Suetonius
De Vita Caesarum--Tiberius
The Lives of the Caesars Tiberius
I. THE patrician branch of the CIaudian family (for there was,
besides, a plebeian branch of no less influence and prestige) originated at Regilli,
a town of the Sabines. From there it moved to Rome shortly after the founding of
the city with a large band of dependents, through the influence of Titus Tatius,
who shared the kingly power with Romulus (or, according to the generally accepted
view, of Atta Claudius, the head of the family) about six years after the expulsion
of the kings [504 B.C.]. It was admitted among the patrician families, receiving,
besides, from the State a piece of land on the farther side of the Anio for its
dependents, and a burial-site for the family at the foot of the Capitoline hill.
Then as time went on it was honoured with twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships,
seven censorships, six triumphs, and two ovations. While the members of the family
were known by various forenames and surnames, they discarded the forename "Lucius"
by common consent after two of the family who bore it had been found guilty, the
one of highway robbery, and the other of murder. To their surnames, on the other
hand, they added that of Nero, which in the Sabine tongue means "strong and valiant."
II.. There are on record many distinguished services of the
Claudii to their country, as well as many deeds of the opposite character. But to
mention only the principal instances, Appius Caecus [ "the Blind"] advised [280
B.C.] against forming an alliance with King Pyrrhus as not at all expedient. Claudius
Caudex was the first to cross the straits with a fleet [264 B.C.], and drove the
Carthaginians from Sicily. Tiberius Nero crushed Hasdrubal, on his arrival from
Spain with a vast army [207 B.C.] before he could unite with his brother Hannibal.
On the other hand, Claudius Regillianus, decemvir for codifying the laws, through
his lawless attempt to enslave a freeborn maid, to gratify his passion for her,
was the cause of the second secession of the plebeians from the patricians [449
B.C.]. Claudius Russus, having set up his statue at Forum Appi with a crown upon
its head, tried to take possession of Italy through his dependents. Claudius Pulcher
began a sea-fight off Sicily [249 B.C.], though the sacred chickens would not eat
when he took the auspices, throwing them into the sea in defiance of the omen, and
saying that they might drink, since they would not eat. He was defeated, and on
being bidden by the Senate to appoint a dictator, he appointed his messenger Glycias,
as if again making a jest of his country's peril. The women also have records equally
diverse, since both the famous Claudias belonged to that family: the one who drew
the ship with the sacred properties of the Idaean Magna Mater from the shoal in
the Tiber on which it was stranded, after first publicly praying that it might yield
to her efforts only if her chastity were beyond question [204 B.C.]; and the one
who was tried by the people for treason [246 B.C.], an unprecedented thing in the
case of a woman, because when her carriage made but slow progress through the throng,
she openly gave vent to the wish that her brother Pulcher might come to life and
lose another fleet, to make less of a crowd in Rome. It is notorious besides that
all the Claudii were aristocrats and staunch upholders of the prestige and influence
of the patricians, with the sole exception of Publius Clodius, who for the sake
of driving Cicero from the city had himself adopted by a plebeian [60 B.C.] and
one too who was younger than himself. Their attitude towards the commons was so
headstrong and stubborn that not even when on trial for his life before the people
did any one of them deign to put on mourning or beg for mercy; and some of them
during bickerings and disputes struck the tribunes of the commons. Even a Vestal
virgin mounted her brother's chariot with him [143 B.C.], when he was celebrating
a triumph without the sanction of the people, and attended him all the way to the
Capitol, in order to make it an act of sacrilege for any one of the tribunes to
forbid him or interpose his veto.
III. Such was the stock from which Tiberius Caesar derived
his origin, and that too on both sides: on his father's from Tiberius Nero; on his
mother's from Appius Pulcher, both of whom were sons of Appius Caecus. He was a
member also of the family of the Livii, through the adoption into it of his maternal
grandfather. This family too, though of plebeian origin, was yet of great prominence
and had been honoured with eight consulships, two censorships, and three triumphs,
as well as with the offices of dictator and master of the horse. It was made illustrious
too by distinguished members, in particular Salinator and the Drusi. The former
in his censorship put the brand on all the tribes [204 B.C.] the charge of fickleness,
because having convicted and fined him after a previous consulship, they made him
consul a second time and censor as well. Drusus gained a surname for himself and
his descendants by slaying Drausus, leader of the enemy, in single combat. It is
also said that when propraetor he brought back from his province of Gaul the gold
which was paid long before to the Senones, when they beleaguered the Capitol [390
B.C.], and that this had not been wrested from them by Camillus, as tradition has
it. His grandson's grandson, called "Patron of the Senate" because of his distinguished
services against the Gracchi, left a son who was [122 B.C.] treacherously slain
by the party of his opponents, while he was busily agitating many plans during a
similar dissension [91 B.C.].
IV. Nero, the father of Tiberius, as a quaestor of Julius Caesar
during the Alexandrian War [48-47 B.C.] and commander of a fleet, contributed materially
to the victory. For this he was made pontiff in place of Publius Scipio and sent
to conduct colonies to Gaul, among them Narbo and Arelate. Yet, after the murder
of Caesar, when all the others voted for an amnesty through fear of mob violence,
he even favoured a proposal for rewarding the tyrannicides. Later on, having held
the praetorship, since a dispute arose among the triumvirs at the close of his term,
he retained the badges of his rank beyond the legitimate time and followed Lucius
Antonius, consul [41 B.C.] and brother of the triumvir, to Perusia. When the others
capitulated, he alone held to his allegiance and got away first to Praeneste and
then to Naples; and after vainly trying to enlist the slaves by a promise of freedom,
he took refuge in Sicily. Piqued however because he was not at once given an audience
with Sextus Pompeius, and was denied the use of the fasces, he crossed to
Achaia and joined Marcus Antonius. With him he shortly returned to Rome, on the
conclusion of a general peace, and gave up to Augustus at his request his wife Livia
Drusilla, who was pregnant at the time and had already borne him a son. Not long
afterward he died, survived by both his sons, Tiberius Nero and Drusus Nero.
V. Some have supposed that Tiberius was born at Fundi, on no
better evidence than that his maternal grandmother was a native of that place, and
that later a statue of Good Fortune was set up there by decree of the Senate. But
according to the most numerous and trustworthy authorities, he was born at Rome,
on the Palatine, the sixteenth day before the Kalends of December, in the consulship
of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Munatius Plancus (the former for the second
time) while the war of Philippi was going on [November 16, 42 B.C.]. In fact it
is so recorded both in the calendar and in the public gazette. Yet in spite of this
some write that he was born in the preceding year, that of Hirtius and Pansa, and
others in the following year, in the consulate of Servilius Isauricus and Lucius
Antonius.
VI. He passed his infancy and his youth amid hardship and tribulation,
since he was everywhere the companion of his parents in their flight; at Naples
indeed he all but betrayed them twice by his crying, as they were secretly on their
way to a ship just as the enemy burst into the town, being suddenly torn from his
nurse's breast and again from his mother's arms by those who tried to relieve the
poor women of their burdens because of the imminent danger. After being taken all
over Sicily also and Achaia, and consigned to the public care of the Lacedaemonians,
because they were dependents of the Claudii, he almost lost his life as he was leaving
there by night, when the woods suddenly caught fire all about them, and the flames
so encircled the whole company that part of Livia's robe and her hair were scorched.
The gifts which were given him in Sicily by Pompeia, sister of Sextus Pompeius,
a cloak and clasp, as well as studs of gold, are still kept and exhibited at Baiae.
Being adopted, after his return to the city, in the will of Marcus Gallius, a senator,
he accepted the inheritance, but soon gave up the name, because Gallius had been
a member of the party opposed to Augustus. At the age of nine he delivered a eulogy
of his dead father from the rostra. Then, just as he was arriving at puberty, he
accompanied the chariot of Augustus in his triumph after Actium [31 B.C.], riding
the left trace-horse, while Marcellus, son of Octavia, rode the one on the right.
He presided, too, at the city festival, and took part in the game of Troy during
the performances in the circus, leading the band of older boys.
VII. The principal events of his youth and later life, from
the assumption of the gown of manhood to the beginning of his reign, were these.
He gave a gladiatorial show in memory of his father, and a second in honor of his
grandfather Drusus, at different times and in different places, the former in the
Forum and the latter in the amphitheatre, inducing some retired gladiators to appear
with the rest by the payment of a hundred thousand sesterces to each. He also gave
stage-plays, but without being present in person. All these were on a grand scale,
at the expense of his mother and his stepfather.
He married Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Agrippa, and granddaughter
of Caecilius Atticus, a Roman knight, to whom Cicero's letters are addressed; but
after he had acknowledged a son from her, Drusus, although she was thoroughly congenial
and was a second time with child, he was forced to divorce her [1l B.C.] and to
contract a hurried marriage with Julia, daughter of Augustus. This caused him no
little distress of mind, for he was living happily with Agrippina, and disapproved
of Julia's character, having perceived that she had a passion for him even during
the lifetime of her former husband, as was in fact the general opinion. But even
after the divorce he regretted his separation from Agrippina, and the only time
that he chanced to see her, he followed her with such an intent and tearful gaze
that care was taken that she should never again come before his eyes. With Julia
he lived in harmony at first, and returned her love; but he soon grew cold, and
went so far as to cease to live with her at all, after the severing of the tie formed
by a child which was born to them, but died at Aquileia in infancy. He lost his
brother Drusus in Germania [9 B.C.] and conveyed his body to Rome, going before
it on foot all the way.
