Tiberius
Tiberius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero (November 16, 42 BC - March 16, AD 37), was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Caesar Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian - son of Tiberius Nero and Livia, but through his adoption by Augustus - who was both his stepfather and father-in-law - he became a Julian. The subsequent emperors after Tiberius would continue this blended dynasty of both families for the next forty years; historians have named it the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
Tiberius is remembered as a dark, reclusive, and depressed ruler who never truly desired the right to rule. His reign is marked by terror and mayhem in which the Emperor exiled himself from Rome and left administration in the hands of Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who used his influence over Tiberius and his position in the Praetorian Guard to push his own political agenda and personal revenges. Eventually, Tiberius died, and his grandson by adoption Caligula followed him as the next Roman Emperor.
Early Life
Tiberius Claudius Germanicus Augustus Nero was born on 16 November 42 BC to Tiberius Nero and Livia Drusilla, in Rome.
In 39 BC, his mother divorced his biological father and remarried Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus shortly thereafter, while still pregnant with Tiberius Nero's son. Shortly thereafter in 38 BC his brother, Nero Claudius Drusus, was born.
Little is recorded of Tiberius's early life.
In 32 BC, Tiberius made his first public appearance at the age of nine, delivering the eulogy for his biological father.
In 29 BC, both he and his brother Drusus rode in the triumphal chariot along with their adoptive father Octavian in celebration of the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium.
In 26 BC, Augustus became gravely ill, and his possible death threatened to plunge the Roman world into chaos again. Historians generally agree that it is during this time that the question of Augustus's heir became most acute, and while Augustus had seemed to indicate that Agrippa and Marcellus would carry on his position in the event of his death, the ambiguity of succession became Augustus's chief problem. In response, a series of potential heirs seem to have been selected, among them Tiberius and his brother, Drusus.
In 24 BC, at the age of seventeen, Tiberius entered politics under Augustus's direction, receiving the position of quaestor, and was granted the right to stand for election as praetor and consul five years in advance of the age required by law. Similar provisions were made for Drusus.
Civil and military career
Shortly thereafter Tiberius began appearing in court as an advocate,[6] and it is presumably here that his interest in Greek rhetoric began. In 20 BC, Tiberius was sent East under Marcus Agrippa. The Parthians had captured the standards of the legions under the command of Marcus Licinius Crassus (53 BC) (at the Battle of Carrhae), Decidius Saxa (40 BC), and Marc Antony (36 BC).
After several years of negotiation, Tiberius led a sizable force into Armenia, presumably with the goal of establishing Armenia as a Roman client-state and as a threat on the Roman-Parthian border, and Augustus was able to reach a compromise whereby these standards were returned, and Armenia remained a neutral territory between the two powers.
After returning from the East in 19 BC, Tiberius was married to Vipsania Agrippina, the daughter of Augustusıs close friend and greatest general, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa,[7] appointed praetor, and sent with his legions to assist his brother Drusus in campaigns in the west. While Drusus focused his forces in Gallia Narbonensis and along the German frontier, Tiberius combated the tribes in the Alps and within Transalpine Gaul. In 16 BC he discovered the sources of the Danube, and soon afterwards the bend of the middle course. Returning to Rome in 13 BC, Tiberius was appointed as consul, and around this same time his son, Julius Caesar Drusus, was born.
Agrippa's death in 12 BC elevated both Tiberius and Drusus with respect to the succession. At Augustusı request, Tiberius divorced Vipsania and married Julia the Elder, Augustus' daughter and Agrippa's widow. This event seems to have been the breaking point for Tiberius; his marriage with Julia was never a happy one, and produced only a single child which died in infancy.
Reportedly, Tiberius once ran into Vipsania again, and proceeded to follow her home crying and begging forgiveness; soon afterwards, Tiberius met with Augustus, and steps were taken to ensure that Tiberius and Vipsania would never meet again. Tiberius continued to be elevated by Augustus, and after Agrippa's death and his brother Drusus's death in 9 BC, seemed the clear candidate for succession. As such, in 12 BC he received military commissions in Pannonia and Germania; both areas highly volatile and both areas key to Augustan policy. He returned to Rome and was consul for a second time in 7 BC, and in 6 BC was granted tribunician power (tribunicia potestas) and control in the East, all of which mirrored positions that Agrippa had previously held. However, despite these successes and despite his advancement, Tiberius was not happy.
Retirement to Rhodes
In 6 BC, on the verge of accepting command in the East and becoming the second most powerful man in Rome, Tiberius suddenly announced his withdrawal from politics and retired to Rhodes. The precise motives for Tiberius's withdrawal are unclear.
