Tiberius, the second emperor of Rome (14-37 A.D.), whose real character remains to this day among the enigmas of history. Tiberius Claudius Nero was the son of T. Claudius Nero and of Livia, and was born 16th November 42 B.C., four years before her complaisant husband yielded Livia to the triumvir Octavianus. He was nine when his father's death transferred him to the tutelage of his step-father, and eleven when that step-father became the undisputed master of the Roman empire. Being now a member of the imperial household, he received a careful education and the same public honours as were paid to the nephew and grandsons of Augustus. At nineteen he filled the quaestorship, became pretor at twenty-five, and consul at twenty-nine. But almost the whole of his first twenty years of manhood were spent in the camp—in Spain, Armenia, Gaul, Pannonia, and Germany. He had the honour of bringing back the standards lost with Crassus; in 15 B.C. he co-operated with his brother Drusus in subduing the Rhæti and Vindelici; warred with the Pannonians (12-9), and in the campaign that followed the death of Drusus traversed Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe. The young Marcellus, nephew of Augustus, had died in 23; Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, died suddenly in 12, leaving only two boys of eight and five between the step-son and the succession. Tiberius was now compelled (11) by Augustus to divorce his much-loved wife Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa by his former wife Pomponia, in order to marry Agrippa's widow Julia, the profligate daughter of Augustus. Hardly was he married than he was sent to crush a revolt in Dalmatia and Pannonia; Drusus died in 9, and Tiberius marched at the head of his funeral train on foot in mid-winter from the Rhine to Rome, returning immediately to the wars in Germany, for the successes in which he was rewarded with the full triumph (9) and other honours. But suddenly in 6 he retired to Rhodes, where for seven years he gave himself to study and to astrology. The open profligacy of the wife who had been forced into his arms was perhaps the most powerful reason which drove him from Rome to the displeasure of the emperor. Before his return (2 A.D.) the infamous Julia was banished to Pandataria (2 B.C.), and within the two years after the deaths of both the young princes Lucius and Gaius (2 and 4 A.D.) paved the way for the adoption of Tiberius as heir to the imperial dignity, the third grandson, Agrippa Postumus, being at once too young and too incompetent for command. He was now formally adopted by Augustus. Tiberius spent the next seven years in active service in north Germany against Maroboduus, in quelling formidable insurrections in Pannonia and Dalmatia, and finally in securing the frontier and taking vengeance upon the enemy who had annihilated the army of Varus in 9 A.D. Along with Germanicus he made two marches into the heart of Germany (9-10), returning to enjoy a splendid triumph (12).
On the death of Augustus at Nola in 14 Tiberius succeeded without opposition. He was fifty-six years old, taciturn, impenetrable, suspicious, beloved by none, yet respected by all for his gravity of demeanour and the reputed severity of his virtue. The first eight years of his reign are treated by Tacitus in the first three books of his Annals, and are reluctantly admitted to have been marked by just and moderate government, respect for the laws, frugality, and care for the interests of the provincials. The whole is set down to sustained hypocrisy—a theory of human character hardly to be accepted without hesitation. During this period only twelve state trials for majestas ('high treason') are recorded. The next period of the reign, treated in the fourth book of Tacitus, covers the six years 23-28. As yet, according to Tacitus, the evil impulses of Tiberius were restrained by the influence of his still surviving mother. The number of trials for majestas has grown to twenty, the espionage of informers has also increased as well as the severity of sentences. His minister Sejanus has grown to vast influence through playing for his own ends upon the morbid suspiciousness of his master. For the last period of the reign, covering eight years and a quarter, we miss the lost fifth book of Tacitus for the years 30-31. The sixth book opens near the close of the year 31, and brings the story of Tiberius through the six years' reign of terror in which 80 to 100 lives perished mostly by direct mandate of the prince down to its shameful close in the foul debaucheries, the gloom, and the insanity of Capreae.