VIII. He began his civil career by a defence of king Archelaus,
the people of Tralles, and those of Thessaly, before the judgment seat of Augustus,
the charge in each case being different. He made a plea to the Senate in behalf
of the citizens of Laodicea, Thyatira and Chios, who had suffered loss from an earthquake
and begged for help. Fannius Caepio, who had conspired with Varro Murena against
Augustus [23 B.C.], he arraigned for high treason and secured his condemnation.
In the meantime he undertook two public charges: that of the grain supply, which,
as it happened, was deficient; and the investigation of the slave-prisons throughout
Italy, the owners of which had gained a bad reputation; for they were charged with
holding in durance not only travellers, but also those whom dread of military service
had driven to such places of concealment.
IX. His first military service was as tribune of the soldiers
in the campaign against the Cantabrians [25 B.C.]; then he led an army to the Orient
and restored the throne of Armenia to Tigranes, crowning him on the tribunal. He
besides recovered the standards which the Parthians had taken from Marcus Crassus.
Then for about a year he was governor of Gallia Comata [Transalpine Gaul], which
was in a state of unrest through the inroads of the barbarians and the dissensions
of its chiefs. Next he carried on war with the Raeti and Vindelici, then in Pannonia,
and finally in Germania. In the first of these wars he subdued the Alpine tribes,
in the second the Breuci and Dalmatians, and in the third he brought forty thousand
prisoners of war over into Gaul and assigned them homes near the bank of the Rhine.
Because of these exploits he entered the city both in an ovation [7 B.C.] and riding
in a chariot [9 B.C.], having previously, as some think, been honoured with the
triumphal regalia, a new kind of distinction never before conferred upon anyone.
He entered upon the offices of quaestor, praetor, and consul before the usual age,
and held them almostwithout an interval; then after a time he was made consul again
[6 B.C.], at the same time receiving the tribunicial power for five years.
X. At the flood-tide of success, though in the prime of life
and health, he suddenly decided to go into retirement and to withdraw as far as
possible from the centre of the stage; perhaps from disgust at his wife, whom he
dared neither accuse nor put away, though he could no longer endure her; or perhaps,
avoiding the contempt born of familiarity, to keep up his prestige by absence, or
even add to it, in case his country should ever need him. Some think that, since
the children of Augustus were now of age, he voluntarily gave up the position and
the virtual assumption of the second rank which he had long held, thus following
the example of Marcus Agrippa, who withdrew to Mytilene when Marcellus began his
public career, so that he might not seem either to oppose or belittle him by his
presence. This was, in fact, the reason which Tiberius himself gave, but afterwards.
At the time he asked for leave of absence on the ground of weariness of office and
a desire to rest; and he would not give way either to his mother's urgent entreaties
or to the complaint which his step-father openly made in the Senate, that he was
being forsaken. On the contrary, when they made more strenuous efforts to detain
him, he refused to take food for four days. Being at last allowed to depart, he
left his wife and son in Rome and went down to Ostia in haste, without saying a
single word to any of those who saw him off, and kissing only a very few when he
left.
XI. From Ostia he coasted along the shore of Campania, and
learning of an indisposition of Augustus, he stopped for a while. But since gossip
was rife that he was lingering on the chance of realizing his highest hopes, although
the wind was all but dead ahead, he sailed directly to Rhodes, for he had been attracted
by the charm and healthfulness of that island ever since the time when he put in
there on his return from Armenia. Content there with a modest house and a villa
in the suburbs not much more spacious, he adopted a most unassuming manner of life,
at times walking in the gymnasium without a lictor or a messenger, and: exchanging
courtesies with the good people of Greece with almost the air of an equal. It chanced
one morning in arranging his program for the day, that he had announced his wish
to visit whatever sick folk there were in the city. This was misunderstood by his
attendants, and orders were given that all the sick should be taken to a public
colonnade and arranged according to the nature of their complaints. Whereupon Tiberius,
shocked at this unexpected sight, and in doubt for some time what to do, at last
went about to each one, apologizing for what had happened even to the humblest and
most obscure of them. Only one single instance was noticed of a visible exercise
of the rights of the tribunicial authority. He was a constant attendant at the schools
and lecture-rooms of the professors of philosophy, and once when a hot dispute had
arisen among rival sophists, a fellow had the audacity to ply him with abuse when
he took part and appeared to favour one side. Thereupon he gradually backed away
to his house, and then suddenly coming out with his lictors and attendants, and
bidding his crier to summon the foul-mouthed fellow before his tribunal, he had
him taken off to prison. Shortly after this he learned that his wife Julia had been
banished because of her immorality and adulteries, and that a bill of divorce had
been sent her in his name by authority of Augustus; but welcome as this news was,
he yet considered it his duty to make every possible effort in numerous letters
to reconcile the father to his daughter; and regardless of her deserts, to allow
her to keep any gifts which he had himself made her at any time. Moreover, when
the term of his tribunician power was at an end, at last admitting that the sole
object of his retirement had been to avoid the suspicion of rivalry with Gaius and
Lucius, he asked that inasmuch as he was free from care in that regard, since they
were now grown up and had an undisputed claim on the succession, he be allowed to
visit his relatives, whom he sorely missed. But his request was denied and he was
besides admonished to give up all thought of his kindred, whom he had so eagerly
abandoned.
XII. Accordingly he remained in Rhodes against his will, having
with difficulty through his mother's aid secured permission that, while away from
Rome, he should have the title of legatus of Augustus, so as to conceal his
disgrace. Then in very truth he lived not only in private, but even in danger and
fear, secluded in his country away from the sea, and shunning the attentions of
those that sailed that way; these, however, were constantly thrust on him, since
no general or magistrate who was on his way to any province failed to put in at
Rhodes. He had besides reasons for still greater anxiety; for when he had crossed
to Samos to visit his stepson Gaius, who had been made governor of the Orient, he
found him somewhat estranged through the slanders of Marcus Lollius, a member of
Gaius' staff and his guardian. He also incurred the suspicion of having through
some centurions of his appointment, who were returning to camp after a furlough,
sent messages to several persons which were of an ambiguous character and apparently
designed to incite them to revolution. On being informed by Augustus of this suspicion,
he unceasingly demanded the appointment of someone, of any rank whatsoever, to keep
watch over his actions and words.
XIII. He also gave up his usual exercises with horses and arms,
and laying aside the garb of his country, took to the cloak and slippers; and in
this state he continued for upwards of two years, becoming daily an object of greater
contempt and aversion. This went so far that the citizens of Nemausus threw down
his statues and busts, and when mention was once made of him at a private dinner
party, a man got up and assured Gaius that if he would say the word, he would at
once take ship for Rhodes and bring back the head of "the exile," as he was commonly
called. It was this act especially, which made his position no longer one of mere
fear but of actual peril, that drove Tiberius to sue for his recall with most urgent
prayers, in which his mother joined; and he obtained it, although partly owing to
a fortunate chance. Augustus had resolved to come to no decision of the question
which was not agreeable to his elder son, who, as it happened, was at the time somewhat
at odds with Marcus Lollius, and accordingly ready to lend an ear to his stepfather's
prayers. With his consent therefore Tiberius was recalled, but on the understanding
that he should take no part or active interest in public affairs.
XIV. So he returned in the eighth year after his retirement
[2 A.D.], with that strong and unwavering confidence in his destiny, which he had
conceived from his early years because of omens and predictions. When Livia was
with child with him, and was trying to divine by various omens whether she would
bring forth a male, she took an egg from under a setting-hen, and when she had warmed
it in her own hand and those of her attendants in turn, a cock with a fine crest
was hatched. In his infancy the astrologer Scribonius promised him an illustrious
career and even that he would one day be king, but without the crown of royalty;
for at that time of course the rule of the Caesars was as yet unheard of. Again,
on his first campaign, when he was leading an army through Macedonia into Syria,
it chanced that at Philippi the altars consecrated in bygone days by the victorious
legions gleamed of their own accord with sudden fires. When later, on his way to
Illyricum, he visited the oracle of Geryon near Patavium, and drew a lot which advised
him to seek an answer to his inquiries by throwing golden dice into the fount of
Aponus, it came to pass that the dice which he threw showed the highest posssible
number; and those dice may be seen today under the water. A few days before his
recall an eagle, a bird never before seen in Rhodes, perched upon the roof of his
house; and the day before he was notified that he might return, his tunic seemed
to blaze as he was changing his clothes. It was just at this time that he was convinced
of the powers of the astrologer Thrasyllus, whom he had attached to his household
as a learned man; for as soon as he caught sight of the ship, Thrasyllus declared
that it brought good news---this too at the very moment when Tiberius had made up
his mind to push the man off into the sea as they were strolling together, believing
him a false prophet and too hastily made the confidant of his secrets, because things
were turning out adversely and contrary to his predictions.
XV. On his return to Rome, after introducing his son Drusus
to public life, he at once moved from the Carinae [the western end of the southern
slope of the Esquiline] and the house of the Pompeys to the gardens of Maecenas
on the Esquiline, where he led a very retired life, merely attending to his personal
affairs and exercising no public functions. When Gaius and Lucius died within three
years, he was adopted by Augustus along with their brother Marcus Agrippa, being
himself first compelled to adopt his nephew Germanicus. And from that time on he
ceased to act as the head of a family, or to retain in any particular the privileges
which he had given up. For he neither made gifts nor freed slaves, and he did not
even accept an inheritance or any legacies, except to enter them as an addition
to his personal property. From this time on nothing was left undone which could
add to his prestige, especially after the disowning and banishment of Agrippa made
it clear that the hope of the succession lay in him alone.
