William of Mayence, who had never recovered from hisvexation at the lessening of his power by the founding of the arch-bishopric of Magdeburg. Soon afterward Queen Matilda had passedaway; and when the emperor now held a diet, in March of 973, atQuedlinburg, he had to lament the death of the faithful HermannBilling. But the great number of princes who approached him todo homage, and tlie long train of embassies from distant lands,caused him to behold once more with gratitude the rich success ofliis hfe-work. He wished to celebrate Whitsuntide in )\Iemleben.But a few days before that time, on jVIay 6, he was seized with asudden illness after a meal. This sickness was at once perceived tobe premonitory of his rapidly approaching end. Otto died on thatvery evening, surrounded by the consolations of religion. His lastresting-place was prepared for him a few weeks later in Magdeburg,in the cathedral of St. Maurice, by the side of his Anglo-Saxon wife,Edith. (

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