Historians have speculated a connection with the fact that Augustus had adopted Julia's sons Gaius and Lucius, and seemed to be moving them along the same political path that both Tiberius and Drusus had trod. Tiberius thus seemed to be an interim solution; he would hold power only until the his stepsons would come of age, and then be swept aside. The promiscuous, and very public, behavior of his unhappily married wife, Julia, may have also played a part; indeed Tacitus calls it Tiberius' intima causa, his innermost reason for departing for Rhodes, and seems to ascribe the entire move to a hatred of Julia and a longing for Vipsania. Tiberius had found himself married to a woman he loathed, who publicly humiliated him with nighttime escapades in the Forum, and forbidden to see the woman he had loved.
Whatever Tiberius's motives, the withdrawal was almost disastrous for Augustus's succession plans. Gaius and Lucius were still in their early teens, and Augustus, now 57 years old, had no immediate successor. There was no longer a guarantee of a peaceful transfer of power after Augustus's death, nor a guarantee that his family, and therefore his family's allies, would continue to hold power should the position of princeps survive.
Somewhat apocryphal stories tell of Augustus pleading with Tiberius to stay, even going so far as to stage a serious illness; Tiberius's response was to anchor off the shore of Ostia until word came that Augustus had survived, then sailing straightway for Rhodes. Tiberius reportedly discovered the error of his ways and requested to return to Rome several times; each time Augustus refused the request.
Heir to Augustus
Tragedy worked for the benefit of Tiberius. In 2 AD, Lucius Caesar died of an illness at Massilia. Augustus, resistant to the idea of allowing Tiberius to return, finally yielded to the requests of Livia and Gaius Caesar. Tiberius returned to Rome and lived as a private citizen when, unexpectedly, Gaius Caesar died of a wound received during a siege in Armenia. Augustus, devastated, was left without his adoptive sons and, more importantly, without an heir and successor. His careful planning for the succession had come to nothing. In the crisis, he turned once more to Tiberius.
Tiberius was summoned from private life and adopted as Augustusıs son. Also adopted by Augustus was Postumus Agrippa, the third son of Julia Caesaris and Marcus Agrippa. Tiberius, despite having a natural son, was required to adopt his nephew, Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus. Augustus seemed to be re-establishing a slate of candidates, with Tiberius at its head and the others as potential substitutes in the event of disaster. Tiberius's forced adoption of Germanicus appears to have been Augustusıs attempt to mark out the succession in the third generation of the Principate.
From 4 AD to 14 AD Tiberius was clearly Augustusıs successor. When he was adopted, he also received grants of proconsular power and tribunician power; and in 13 AD his proconsular power was made co-extensive with that of Augustusıs. In effect, Tiberius was now co-emperor with Augustus so that when the latter finally died on 19 August, 14 AD, Tiberius's position was unassailable and the continuation of the Principate a foregone conclusion. After fifty-five years living in the shadow of his stepfather, Tiberius finally assumed the mantle of sole ruler.
The Accession of Tiberius
proved intensely awkward. After Augustus had been buried and deified, and his will read and honored, the Senate convened on 18 September to inaugurate the new reign and officially "confirm" Tiberius as emperor. Such a transfer of power had never happened before, and nobody, including Tiberius, appears to have known what to do. Tacitus's account is the fullest of what happened. Tiberius came to the Senate to have various powers and titles voted to him.
Perhaps in an attempt to imitate the tact of Augustus, Tiberius donned the mask of the reluctant public servant (he really was uninterested in the position, being more accustomed to swimming in the warm baths of Capri with young boys) -- and botched the performance. Rather than tactful, he came across to the Senators as obdurate and obstructive. He declared that he was too old for the responsibilities of the Principate, said he did not want the job, and asked if he could just take one part of the government for himself. The Senate was confused, not knowing how to read his behavior. Finally, one senator asked pointedly, "Sire, for how long will you allow the State to be without a head?" Tiberius relented and accepted the powers voted to him, and according to Tacticus, he refused to bear the title Pater Patriae, being the only Emperor to do so.
The first meeting between the Senate and the new Emperor established a blueprint for their later interaction. Throughout his reign, Tiberius was to baffle, befuddle, and frighten the Senators. He seems to have hoped that they would act on his implicit desires rather than on his explicit requests. There was trouble not only at Rome, however.