XVI. He was given the tribunician power for a second term of
three years, the duty of subjugating Germania was assigned him, and the envoys of
the Parthians, after presenting their instructions to Augustus in Rome, were bidden
to appear also before him in his province. But when the revolt of Illyricum was
reported, he was transferred to the charge of a new war, the most serious of all
foreign wars since those with Carthage, which he carried on for three years with
fifteen legions and a corresponding force of auxiliaries, amid great difficulties
of every kind and the utmost scarcity of supplies. But though he was often recalled,
he nonetheless kept on, for fear that the enemy, who were close at hand and very
strong, might assume the offensive if the Romans gave ground. He reaped an ample
reward for his perseverance, for he completely subdued and reduced to submission
the whole of Illyricum, which is bounded by Italy and the kingdom of Noricum, by
Thrace and Macedonia, by the Danube, and by the Adriatic sea.
XVII. Circumstances gave this exploit a larger and crowning
glory; for it was at just about that time that Quintilius Varus perished with three
legions in Germania, and no one doubted that the victorious Germans would have united
with the Pannonians, had not Illyricum been subdued first. Consequently a triumph
was voted him and many high honours. Some also recommended that he be given the
surname of Pannonicus, others of Invictus, others of Pius. Augustus however vetoed
the surname, reiterating the promise that Tiberius would be satisfied with the one
which he would receive at his father's death. Tiberius himself put off the triumph,
because the country was in mourning for the disaster to Varus; but he entered the
city clad in the purple-bordered toga and crowned with laurel, and mounting a tribunal
which had been set up in the Saepta, while the Senate stood alongside, he took his
seat beside Augustus between the two consuls. Having greeted the people from this
position, he was escorted to the various temples.
XVIII. The next year he returned to Germania, and realising
that the disaster to Varus was due to that general's rashness and lack of care,
he took no step without the approval of a council; while he had always before been
a man of independent judgment and self-reliance, then contrary to his habit he consulted
with many advisers about the conduct of the campaign. He also observed more scrupulous
care than usual. When on the point of crossing the Rhine, he reduced all the baggage
to a prescribed limit, and would not start without standing on the bank and inspecting
the loads of the wagons, to make sure that nothing was taken except what was allowed
or necessary. Once on the other side, he adopted the following manner of life: he
took his meals sitting on the bare turf, often passed the night without a tent,
and gave all his orders for the following day, as well as notice of any sudden emergency,
in writing; adding the injunction that if anyone was in doubt about any matter,
he was to consult him personally at any hour whatsoever, even of the night.
XIX. He required the strictest discipline, reviving bygone
methods of punishment and ignominy, and even degrading the commander of a legion
for sending a few soldiers across the river to accompany one of his freedmen on
a hunting expedition. Although he left very little to fortune and chance, he entered
battles with considerably greater confidence whenever it happened that, as he was
working at night, his lamp suddenly and without human agency died down and went
out; trusting, as he used to say, to an omen in which he had great confidence, since
both he and his ancestors had found it trustworthy in all of their campaigns. Yet
in the very hour of victory he narrowly escaped assassination by one of the Bructeri,
who got access to him among his attendants, but was detected through his nervousness;
whereupon a confession of his intended crime was wrung from him by torture.
XX. After two years he returned to the city from Germania [12
A.D.] and celebrated the triumph which he had postponed, accompanied also by his
generals, for whom he had obtained the triumphal regalia. And before turning to
enter the Capitol, he dismounted from his chariot and fell at the knees of his father,
who was presiding over the knees of his father, who was presiding over the ceremonies.
He sent Bato, the leader of the Pannonians, to Ravenna, after presenting him with
rich gifts; thus showing his gratitude to him for allowing him to escape when he
was trapped with his army in a dangerous place. Then he gave a banquet to the people
at a thousand tables, and a largess of three hundred sesterces to every man. With
the proceeds of his spoils he restored and dedicated the temple of Concord, as well
as that of Pollux and Castor, in his own name and that of his brother.
XXI. Since the consuls caused a law to be passed soon after
this that he should govern the provinces jointly with Augustus and hold the census
with him, he set out for Illyricum on the conclusion of the lustral ceremonies;
but he was at once recalled, and finding Augustus in his last illness but still
alive, he spent an entire day with him in private. I know that it is commonly believed,
that when Tiberius left the room after this confidential talk, Augustus was overheard
by his chamberlains to say: "Alas for the Roman people, to be ground by jaws that
crunch so slowly!" I also am aware that some have written that Augustus so openly
and unreservedly disapproved of his austere manners, that he sometimes broke off
his freer and lighter conversation when Tiberius appeared; but that overcome by
his wife's entreaties he did not reject his adoption, or perhaps was even led by
selfish considerations, that with such a successor he himself might one day be more
regretted. But after all I cannot be led to believe that an emperor of the utmost
prudence and foresight acted without consideration, especially in a matter of so
great moment. It is my opinion that after weighing the faults and the merits of
Tiberius, he decided that the latter preponderated, especially since he took oath
before the people that he was adopting Tiberius for the good of the country, and
alludes to him in several letters as a most able general and the sole defence of
the Roman people. In illustration of both these points, I append a few extracts
from these letters:
"Fare thee well, Tiberius, most charming of men, and success
go with you, as you war for me and for the Muses. Fare thee well, most charming
and valiant of men and most conscientious of generals, or may I never know happiness."
"I have only praise for the conduct of your summer campaigns,
dear Tiberius, and I am sure that no one could have acted with better judgment than
you did amid so many difficulties and such apathy of your army. All who were with
you agree that the well-known line could be applied to you: 'One man alone by his
foresight has saved our dear country from ruin.'"
"If anything comes up that calls for careful thought, or if
I am vexed at anything, I long mightily, so help me Heaven, for my dear Tiberius,
and the lines of Homer come to my mind: 'Let him but follow and we too, though flames
round about us be raging, Both may return to our homes, since great are his wisdom
and knowledge.'"
"When I hear and read that you are worn out by constant hardships,
may the Gods confound me if my own body does not wince in sympathy; and I beseech
you to spare yourself, that the news of your illness may not kill your mother and
me, and endanger the Roman people in the person of their future ruler."
"It matters not whether I am well or not, if you are not well."
"I pray the Gods to preserve you to us and to grant you good
health now and forever, if they do not utterly hate the people of Rome."
XXII. Tiberius did not make the death of Augustus public until
the young Agrippa had been disposed of. The latter was slain by a tribune of the
soldiers appointed to guard him, who received a letter in which he was bidden to
do the deed; but it is not known whether Augustus left this letter when he died,
to remove a future source of discord, or whether Livia wrote it herself in the name
of her husband; and in the latter case, whether it was with or without the connivance
of Tiberius. At all events, when the tribune reported that he had done his bidding,
Tiberius replied that he had given no such order, and that the man must render an
account to the Senate; apparently trying to avoid odium at the time, for later his
silence consigned the matter to oblivion.
XXIII. When, however, by virtue or his tribunicial power, he
had convened the Senate and had begun to address it, he suddenly groaned aloud,
as if overcome by grief, and with the wish that not only his voice, but his life
as well might leave him, handed the written speech to his son Drusus to finish.
Then bringing in the will of Augustus, he had it read by a freedman, admitting of
the signers only such as were of the senatorial order, while the others acknowledged
their seals outside the House. The will began thus: "Since a cruel fate has bereft
me of my sons Gaius and Lucius, be Tiberius Caesar heir to two-thirds of my estate."
These words in themselves added to the suspicion of those who believed that he had
named Tiberius his successor from necessity rather than from choice, since he allowed
himself to write such a preamble.
XXIV. Though Tiberius did not hesitate at once to assume and
to exercise the imperial authority, surrounding himself with a guard of soldiers,
that is, with the actual power and the outward sign of sovereignty, yet he refused
the title for a long time, with barefaced hypocrisy now upbraiding his fiiends who
urged him to accept it, saying that they did not realise what a monster the empire
was, and now by evasive answers and calculating hesitancy keeping the Senators in
suspense when they implored him to yield, and fell at his feet. Finally, some lost
patience, and one man cried out in the confusion: "Let him take it or leave it!"
Another openly voiced the taunt that others were slow in doing what they promised,
but that he was slow to promise what he was already doing. At last, as though on
compulsion, and complaining that a wretched and burdensome slavery was being forced
upon him, he accepted the empire, but in such fashion as to suggest the hope that
he would one day lav it down. His own words are: "Until I come to the time when
it may seem right to you to grant an old man some repose."
