II would often be referred to as stupor mundi, also translated into English as "the wonder of the world." The two emperors are often compared on account of their intellectual power, ambitions and connection to the Italian culture). Enamoured as he was of Greek and Roman culture, a speech was attributed to him in Thangmar's Vita Bernwardi saying he preferred Romans to his German subjects though the speech's authenticity is disputed. Accounts of his reign Between 1012 and 1018 Thietmar of Merseburg wrote a Chronicon, or Chronicle, of eight books dealing with the period between 908 and 1018. For the earlier part he used Widukind's Res gestae Saxonicae, the Annales Quedlinburgenses and other sources; the latter part is the result of personal knowledge. The chronicle is nevertheless an excellent authority for the history of Saxony during the reigns of the emperors Otto III and Henry II. No kind of information is excluded, but the fullest details refer to the bishopric of Merseburg and to the wars against the Wends and the Poles. Family and children Otto III was a member of the Ottonian dynasty of kings and emperors who ruled the Holy Roman Empire (previously Germany) from 919 to 1024. In relation to the other members of his dynasty, Otto III was the great-grandson of Henry the Fowler, grandson of Otto I, son of Otto II, and a second-cousin to Henry II. Otto III never married and never fathered any children due to his early death. At the time of his death, the Byzantine princess Zoë Porphyrogenita, second daughter of Emperor Constantine VIII, was traveling to Italy to marry him. References Bibliography Althoff, Gerd. Otto III. Penn State Press, 2002. Comyn, Robert. History of the Western Empire, from its Restoration by Charlemagne to the Accession of Charles V, Vol. I. 1851 Duckett, Eleanor (1968). Death and Life in the Tenth Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Reuter, Timothy, ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. III: c. 900–c. 1024, Cambridge University Press, 2000. |- |- 980 births 1002 deaths 10th-century Holy Roman Emperors 11th-century Holy Roman Emperors 10th-century kings of Italy Medieval child monarchs Ottonian dynasty People from Kleve (district) 10th-century Saxon people People of Byzantine descent