The legions posted in Pannonia and in Germania, the most powerful concentration of troops in the Empire, took the opportunity afforded by Augustus' death to voice their complaints about the terms and conditions of their service. Matters escalated into an all-out mutiny that was only repressed by the direct intervention of Tiberius's sons, Germanicus and Drusus. There was bloodshed at both locations, but in Germanicusıs sector of Germania, there was particularly chaotic disorder and frightful scenes of mayhem as the legions revolted against Tiberius.
Despite his difficult relationship with the Senate and the Rhine mutinies, Tiberius's first years were generally good. He stayed true to Augustus' plans for the succession and clearly favored his adopted son Germanicus over his natural son, Drusus, as did the Roman populace.
On Tiberius's request, Germanicus was granted proconsular power and assumed command in the prime military zone of Germania, where he suppressed the mutiny there and led the formerly restless legions on campaigns against Germanic tribes from 14 to 16 AD.
After being recalled from Germania, Germanicus celebrated a triumph in Rome in 17 AD. In the same year, he was granted imperium maius over the East and, in 18 AD, after being consul with Tiberius as his colleague, he was sent East, just as Tiberius himself had been almost four decades earlier. Unfortunately for Tiberius, Germanicus died there in 19 AD and, on his deathbed, accused the governor of Syria, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, of murdering him at Tiberiusıs orders. Piso was a long-time friend of Tiberius and his appointee to the Syrian governorship, so suspicion for Germanicusıs death ultimately came to rest at the palace door.
When Germanicusıs widow, Agrippina the Elder returned to Italy carrying her popular husband's ashes, she publicly declared Piso guilty of murder and hinted at the involvement of more hidden agents. Piso was put on trial in the Senate, where he expected some help from his friend, Tiberius. Instead, Tiberius sat statue-like and let the proceedings take their course.
In Tacitus's account, Piso realized his peril and threatened to make public certain documents that would embarrass the Emperor. The ploy failed and Piso committed suicide; the documents were never made public.With Germanicus dead, Tiberius began elevating his own son Drusus to replace him as the Imperial successor. Relations with Germanicusıs family were strained, but they were to reach a breaking point when Tiberius allowed a trusted advisor to get too close and gain a tremendous influence over him. That advisor was the Praetorian Prefect, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who would derail Tiberius's plans for the succession and drive the emperor farther into isolation, depression, and paranoia.
Tiberius and Sejanus
Sejanus hailed from Volsinii in Etruria, from the equites family of Lucius Seius Strabo, who also shared the Praetorian Prefecture until 15 AD when his father was promoted to be Prefect of Egypt, the pinnacle of an equestrian career under the Principate. Sejanus enjoyed powerful connections to Senatorial houses and had been a companion to Gaius Caesar on his mission to the East, from 1 BC-4 AD.
Through a combination of energetic efficiency, fawning sycophancy, and outward displays of loyalty, he gained the position of Tiberius' closest friend and advisor.Tiberius, whom historians depict by this stage as an old, bitter, and tired man, left more and more of the day-to-day running of the Empire to Sejanus. Sejanus created an atmosphere of fear in Rome, controlling a network of informers and spies whose incentive to accuse others of treason was a share in the accused's property after their conviction and death.
Treason trials became commonplace; few members of the Roman aristocracy were completely safe. The trials played up to Tiberius' growing paronoia, which made him more reliant on Sejanus, as well as satisfying his greed (since the emperor could confiscate the majority of the accused's property after their execution or suicide); they also allowed Sejanus to eliminate potential rivals.One development that favored Sejanus was the concentration of all nine cohorts of the Praetorian Guard into a single camp at Rome.
Augustus had billeted these troops discreetly in small towns around Rome, but now Tiberius -- undoubtedly with Sejanus's encouragement -- brought them into the city, probably in 17 AD or 18 AD. Sejanus, therefore, commanded some 9,000 troops within the city limits. As Sejanus's public profile became more and more pronounced, his statues were erected in public places, and, according to Tacticus, Tiberius openly praised him as "the partner of my labors."
But Sejanus had his own ideas. He had used his influence over Tiberius to destroy the Emperor's relationship with his son Drusus; in 23 Drusus died. It is generally accepted that he was poisioned by Livilla, his wife, at the instigation of Sejanus, who was her lover. Tiberius did not suspect this, however.
The death of his son meant he had now a stark choice to make in designating his heir: between the sons of his enemies (in his mind at least) Germanicus and Agrippina, or Sejanus.Self Imposed Exile Sejanusıs attacks against Agrippina and his proposal to marry Drusus's widow, Livilla, (who was also Tiberius' niece) suggest that he was attempting to follow the precedent of Agrippa, that is, an outsider who became the emperor's successor through a combination of overt loyalty, necessity, and a family alliance forged by marriage.