XXV. The cause of his hesitation was fear of the dangers which
threatened him on every hand, and often led him to say that he was holding a wolf
by the ears. For a slave of Agrippa, Clemens by name had collected a band of no
mean size to avenge his master; Lucius Scribonius Libo, one of the nobles was secretly
plotting a revolution; and a mutiny of the soldiers broke out in two places, Illyricum
and Germania. Both armies demanded numelous special privileges-above all, that they
should receive the same pay as the praetorians. The army in Germania was, besides,
reluctant to accept an emperor who was not its own choice, and with the greatest
urgency besought Germanicus, their commander at the time, to assume the purple,
in spite of his positive refusal. Fear of this possibility in particular led Tiberius
to ask the Senate for any part in the administration that it might please them to
assign him, saying that no one man could bear the whole burden without a colleague,
or even several colleagues. He also feigned ill-health, to induce Germanicus to
wait with more patience for a speedy succession, or at least for a share in the
sovereignty. The mutinies were put down, and he also got Clemens into his power,
outwitting him by stratagem. Not until his second year did he finally arraign Libo
in the Senate, fearing to take any severe measures before his power was secure,
and satisfied in the meantime merely to be on his guard. Thus, when Libo was offering
sacrifice with him among the pontiffs, he had a leaden knife substituted for the
usual one, and when he asked for a private interview, Tiberius would not grant it
except with his son Drusus present, and as long as the conference lasted he held
fast to Libo's right arm, under pretence of leaning on it as they walked together.
XXVI. Once relieved of fear, he at first played a most unassuming
part, almost humbler than that of a private citizen. Of many high honours he accepted
only a few of the more modest. He barely consented to allow his birthday, which
came at the time of the Plebeian games in the Circus, to be recognized by the addition
of a single two-horse chariot. He forbade the voting of temples, flamens, and priests
in his honour, and even the setting up of statues and busts without his permission;
and this he gave only with the understanding that they were not to be placed among
the likenesses of the gods, but among the adornments of the temples. He would not
allow an oath to be taken ratifying his acts nor the name "Tiberius" to be given
to the month of September, or that of Livia to October. He also declined the forename
"Imperator," the surname of "Father of his Country," and the placing of the civic
crown at his door; and he did not even use the title of "Augustus" in any letters
except those to kings and potentates, although it was his by inheritance. He held
but three consulships after becoming emperor---one for a few days [18 A.D.], a second
for three months [21 A.D.], and a third, during his absence from the city, until
the Ides of May [31 A.D.]
XXVII. He so loathed flattery that he would not allow any Senator
to approach his litter, either to pay his respects or on business, and when an ex-consul
in apologizing to him attempted to embrace his knees, he drew back in such haste
that he fell over backward. In fact, if anyone in conversation or in a set speech
spoke of him in too flattering terms, he did not hesitate to interrupt him, to take
him to task, and to correct his language on the spot. Being once called Dominus
[ "Lord"] he warned the speaker not to address him again in an insulting fashion.
When another spoke of his "sacred duties," and still another said that he appeared
before the Senate "by the emperor's authority," he forced them to change their language,
substituting "advice" for "authority" and "laborious" for "sacred."
XXVIII. More than that, he was self-contained and patient in
the face of abuse and slander, and of lampoons on himself and his family, often
asserting that in a free country there should be free speech and free thought. When
the Senate on one occasion demanded that cognizance be taken of such offences and
those guilty of them, he said: "We have not enough spare time to warrant involving
ourselves in more affairs; if you open this loophole you will find no time for any
other business; it will be an excuse for laying everybody's quarrels before you."
A most unassuming remark of his in the Senate is also a matter of record: "If so
and so criticizes me I shall take care to render an account of my acts and words;
if he persists, our enmity wil1 be mutual."
XXIX. All this was the more noteworthy, because in addressing
and in paying his respects to the Senators individually and as a body he himself
almost exceeded the requirements of courtesy. In a disagreement with Quintus Haterius
in the House, he said: "I crave your pardon, if in my capacity as Senator I use
too free language in opposing you." Then addressing the whole body: "I say now and
have often said before, Fathers of the Senate, that a well-disposed and helpful
prince, to whom you have given such great and unrestrained power, ought to be the
servant of the Senate, often of the citizens as a whole, and sometimes even of individuals.
I do not regret my words, but I have looked upon you as kind, just, and indulgent
masters, and still so regard you."
XXX. He even introduced a semblance of free government by maintaining
the ancient dignity and powers of the Senate and the magistrates; for there was
no matter of public or private business so small or so great that he did not lay
it before the Senators, consulting them about revenues and monopolies, constructing
and restoring public buildings, and even about levying and disbanding the soldiers,
and the disposal of the legionaries and auxiliaries; finally about the extension
of military commands and appointments to the conduct of wars, and the form and content
of his replies to the letters of kings. He forced the commander of a troop of horse,
when charged with violence and robbery, to plead his cause before the Senate. He
always entered the House alone; and when he was brought in once in a litter because
of illness, he dismissed his attendants.
XXXI. When certain decrees were passed contrary to his expressed
opinion, he did not even remonstrate. Although he declared that those who were elected
to office ought to remain in the city and give personal attention to their duties,
a praetor elect obtained permission to travel abroad with the privileges of an ambassador.
On another occasion when he recommended that the people of Trebia be allowed to
use, in making a road, a sum of money which had been left them for the construction
of a new theatre, he could not prevent the wish of the testator from being carried
out. When it happened that the Senate passed a decree by division and he went over
to the side of the minority, not a man followed him. Other business as well was
done solely through the magistrates and the ordinary process of law, while the importance
of the consuls was such that certain envoys from Africa presented themselves before
them with the complaint that their time was being wasted by Caesar, to whom they
had been sent. And this was not surprising, for it was plain to all that he himself
actually arose in the presence of the consuls, and made way for them on the street.
XXXII. He rebuked some ex-consuls in command of armies, because
they did not write their reports to the Senate, and for referring to him the award
of some military prizes, as if they had not themselves the right to bestow everything
of the kind. He highly complimented a praetor, because on entering upon his office
he had revived the custom of eulogizing his ancestors before the people. He attended
the obsequies of certain distinguished men, even going to the funeral-pyre. He showed
equal modesty towards persons of lower rank and in matters of less moment. When
he had summoned the magistrates of Rhodes, because they had written him letters
on public business without the concluding formula, he uttered not a word of censure,
but merely dismissed them with orders to supply the omission. The grammarian Diogenes,
who used to lecture every Saturday at Rhodes, would not admit Tiberius when he came
to hear him on a different day, but sent a message by a common slave of his, putting
him off to the seventh day. When this man waited before the Emperor's door at Rome
to pay his respects, Tiberius took no further revenge than to bid him return seven
years later. To the governors who recommended burdensome taxes for his provinces,
he wrote in answer that it was the part of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not
skin it.
XXXIII. Little by little he unmasked the ruler, and although
for some time his conduct was variable, yet he more often showed himself kindly
and devoted to the public weal. His intervention too was at first limited to the
prevention of abuses. Thus he revoked some regulations of the Senate and sometimes
offered the magistrates his services as adviser, when they sat in judgment on the
tribunal, taking his place beside them or opposite them at one end of the platform;
and if it was rumoured that any of the accused were being acquitted through influence,
he would suddenly appear, and either from the floor or from the judge's a tribunal
remind the jurors of the laws and of their oath, as well as of the nature of the
crime on which they were sitting in judgment. Moreover, if the public morals were
in any way affected by laziness or bad habits he undertook to reform them.
XXXIV. He reduced the cost of the games and shows by cutting
down the pay of the actors and limiting the pairs of gladiators to a fixed number.
Complaining bitterly that the prices of Corinthian bronzes had risen to an immense
figure and that three mullets had been sold for thirty thousand sesterces, he proposed
that a limit be set to household furniture and that the prices in the market should
be regulated each year at the discretion of the Senate, while the aediles were instructed
to put such restrictions on cook-shops and eating-houses as not to allow even pastry
to be exposed for sale. Furthermore, to encourage general frugality by his personal
example, he often served at formal dinners meats left over from the day before and
partly consumed, or the half of a boar, declaring that it had all the qualities
of a whole one. He issued an edict forbidding general kissing, as well as the exchange
of New Year's gifts after the Kalends of January. It was his custom to return a
gift of four-fold value, and in person; but annoyed at being interrupted all through
the month by those who did not have access to him on the holiday, he did not continue
it.
XXXV. He revived the custom of our forefathers, that in the
absence of a public prosecutor matrons of ill-repute be punished according to the
decision of a council of their relatives. He absolved a Roman knight from his oath
and allowed him to put away his wife, who was taken in adultery with her son-in-law,
even though he had previously sworn that he would never divorce her. Notorious women
had begun to make an open profession of prostitution, to avoid the punishment of
the laws by giving up the privileges and rank of matrons, while the most profligate
young men of both orders voluntarily incurred degradation from their rank, so as
not to be prevented by the decree of the Senate from appearing on the stage and
in the arena. All such men and women he punished with exile, to prevent anyone from
shielding himself by such a device. He deprived a Senator of his broad stripe on
learning that he had moved to his gardens just before the Kalends of July [the first
of July was the date for renting and hiring houses and rooms--hence "moving day"],
with the design of renting a house in the city at a lower figure after that date.
He deposed another from his quaestorship, because he had taken a wife the day before
casting lots [to determine his province or sphere of duty] and divorced her the
day after.
XXXVI. He abolished foreign cults, especially the Egyptian
and the Jewish rites, compelling all who were addicted to such superstitions to
burn their religious vestments and all their paraphernalia. Those of the Jews who
were of military age he assigned to provinees of less healthy climate, ostensibly
to serve in the army; the others of that same race or of similar beliefs he banished
from the city, on pain of slavery for life if they did not obey. He banished the
astrologers as well, but pardoned such as begged for indulgence and promised to
give up their art.
