By similar bounty Otho sought to win the affections of the cities and provinces. He bestowed on the colonies of Hispalis and Emerita some additional families, on the entire people of the Lingones the privileges of Roman citizenship; to the province of Bætica he joined the states of Mauritania, and granted to Cappadocia and Africa new rights, more for display than for permanent utility. In the midst of these measures, which may find an excuse in the urgency of the crisis and the anxieties which pressed upon him, he still did not forget his old amours, and by a decree of the Senate restored the statues of Poppæa. It is even believed that he thought of celebrating the memory of Nero in the hope of winning the populace, and persons were found to exhibit statues of that Prince. There were days on which the people and the soldiers greeted him with shouts of Nero Otho, as if they were heaping on him new distinction and honour. Otho himself wavered in suspense, afraid to forbid or ashamed to acknowledge the title.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942.