Such is the gloomy drama of the reign of Tiberius in the splendid pages of Tacitus. It only remains to be seen what are the historically reliable elements of the story. In general terms it may be said that the facts are mainly trustworthy, if the motives imputed cannot always be accepted. There is no doubt that for some years Tiberius took, or affected to take, little active part in public affairs, and indeed throughout one of the deepest principles in his Roman nature was regard for constitutional forms. But his care for the real interests of the provincials was an element new to Roman politics, and showed a foresight and statesmanship to which Augustus had not risen. The only important open changes he made were the permanent encampment of the imperial guard close to the city walls, and the abolition of the old eomitia, the election of public officers being transferred to the subservient senate. But the one fatal feature of the reign was the institution of the judicia majestatis, which grew up out of the slavish adulation of the senate, the deep suspiciousness of the emperor's own nature, and the subtle manner in which this was fed by Ælius Sejanus, commander of the prætorian guards. Delation, or denunciation of individuals by informers, soon grew to great proportions, and men breathed in a constant atmosphere of terror. In 26 Tiberius left Rome for Campania, and the year after took up his abode in Capree, where Suetonius tells us he wallowed in brutish sensualities. He had given his entire confidence to Sejanus, leaving him the whole control of government; but at length awakened to the ambitious designs of his minister, he struck him down without hesitation (31). Macro, the successor of Sejanus, had all his vices without his talents, and so the state of affairs was even worse than before. The murder of Agrippa Postumus in 14, the mysterious death of Germanicus in the East (19), the poisoning of Tiberius' own son Drusus by Sejanus (23), the banishment of Agrippina and the untimely death of her young sons Nero and Drusus (31 and 33) were some of the dark tragedies that befell the house of Augustus under the reign of Tiberius. In his last years the emperor's mind was darkened by gloom, superstition, and perhaps insanity. The famous words Tacitus has preserved of a letter to the senate (Ann. vi. 6) seem like a momentary flash of revelation of more than mere remorse: 'May all the gods and goddesses destroy me more miserably than I feel myself to be daily perishing, if I know at this moment what to write to you, senators, how to write it, or what, in short, not to write.' On the 16th March 37 his worn-out frame fell into a sort of lethargy, in which he was suffocated by Macro to prevent his recovery.
The original authorities are Tacitus, Suetonius, and Velleius Paterculus. The first admits that the history of Tiberius was 'falsified, while he reigned, through terror, and written after his death with the irritation of a recent hatred.' Whether the portrait he has himself constructed with such consummate literary art is psychologically possible or no, there can be no doubt at least that his own feeling was too bitter to permit of a judicial estimate. Suetonius as a historical writer shows no discrimination in choosing his materials, and his fondness for scandal and gossip was far stronger than his zeal for truth. Velleius Paterculus had served under Tiberius, but his overdone panegyric gives the fatal suggestion of flattery. Dion Cassius again wrote nearly two centuries after Tiberius, and was wise enough to follow Tacitus pretty closely, the character of Tiberius being a study much too complex for his powers of analysis. Dean Merivale in his History of the Romans under the Empire defends Tiberius with moderate zeal, believing him at least the victim of much ancient misrepresentation; Professor Beesly in a preposterous paradox (Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius, 1878) repudiates the whole account by Tacitus as a deliberate and malignant libel. M. Duruy is measured in commendation in his History; M. Boissier sums up against him in L'Opposition sous les Césars (1875); the Comte Champagny, with vehement invective, in Les Césars.
Besides these, see Mommsen's fifth volume of the History of Rome, translated as The Roman Provinces from Augustus to Diocletian (1886); L. Freytag, Tiberius und Tacitus (Berl. 1870); T. Stahr, Tiberius (2d ed. Berl. 1873); Pasch, Zur Kritik der Geschichte des Kaisers Tiberius (Altenburg, 1866); and Hermann Schiller, Geschichte der Römischen Kaiserzeit (Gotha, 1883); also the excellent essay by Henry Furneaux prefixed to his edition of the Annals (vol. i. 1884).