XXXVII. He gave special attention to securing safety from prowling
brigands and lawless outbreaks, He stationed garrisons of soldiers nearer together
than before throughout Italy, while at Rome he established a camp for the barracks
of the praetorian cohorts, which before that time had been quartered in isolated
groups in divers lodging houses. He took great pains to prevent outbreaks of the
populace and punished such as occurred with the utmost severity. When a quarrel
in the theatre ended in bloodshed, he banished the leaders of the factions, as well
as the actors who were the cause of the dissension; and no entreaties of the people
could ever induce him to recall them. When the populace of Pollentia would not allow
the body of a chief centurion to be taken from the forum until their violence had
extorted money from his heirs for a gladiatorial show, he dispatched one cohort
from the city and another from the kingdom of Cottius, concealing the reason for
the move, sent them into the city by different gates, suddenly revealing their arms
and sounding their trumpets, and consigned the greater part of the populace and
of the decurions to life imprisonment. He abolished the customary right of asylum
in all parts of the empire. Because the people of Cyzicus ventured to commit acts
of special lawlessness against Roman citizens, he took from them the freedom which
they had earned in the war with Mithridates. He undertook no campaign after his
accession, but quelled outbreaks of the enemy through his generals; and even this
he did only reluctantly and of necessity. Such kings as were disaffected and objects
of his suspicion he held in check rather by threats and remonstrances than by force;
some he lured to Rome by flattering promises and detained there, such as Marobodus
the German, Rhascuporis the Thracian, and Archelaus of Cappadocia, whose realm he
also reduced to the form of a province.
XXXVIII. For two whole years after becoming emperor he did
not set foot outside the gates; after that he went nowhere except to the neighbouring
towns, at farthest to Antium, and even that very seldom and for a few days at a
time. Yet he often gave out that he would revisit the provinces too and the armies,
and nearly every year he made preparations for a journey by chartering carriages
and arranging for supplies in the free towns and colonies. Finally he allowed vows
to be put up for his voyage and return, so that at last everybody jokingly gave
him the name of Callippides, who was proverbial among the Greeks for running without
getting ahead a cubits length.
XXXIX. But after being bereft of both his sons---Germanicus
had died in Syria and Drusus at Rome----he retired to Campania, and almost everyone
firmly believed and openly declared that he would never come back, but would soon
die there. And both predictions were all but fulfilled; for he did not return again
to Rome, and it chanced a few days later that as he was dining near Tarracina in
a villa called the Grotto, many huge rocks fell from the ceiling and crushed a number
of the guests and servants, while the emperor himself had a narrow escape.
XL. After traversing Campania and dedicating the Capitolium
at Capua and a temple to Augustus at Nola, which was the pretext he had given for
his journey, he went to Capreae, particularly attracted to that island because it
was accessible by only one small beach, being everywhere else girt with sheer cliffs
of great height and by deep water. But he was at once recalled by the constant entreaties
of the people, because of a disaster at Fidenae, where more than twenty thousand
spectators had perished through the collapse of the amphitheatre during a gladiatorial
show. So he crossed to the mainland and made himself accessible to all, the more
willingly because he had given orders on leaving the city that no one was to disturb
him, and during the whole trip had repulsed those who tried to approach him.
XLI. Then returning to the island, he utterly neglected the
conduct of state affairs, from that time on never filling the vacancies in the decuries
of the knights, nor changing the tribunes of the soldiers and prefects or the governors
of any of his provinces He left Spain and Syria without consular governors for several
years, suffered Armenia to be overrun by the Parthians, Moesia to be laid waste
by the Dacians and Sarmatians, and the Gallic provinces by the Germans, to the great
dishonour of the empire and no less to its danger.
XLII. Moreover, having gained the licence of privacy, and being
as it were out of sight of the citizens, he at last gave free rein at once to all
the vices which he had for a long time ill concealed; and of these I shall give
a detailed account from the beginning. Even at the outset of his military career
his excessive love of wine gave him the name of Biberius, instead of Tiberius, Caldius
for Claudius, and Mero for Nero. Later, when emperor and at the very time that he
was busy correcting the public morals, he spent a night and two whole days feasting
and drinking with Pomponius Flaccus and Lucius Piso, immediately afterward making
the one governor of the province of Syria and the other prefect of the city, and
even declaring in their commissions that they were the most agreeable of friends,
who could always be counted on. He had a dinner given him by Cestius Gallus, a lustful
and prodigal old man, who had once been degraded by Augustus and whom he had himself
rebuked a few days before in the Senate, making the condition that Cestius should
change or omit none of his usual customs, and that nude girls should wait upon them
at table. He gave a very obscure candidate for the quaestorship preference over
men of the noblest families, because at the emperor's challenge he had drained an
amphora of wine at a banquet. He paid Asellius Sabinus two hundred thousand sesterces
for a dialogue, in which he had introduced a contest of a mushroom, a fig-pecker,
an oyster and a thrush. Finally he established a new office, master of the imperial
pleasures, assigning it to Titus Caesonius Priscus, a Roman knight.
XLIII. Secessu vero Caprensi etiam sellaria excogitavit, sedem
arcanarum libidinum, in quam undique conquisiti puellarum et exoletorum greges monstrosique
concubitus repertores, quos spintrias appellabat, triplici serie conexi, in vicem
incestarent coram ipso, ut aspectu deficientis libidines excitaret. Cubicula plurifariam
disposita tabellis ac sigillis lascivissimarum picturarum et figurarum adornavit
librisque Elephantidis instruxit, ne cui in opera edenda exemplar imperatae schemae
deesset. In silvis quoque ac nemoribus passim Venerios locos commentus est prostantisque
per antra et cavas rupes ex utriusque sexus pube Paniscorum et Nympharum habitu,
quae palam iam et vulgo nomine insulae abutentes "Caprineum" dictitabant.
[XLIII and XLIV are examples of Prudishness in the Loeb translations,
which refused to translate the "dirty" bits. Here is a synopsis, after Robert
Graves' translation]: After retiring to Capri, where he had a private pleasure palace
built, many young men and women trained in sexual practices were brought there for
his pleasure, and would have sex in groups in front of him. Some rooms were furnished
with pornography and sex manuals from Egypt - which let the people there know what
was expected of them. Tiberius also created lechery nooks in the woods and had girls
and boys dressed as nymphs and Pans prostitute themselves in the open. The place
was known popularly as "goat-pri".]
XLIV. Maiore adhuc ac turpiore infamia flagravit, vix ut referri
audirive, nedum credi fas sit, quasi pueros primae teneritudinis, quos pisciculos
vocabat, institueret, ut natanti sibi inter femina versarentur ac luderent lingua
morsuque sensim adpetentes; atque etiam quasi infantes firmiores, necdum tamen lacte
depulsos, inguini ceu papillae admoveret, pronior sane ad id genus libidinis et
natura et aetate. Quare Parrasi quoque tabulam, in qua Meleagro Atalanta ore morigeratur,
legatam sibi sub condicione, ut si argumento offenderetur decies pro ea sestertium
acciperet, non modo praetulit, sed et in cubiculo dedicavit. Fertur etiam in sacrificando
quondam captus facie ministri acerram praeferentis nequisse abstinere, quin paene
vixdum re divina peracta ibidem statim seductum constupraret simulque fratrem eius
tibicinem; atque utrique mox,quod mutuo flagitium exprobrarant, crura fregisse.
[Synopsis, after Robert Graves' translation]: Some of the things
he did are hard to believe. He had little boys trained as minnows to chase him when
he went swimming and to get between his legs and nibble him. He also had babies
not weaned from their mother breast suck at his chest and groin. There was a painting
left to him, with the provision that if he did not like it he could have 10,000
gold pieces, and Tiberius kept the picture. It showed Atalanta sucking off Meleager.
One in a frenzy, while sacrificing he was attracted to the acolyte and could not
wait to hurry the acolyte and his brother out of the temple and assault them. When
they protested, he had their legs broken.
XLV. How grossly he was in the habit of abusing women even
of high birth is very clearly shown by the death of a certain Mallonia. When she
was brought to his bed and refused most vigorously to submit to his lust, he turned
her over to the informers, and even when she was on trial he did not cease to call
out and ask her "whether she was sorry"; so that finally she left the court and
went home, where she stabbed herself, openly upbraiding the ugly old man for his
obscenity. Hence a stigma put upon him at the next plays in an Atellan farce was
received with great applause and became current, that "the old goat was licking
the does."
XLVI. In money matters he was frugal and close, never allowing
the companions of his foreign tours and campaigns a salary, but merely their keep.
Only once did he treat them liberally, and then through the generosity of his stepfather,
when he formed three classes according to each man's rank and gave to the first
six hundred thousand sesterces, to the second four hundred thousand, and to the
third, which he called one, not of his friends, but of his Greeks, two hundred thousand.
XLVII. While emperor he constructed no magnificent public works,
for the only ones which he undertook, the temple of Augustus and the restoration
of Pompey's theatre, he left unfinished after so many years. He gave no public shows
at all, and very seldom attended those given by others, for fear that some request
would be made of him, especially after he was forced to buy the freedom of a comic
actor named Actius. Having relieved the neediness of a few senators, he avoided
the necessity of further aid by declaring that he would help no others unless they
proved to the Senate that there were legitimate causes for their condition. Therefore
diffidence and a sense of shame kept many from applying, among them Hortalus, grandson
of Quintus Hortensius the orator, who though of very limited means had begotten
four children with the encouragement of Augustus.