Tiberius, perhaps sensitive to this ambition, rejected Sejanus's initial proposal to marry Livilla in 25 AD, but later put it about that he had withdrawn his objections so that, in 30 AD, Sejanus was betrothed to Livilla's daughter (Tiberius' granddaughter). The Prefect's family connection to the Imperial house was now imminent. In 31 AD Sejanus held the consulship with the emperor as his colleague, an honor Tiberius reserved only for heirs to the throne.
Furthermore, when Sejanus surrendered the consulship early in the year, he was granted a share of the emperor's proconsular power. When he was summoned to a meeting of the Senate on 18 October in that year he probably expected to receive a share of the tribunician power; with that he would, after all, have become Tiberius's Agrippa.
Instead, however, Tiberius' letter to the Senate completely unexpectedly requested the destruction of Sejanus and his faction. A bloody purge followed, in which Sejanus and his most prominent supporters were killed.Tiberius himself later claimed that he turned on Sejanus because he had been alerted to Sejanus's plot against Germanicus' family.
This explanation has been rejected by most ancient and modern authorities, since Sejanus's demise did nothing to end Tiberius' persecution of that family: Agrippina and her eldest son Nero were both exiled to tiny islands, her second son Drusus was still imprisoned in the Palatine's basement, and all three died violently within years of Sejanusıs fall. Tiberius is also said to have discovered Sejanus's part in his own son's death in 23 AD; the source of this information, however, is unclear. Possibly, in the highly charged atmosphere surrounding Sejanus's fall, the news acted as a catalyst, but its truth cannot be verified.
Whatever the precise reasons, Sejanus's career and demise, and that of those around him, was an object lesson in the dangers of Imperial politics.[edit]Final YearsThe Sejanus affair appears to have greatly depressed Tiberius. A close friend and confidant had betrayed him. His withdrawal from public life seemed more complete in the last years. Letters kept him in touch with Rome, but it was the machinery of the Augustusıs administration that kept the Empire running smoothly.
According to writers such as Suetonius, Tiberius spent much of his time indulging his perversities on Capri. He also became all but paranoid in his dealings with others and spent long hours brooding over the death of his son, Drusus, which had now been revealed to him as the work of his friend Sejanus; all who were implicated, he had executed in barbaric fashion.
As a result, no measures were taken for the succession, beyond vague indications of favor to his great-nephew Caligula, Germanicus' and Agrippina's only surviving son, and his grandson Tiberius Gemellus, the son of Drusus and Livilla, who was still only a child.
Rome's second Emperor died at the port town of Misenum on March 16, 37 AD, at the age of seventy-eight. In a reign of 23 years, Tiberius, despite all his faults, proved a successful continuation of Augustusıs Principate. Later writers suggested that he was smothered at the behest of Caligula (who was never really sure if he was the official heir), but such accusations are to be expected in the political climate of the time.
Regardless, Tiberius was old and in poor health at his death. His complete unpopularity is proven by the failure of the Senate to vote him divine honours. Caligula never pushed for it, and his successor Claudius, who did force the deification of Tiberius' mother Livia, certainly wasted no effort on Tiberius' behalf.
Tacitus, Dio Cassius and Suetonius certainly painted a bleak picture of Tiberius and his reign. According to Suetonius: "the people were so glad of his death, that at the first news of it some ran about shouting, "To the Tiber with Tiberius!," (a form of punishment reserved for criminals) while others prayed to Mother Earth and the Manes to "allow the dead man no abode except among the damned."In his will, Tiberius left the empire to both Caligula and Tiberius Gemellus, but soon after becoming Emperor, Caligula had Tiberius's will declared void and later had Gemellus killed, thus he become Tiberiusıs sole heir and successor as the Roman Emperor.
Continuing legacy
In the Bible, Tiberius is mentioned by name only once, in Luke 3:1 (stating that John the Baptist entered on his public ministry in the fifteenth year of his reign). However, since it was during his reign that Jesus preached, many references to Caesar (or the emperor in some other translations), without further specification, actually refer to Tiberius. It was during the reign of Tiberius that Jesus was put to death by crucifixion under the authority of the Roman governor of Judea at the time, Pontius Pilate.
The town Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee was named in Tiberius's honour by Herod Antipas.
Tiberius has appeared in the movies Ben-Hur, Caligula (played by Peter O'Toole), and I, Claudius (played by George Baker).
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