XLVIII. He showed generosity to the public in but two instances,
once when he offered to lend a hundred million sesterces without interest for a
period of three years, and again when he made good the losses of some owners of
blocks of houses on the Caelian Mount, which had burned down. The former was forced
upon him by the clamour of the people for help in a time of great financial stress,
after he had failed to relieve the situation by a decree of the Senate, providing
that the moneylenders should invest two-thirds of their property in land, and that
the debtors should at once pay the same proportion of their indebtedness; and the
latter also was to relieve a condition of great hardship. Yet he made so much of
his liberality in the latter case, that he had the name of the Caelian changed to
the Augustan Mount. After he had doubled the legacies provided for in the will of
Augustus, he never gave largess to the soldiers, with the exception of a thousand
denarii to each of the praetorians, for not taking sides with Sejanus, and some
presents to the legions in Syria, because they alone had consecrated no image of
Sejanus among their standards. He also very rarely allowed veteran soldiers their
discharge, having an eye to their death from years, and a saving of money through
their death. He did not relieve the provinces either by any act of liberality, except
Asia, when some cities were destroyed by an earthquake.
XLIX. Presently, as time went on, he even resorted to plunder.
All the world knows that he drove Gnaeus Lentulus Augur, a man of great wealth,
to take his own life through fear and mental anxiety, and to make the emperor his
sole heir; that Lepida, too, a woman of very high birth, was condemned to banishment
to gratity Quirinius, an opulent and childless ex-consul, who had divorced her,
and twenty years later accused her of having attempted to poison him many years
before; that besides this the leading men of the Spanish and Gallic provinces, as
well as of Syria and Greece, had their property confiscated on trivial and shameless
charges, some being accused of nothing more serious than having a part of their
property in ready money ; that many states and individuals were deprived of immunities
of long standing, and of the right of working mines and collecting revenues; that
Vonones, king of the Parthians, who on being dethroned by his subjects had taken
refuge at Antioch with a vast treasure, in the belief that he was putting himself
under the protection of the Roman people, was treacherously despoiled and put to
death.
L. He first showed his hatred of his kindred in the case of
his brother Drusus, producing a letter of his, in which Drusus discussed with him
the question of compelling Augustus to restore the Republic; and then he turned
against the rest. So far from showing any courtesy or kindness to his wife Julia,
after her banishment, which is the least that one might expect, although her father's
order had merely confined her to one town, he would not allow her even to leave
her house or enjoy the society of mankind. Nay more, he even deprived her of the
allowance granted her by her father and of her yearly income, under colour of observance
of the common law, since Augustus had made no provision for these in his will. Vexed
at his mother Livia, alleging that she claimed an equal share in the rule, he shunned
frequent meetings with her and long and confidential conversations, to avoid the
appearance of being guided by her advice; though in point of fact he was wont every
now and then to need and to follow it. He was greatly offended too by a decree of
the Senate, providing that "son of Livia," as well as "son of Augustus" should be
written in his honorary inscriptions. For this reason he would not suffer her to
be named "Parent of her Country," nor to receive any conspicuous public honour.
More than that, he often warned her not to meddle with affairs of importance and
unbecoming a woman, especially after he learned that at a fire near the temple of
Vesta she had been present in person, and urged the people and soldiers to greater
efforts, as had been her way while her husband was alive.
LI. Afterwards he reached the point of open enmity, and the
reason, they say, was this. On her urging him again and again to appoint among the
jurors a man who had been made a citizen, he declared that he would do it only on
condition that she would allow an entry to be made in the official list that it
was forced upon him by his mother. Then Livia, in a rage, drew from a secret place
and read some old letters written to her by Augustus with regard to the austerity
and stubbornness of Tiberius' disposition. He in turn was so put out that these
had been preserved so long and were thrown up at him in such a spiteful spirit,
that some think that this was the very strongest of the reasons for his retirement.
At all events, during all the three years that she lived after he left Rome he saw
her but once, and then only one day, for a very few hours; and when shortly after
that she fell ill, he took no trouble to visit her. When she died, and after a delay
of several days, during which he held out hope of his coming, had at last been buried
because the condition of the corpse made it necessary, he forbade her deification,
alleging that he was acting according to her own instructions. He further disregarded
the provisions of her will, and within a short time caused the downfall of all her
friends and intimates, even of those to whom she had on her deathbed entrusted the
care of her obsequies, actually condemning one of them, and that a man of equestrian
rank, to the treadmill.
LII. He had a father's affection neither for his own son Drusus
nor his adopted son Germanicus, being exasperated at the former's vices; and, in
fact, Drusus led a somewhat loose and dissolute life. Therefore, even when he died,
Tiberius was not greatly affected, but almost immediately after the funeral returned
to his usual routine, forbidding a longer period of mourning. Nay, more, when a
deputation from Ilium offered him somewhat belated condolences, he replied with
a smile, as if the memory of his bereavement had faded from his mind, that they,
too, had his sympathy for the loss of their eminent fellow-citizen Hector. As to
Germanicus, he was so far from appreciating him, that he made light of his illustrious
deeds as unimportant, and railed at his brilliant victories as ruinous to his country.
He even made complaint in the Senate when Germanicus, on the occasion of a sudden
and terrible famine, went to Alexandria without consulting him. It is even believed
that he caused his death at the hands of Gnaeus Piso, governor of Syria, and some
think that when Piso was tried on that charge, he would have produced his instructions,
had not Tiberius caused them to be taken from him when Piso privately showed them,
and the man himself to be put to death. Because of this the words, "Give us back
Germanicus," were posted in many places, and shouted at night all over the city.
And Tiberius afterwards strengthened this suspicion by cruelly abusing the wife
and children of Germanicus as well.
LIII. When his daughter-in-law Agrippina was somewhat outspoken
in her complaints after her husband's death, he took her by the hand and quoted
a Greek verse, meaning "Do you think a wrong is done you, dear daughter, if you
are not empress?" After that he never deigned to hold any conversation with her.
Indeed, after she showed fear of tasting an apple which he handed her at dinner,
he even ceased to invite her to his table, alleging that he had been charged with
an attempt to poison her; but as a matter of fact, the whole affair had been prearranged,
that he should offer her the fruit to test her, and that she should refuse it as
containing certain death. At last, falsely charging her with a desire to take refuge,
now at the statue of Augustus and now with the armies, he exiled her to Pandataria,
and when she loaded him with reproaches, he had her beaten by a centurion until
one of her eyes was destroyed. Again, when she resolved to die of starvation, he
had her mouth pried open and food crammed into it. Worst of all, when she persisted
in her resolution and so perished, he assailed her memory with the basest slanders,
persuading the Senate to add her birthday to the days of ill omen, and actually
taking credit to himself for not having had her strangled and her body cast out
on the Stairs of Mourning. He even allowed a decree to be passed in recognition
of this remarkable clemency, in which thanks were offered him and a golden gift
was consecrated to Jupiter of the Capitol.
LIV. By Germanicus he had three grandsons: Nero, Drusus, and
Gaius, and by Drusus one, called Tiberius. Bereft of his own children, he recommended
Nero and Drusus, the elder sons of Germanicus, to the Senate, and celebrated the
day when each of them came to his majority by giving largess to the commons. But
as soon as he learned that at the beginning of the year vows were being put up for
their safety also, he referred the matter to the Senate, saying that such honours
ought to be conferred only on those of tried character and mature years. By revealing
his true teelings towards them from that time on, he exposed them to accusations
from all quarters, and after resorting to various tricks to rouse them to rail at
him, and seeing to it that they were betrayed when they did so, he brought most
bitter charges against them both in writing; and when they had in consequence been
pronounced public enemies, he starved them to death, Nero on the island of Pontia
and Drusus in a lower room of the Palace. It is thought that Nero was forced to
take his own life, since an executioner, who pretended that he came by authority
of the Senate, showed him the noose and hooks, but that Drusus was so tortured by
hunger that he tried to eat the stuffing of his mattress; while the remains of both
were so scattered that it was with difficulty that they could ever be collected.
LV. In addition to his old friends and intimates, he had asked
for twenty of the leading men of the State as advisers on public affairs. Of all
these he spared hardly two or three; the others he destroyed on one pretext or another,
including Aelius Sejanus, whose downfall involved the death of many others. This
man he had advanced to the highest power, not so much from regard for him, as that
he might through his services and wiles destroy the children of Germanicus and secure
the succession for his own grandson, the child of his son Drusus.
LVI. He was not a whit milder towards his Greek companions,
in whose society he took special pleasure. When one Xeno was holding forth in somewhat
farfetched phrases, he asked him what dialect that was which was so affected, and
on Xeno's replying that it was Doric, he banished him to Cinaria, believing that
he was being taunted with his old-time exile, inasmuch as the Rhodians spoke Doric.
He had the habit, too, of putting questions at dinner suggested by his daily reading,
and learning that the grammarian Seleucus inquired of the imperial attendants what
authors Tiberius was reading and so came primed, he at first banished the offender
from his society, and later even forced him to commit suicide.
LVII. His cruel and cold-blooded character was not completely
hidden even in his boyhood. His teacher of rhetoric, Theodorus of Gadara, seems
first to have had the insight to detect it, and to have characterized it very aptly,
since in taking him to task he would now and then call him "mud kneaded with blood."
But it grew still more noticeable after he became emperor, even at the beginning,
when he was still courting popularity by a show of moderation. When a funeral was
passing by and a jester called aloud to the corpse to let Augustus know that the
legacies which he had left to the people were not yet being paid, Tiberius had the
man haled before him, ordered that he be given his due and put to death, and bade
him go tell the truth to his father. Shortly afterwards, when a Roman knight called
Pompeius stoutly opposed some action in the Senate, Tiberius threatened him with
imprisonment, declaring that from a Pompeius he would make of him a Pompeian, punning
cruelly on the man's name and the fate of the old party
LVIII. It was at about this time that a praetor asked him whether
he should have the courts convened to consider cases of lese-majesty; to which he
replied that the laws must be enforced, and he did enforce them most rigorously.
One man had removed the head from a statue of Augustus, to substitute that of another;
the case was tried in the Senate, and since the evidence was conflicting, the witnesses
were examined by torture. After the defendant had been condemned, this kind of accusation
gradually went so far that even such acts as these were regarded as capital crimes:
to beat a slave near a statue of Augustus, or to change one's clothes there; to
carry a ring or coin stamped with his image into a privy or a brothel, or to criticize
any word or act of his. Finally, a man was put to death merely for allowing an honour
to be voted him in his native town on the same day that honours had previously been
voted to Augustus.
LIX. He did so many other cruel and savage deeds under the
guise of strictness and improvement of the public morals, but in reality rather
to gratify his natural instincts, that some resorted to verses to express their
detestation of the present ills and a warning against those to come:
"Cruel and merciless man, shall I briefly say all I would utter?
Hang me if even your dam for you affection can feel."
"You are no knight. Why so? The hundred thousands are lacking;
If you ask the whole tale, you were an exile at Rhodes."
"You, O Caesar, have altered the golden ages of Saturn; For
while you are alive, iron they ever will be."
"Nothing for wine cares this fellow, since now 'tis for blood
he is thirsting; This he as greedily quaffs as before wine without water."
"Look, son of Rome, upon Sulla, for himself not for you blest
and happy, Marius too, if you will, but after capturing Rome; Hands of an Antonius
see, rousing the strife of the people, Hands stained with blood not once, dripping
again and again; Then say: Rome is no more! He ever has reigned with great bloodshed
Whoso made himself king, coming from banishment home."
These at first he wished to be taken as the work of those who
were impatient of his reforms, voicing not so much their real feelings as their
anger and vexation; and he used to say from time to time: "Let them hate me, provided
they respect my conduct." Later he himself proved them only too true and unerring.
LX. A few days after he reached Capreae and was by himself,
a fisherman appeared unexpectedly and offered him a huge mullet; whereupon in his
alarm that the man had clambered up to him from the back of the island over rough
and pathless rocks, he had the poor fellow's face scrubbed with the fish. And because
in the midst of his torture the man thanked his stars that he had not given the
emperor an enormous crab that he had caught, Tiberius had his face torn with the
crab also. He punished a soldier of the praetorian guard with death for having stolen
a peacock from his preserves. When the litter in which he was making a trip was
stopped by brambles, he had the man who went ahead to clear the way, a centurion
of the first cohorts, stretched out on the ground and flogged half to death.
LXI. Presently he broke out into every form of cruelty, for
which he never lacked occasion, venting it on the friends and even the acquaintances,
first of his mother, then of his grandsons and daughter-in-law, and finally of Sejanus.
After the death of Sejanus he was more cruel than ever, which showed that his favourite
was not wont to egg him on, but on the contrary gave him the opportunities which
he himself desired. Yet in a brief and sketchy autobiography which he composed he
had the assurance to write that he had punished Sejanus because he found him venting
his hatred on the children of his son Germanicus. Whereas in fact he had himself
put one of them to death after he had begun to suspect Sejanus and the other after
the latter's downfall. It is a long story to run through his acts of cruelty in
detail; it will be enough to mention the forms which they took, as samples of his
barbarity. Not a day passed without an execution, not even those that were sacred
and holy; for he put some to death even on New Year's day. Many were accused and
condemned with their children and even by their children. The relatives of the victims
were forbidden to mourn for them. Special rewards were voted the accusers and sometimes
even the witnesses. The word of no informer was doubted. Every crime was treated
as capital, even the utterance of a few simple words. A poet was charged with having
slandered Agamemnon in a tragedy, and a writer of history of having called Brutus
and Cassius the last of the Romans. The writers were at once put to death and their
works destroyed, although they had been read with approval in public some years
before in the presence of Augustus himself. Some of those who were consigned to
prison were denied not only the consolation of reading, but even the privilege of
conversing and talking together. Of those who were cited to plead their causes some
opened their veins at home, feeling sure of being condemned and wishing to avoid
annoyance and humiliation, while others drank poison in full view of the Senate;
yet the wounds of the former were bandaged and they were hurried half-dead, but
still quivering, to the prison. Every one of those who were executed was thrown
out upon the Stairs of Mourning and dragged to the Tiber with hooks, as many as
twenty being so treated in a single day, including women and children. Since ancient
usage made it impious to strangle maidens, young girls were first violated by the
executioner and then strangled. Those who wished to die were forced to live; for
he thought death so light a punishment that when he heard that one of the accused,
Carnulus by name, had anticipated his execution, he cried: "Carnulus has given me
the slip"; and when he was inspecting the prisons and a man begged for a speedy
death, he replied: "I have not yet become your friend." An ex-consul has recorded
in his Annals that once at a large dinner-party, at which the writer himself was
present, Tiberius was suddenly asked in a loud voice by one of the dwarfs that stood
beside the table among the jesters why Paconius, who was charged with treason, remained
so long alive; that the emperor at the time chided him for his saucy tongue, but
a few days later wrote to the Senate to decide as soon as possible about the execution
of Paconius.
LXII. He increased his cruelty and carried it to greater lengths,
exasperated by what he learned about the death of his son Drusus. At first supposing
that he had died of disease, due to his bad habits, on finally learning that he
had been poisoned by the treachery of his wife Livilla and Sejanus, there was no
one whom Tiberius spared from torment and death. Indeed, he gave himself up so utterly
for whole days to this investigation and was so wrapped up in it, that when he was
told of the arrival of a host of his from Rhodes,whom he had invited to Rome in
a friendly letter, he had him put to the torture at once, supposing that someone
had come whose testimony was important for the case. On discovering his mistake,
he even had the man put to death, to keep him from giving publicity to the wrong
done him. At Capreae they still point out the scene of his executions, from which
he used to order that those who had been condemned after long and exquisite tortures
be cast headlong into the sea before his eyes, while a band of marines waited below
for the bodies and broke their bones with boathooks and oars, to prevent any breath
of life from remaining in them. Among various forms of torture he had devised this
one: he would trick men into loading themselves with copious draughts of wine, and
then on a sudden tying up their private parts, would torment them at the same time
by the torture of the cords and of the stoppage of their water. And had not death
prevented him, and Thrasyllus, purposely it is said, induced him to put off some
things through hope of a longer life, it is believed that still more would have
perished, and that he would not even have spared the rest of his grandsons; for
he had his suspicions of Gaius and detested Tiberius as the fruit of adultery. And
this is highly probable, for he used at times to call Priam happy, because he had
outlived all his kindred.
LXIII. Many things go to show, not only how hated and execrable
he was all this time, but also that he lived a life of extreme fear and was even
exposed to insult. He forbade anyone to consult soothsayers secretly and without
witnesses. Indeed, he even attempted to do away with the oracles near the city,
but forbore through terror at the divine power of the Praenestine lots; for though
he had them sealed up in a chest and brought to Rome, he could not find them until
the box was taken back to the temple. He had assigned provinces to one or two ex-consuls,
of whom he did not dare to lose sight, but he detained them at Rome and finally
appointed their successors several years later without their having left the city.
In the meantime they retained their titles, and he even continued to assign them
numerous commissions, to execute through their deputies and assistants.
LXIV. After the exile of his daughter-in-law and grandchildren
he never moved them anywhere except in fetters and in a tightly closed litter, while
a guard of soldiers kept any who met them on the road from looking at them or even
from stopping as they went by.
LXV. When Sejanus was plotting revolution, although he saw
the man's birthday publicly celebrated and his golden statues honoured everywhere,
yet it was with difficulty that he at last overthrew him, rather by craft and deceit
than by his imperial authority. First of all, to remove him from his person under
colour of showing him honour, he chose him as his colleague in a fifth consulship
[31 A.D.], which, with this very end in view, he assumed after a long interval while
absent from the city. Then beguiling him with hope of marriage into the imperial
family and of the tribunicial power, he accused him when he least expected it in
a shameful and pitiable speech, begging the senators among other things to send
one of the consuls to bring him, a lonely old man, into their presence under military
protection. Even then distrustful and fearful of an outbreak, he had given orders
that his grandson Drusus, whom he still kept imprisoned in Rome, should be set free,
if occasion demanded, and made commanderin-chief. He even got ships ready and thought
of flight to some of the legions, constantly watching from a high cliff for the
signals which he had ordered to be raised afar off as each step was taken, for fear
the messengers should be delayed. But even when the conspiracy of Sejanus was crushed,
he was no whit more confident or courageous, but for the next nine months he did
not leave the villa which is called Io's.
LXVI. His anxiety of mind became torture because of reproaches
of all kinds from every quarter, since every single one of those who were condemned
to death heaped all kinds of abuse upon him, either to his face or by billets placed
in the orchestra. By these, however, he was most diversely affected, now through
a sense of shame desiring that they all be concealed and kept secret, sometimes
scorning them and producing them of his own accord and giving them publicity. Why,
he was even attacked by Artabanus, king of the Parthians, who charged him in a letter
with the murder of his kindred, with other bloody deeds, and with shameless and
dissolute living, counselling him to gratify the intense and just hatred of the
citizens as soon as possible by a voluntary death.
LXVII. At last in utter self-disgust he all but admitted the
extremity of his wretchedness in a letter [33 A.D.] beginning as follows: "If I
know what to write to you, Fathers of the Senate, or how to write it, or what to
leave unwritten at present, may all gods and goddesses visit me with more utter
destruction than I feel that I am daily suffering." Some think that through his
knowledge of the future he foresaw this situation, and knew long beforehand what
detestation and ill-repute one day awaited him; and that therefore when he became
emperor, he positively refused the title of "Father of his Country" and to allow
the Senate to take oath to support his acts, for fear that he might presently be
found undeserving of such honours and thus be the more shamed. In fact, this may
be gathered from the speech which he made regarding these two matters; for example,
when he says; "I shall always be consistent and never change my ways so long as
I am in my senses; but for the sake of precedent the Senate should beware of binding
itself to support the acts of any man, since he might through some mischance suffer
a change." Again: "If you ever come to feel any doubt," he says, "of my character
or of my heartfelt devotion to you (and before that happens, I pray that my last
day may save me from this altered opinion of me), the title of "Father of my Country"
will give me no additional honour, but will be a reproach to you, either for your
hasty action in conferring the appellation upon me, or for your inconsistency in
changing your estimate of my character."
LXVIII. He was large and strong of frame, and of a stature
above the average; broad of shoulders and chest; well proportioned and symmetrical
from head to foot. His left hand was the more nimble and stronger, and its joints
were so powerful that he could bore through a fresh, sound apple with his finger,
and break the head of a boy, or even a young man, with a fillip. He was of fair
complexion and wore his hair rather long at the back, so much so as even to cover
the nape of his neck; which was apparently a family trait. His face was handsome,
but would break out on a sudden with many pimples. His eyes were unusually large
and, strange to say, had the power of seeing even at night and in the dark, but
only for a short time when first opened after sleep; presently they grew dim-sighted
again. He strode along with his neck stiff and bent forward, usually with a stern
countenance and for the most part in silence, never or very rarely conversing with
his companions, and then speaking with great deliberation and with a kind of supple
movement of his fingers. All of these mannerisms of his, which were disagreeable
and signs of arrogance, were remarked by Augustus, who often tried to excuse them
to the Senate and people by declaring that they were natural failings, and not intentional.
He enjoyed excellent health, which was all but perfect during nearly the whole of
his reign, although from the thirtieth year of his age he took care of it according
to his own ideas, without the aid or advice of physicians.
LXIX. Although somewhat neglectful of the gods and of religious
matters, being addicted to astrology and firmly convinced that everything was in
the hands of fate; he was nevertheless immoderately afraid of thunder. Whenever
the sky was lowering, he always wore a laurel wreath, because it is said that that
kind of leaf is not blasted by lighting.
LXX. He was greatly devoted to liberal studies in both languages.
In his Latin oratory he followed Messala Corvinus, to whom he had given attention
in his youth, when Messala was an old man. But he so obscured his style by excessive
mannerisms and pedantry, that he was thought to speak much better offhand than in
a prepared address. He also composed a lyric poem, entitled "A Lament for the Death
of Lucius Caesar," and made Greek verses in imitation of Euphorion, Rhianus, and
Parthenius, poets of whom he was very fond, placing their busts in the public libraries
among those of the eminent writers of old; and on that account many learned men
vied with one another in issuing commentaries on their works and dedicating them
to the emperor. Yet his special aim was a knowledge of mythology, which he carried
to a silly and laughable extreme; for he used to test even the grammarians, a class
of men in whom, as I have said, he was especially interested, by questions something
like this: "Who was Hecuba's mother?" "What was the name of Achilles among the maidens?"
"What were the Sirens in the habit of singing?" Moreover, on the first day that
he entered the Senate after the death of Augustus, to satisfy at once the demands
of filial piety and of religion, he offered sacrifice after the example of Minos
with incense and wine, but without a fluteplayer, as Minos had done in ancient times
on the death of his son.
LXXI. Though he spoke Greek readily and fluently, yet he would
not use it on all occasions, and especially eschewed it in the Senate; so much so
that before using the word "monopolium," he begged pardon for the necessity of employing
a foreign term. On another occasion, when a soldier was asked in Greek to give testimony,
he forbade him to answer except in Latin.
LXXII. Twice only during the whole period of his retirement
did he try to return to Rome, once sailing in a trireme as far as the gardens near
the artificial lake, after first posting a guard along the banks of the Tiber to
keep off those who came out to meet him; and again coming up the Appian Way as far
as the seventh milestone. But he returned after merely having a distant view of
the city walls, without approaching them; the first time for some unknown reason,
the second through alarm at a portent. He had among his pets a serpent, and when
he was going to feed it from his own hand, as his custom was, and discovered that
it had been devoured by ants, he was warned to beware of the power of the multitude.
So he went back in haste to Campania, fell ill at Astura, but recovering somewhat
kept on to Circeii. To avoid giving any suspicion of his weak condition, he not
only attended the games of the soldiers, but even threw down darts from his high
seat at a boar which was let into the arena. Immediately he was taken with a pain
in the side, and then being exposed to a draught when he was overheated, his illness
increased. For all that, he kept up for some time, although he continued his journey
as far as Misenum and made no change in his usual habits, not even giving up his
banquets and other pleasures, partly from lack of self-denial and partly to conceal
his condition. Indeed, when the physician Charicles had taken his hand to kiss it
as he left the dining-room, since he was going away on leave of absence, Tiberius,
thinking that he was trying to feel his pulse, urged him to remain and take his
place again, and prolonged the dinner to a late hour. Even then he did not give
up his custom of standing in the middle of the dining-room with a lictor by his
side and addressing all the guests by name as they said farewell.
LXXIII. Meanwhile, having read in the proceedings of the Senate
that some of those under accusation, about whom he had written briefly, merely stating
that they had been named by an informer, had been discharged without a hearing,
he cried out in anger that he was held in contempt, and resolved to return to Capreae
at any cost, since he would not risk any step except from his place of refuge. Detained,
however, by bad weather and the increasing violence of his illness, he died a little
later in the villa of Lucullus, in the seventy-eighth year of his age and the twenty-third
of his reign, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship
of Gnaeus Acerronius Proculus and Gaius Pontius Nigrinus [March 16, 37 A.D.]. Some
think that Gaius gave him a slow and wasting poison; others that during convalescence
from an attack of fever food was refused him when he asked for it. Some say that
a pillow was thrown upon his face, when he came to and asked for a ring which had
been taken from him during a fainting fit. Seneca writes that conscious of his approaching
end, he took off the ring, as if to give it to someone, but held fast to it for
a time; then he put it back on his finger, and clenching his left hand, lay for
a long time motionless; suddenly he called for his attendants, and on receiving
no response, got up; but his strength failed him and he fell dead near the couch.
LXXIV. On his last birthday he dreamt that the Apollo of Temenos,
a statue of remarkable size and beauty, which he had brought from Syracuse to be
set up in the library of the new temple, appeared to him in a dream, declaring that
it could not be dedicated by Tiberius. A few days before his death the lighthouse
at Capreae was wrecked by an earthquake. At Misenum the ashes from the glowing coals
and embers wllich had been brought in to warm his dining-room, after they had died
out and been for a long time cold, suddenly blazed up in the early evening and glowed
without cessation until late at night.
LXXV. The people were so glad of his death, that at the first
news of it some ran about shouting, "Tiberius to the Tiber," while others prayed
to Mother Earth and the Manes to allow the dead man no abode except among the damned.
Still others threatened his body with the hook and the Stairs of Mourning, especially
embittered by a recent outrage, added to the memory of his former cruelty. It had
been provided by decree of the Senate that the execution of the condemned should
in all cases be put off for ten days, and it chanced that the punishment of some
fell due on the day when the news came about Tiberius. The poor wretches begged
the public for protection; but since in the continued absence of Gaius there was
no one who could be approached and appealed to, the jailers, fearing to act contrary
to the law, strangled them and cast out their bodies on the Stairs of Mourning.
Therefore hatred of the tyrant waxed greater, since his cruelty endured even after
his death. When the funeral procession left Misenum, many cried out that the body
ought rather to be carried to Atella, and half-burned in the amphitheatre; but it
was taken to Rome by the soldiers and reduced to ashes with public ceremonies.
LXXVI. Two years before his death he had made two copies of
a will, one in his own hand and the other in that of a freedman, but of the same
content, and had caused them to be signed and sealed by persons of the very lowest
condition. In this will he named his grandsons, Gaius, son of Germanicus, and Tiberius,
son of Drusus, heirs to equal shares of his estate, each to be sole heir in case
of the other's death. Besides, he gave legacies to several, including the Vestal
virgins, as well as to each and every man of the soldiers and the commons of Rome,
with separate ones to the masters of the city wards.
Source:
From: Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum, 2 Vols., trans. J.
C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920), pp. 291-401.
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton.
Prof. Arkenberg may have modernized the text.
