TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO. 



TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO. 



he went to Asia Minor, and succeeded in restoring Tigranes to the 

 throne of Armenia, and in forcing the Parthian a to surrender the 

 eagles which they had taken from M. Crassus. He returned to Rome 

 in B.C. 18. During a year he had the commaud in Gallia Coinata, the 

 peace of which province was troubled by disputes between the princes 

 and by incursions of the barbarians. 



In B.C. 15 he and his brother Drusus brought the Alpine nations of 

 Rhaetia to obedience. He also put an end to the war in Panuonia, 

 which had lasted since B.C. 18, and which he terminated by subduing 

 the Breuci, the Scordisci, aud the Dalmatse, who were allied with the 

 Pannoniuns. (B.C. 14.) The Germani having defeated M. Lollius and 

 taken the eagle of the fifth legion in B.C. 16. (Velleius Paterculus, 

 ii 97), Drusus was sent to the Rhine, and Tiberius returned to Rome, 

 where he celebrated his first triumph. In the Rhaotian war Tiberius 

 had shown great military skill, but the Romans carried on the war 

 with unheard-of cruelties against the inhabitants, of whom the 

 majority were killed or carried off as slaves. In memory of his 

 victories, a monument was erected at Torba (now Monaco, in the 

 neighbourhood of Nizza), on which the names of forty-five llhsetian 

 tribes were inscribed. (Plinius, ' Hist. Nat.,' iii. 24.) In B.C. 13 

 Tiberius was appointed consul, together with P. Quintilius Varus. 

 Meanwhile Drusus carried on the war in Germany with great success ; 

 but in B.C. 9, on his retreat from the banks of the Elbe to the Rhine, 

 ho had a fall from his horse, which proved fatal. Tiberius was then 

 at Pavia, but as soon as he was informed of this accident, he hastened 

 to Germany, and arrived in the camp of his brother, near the Yssel 

 and the Rhine, just before he died. 



Tiberius led thu army to Mainz (Moguntiacum). He ordered the 

 body of his brother to be carried to Rome, and he accompanied it on 

 foot. After discharging this pious duty, he returned to Germany. In 

 the new war with the Germani, Tiberius at first defeated them, and 

 transplanted 40,000 Sigambri from the right bank of the lower Rhine 

 to the left bank ; but he afterwards employed peaceable measures, 

 and by negociation he obtained more influence over them than his 

 brother Drusus by all his victories. (Velleius Paterculus, ii. 97 ; 

 Tacitus, ' Annal.,' ii. 26.) He left the command in Germany in B.C. 7, 

 and returned to Rome, where he celebrated his second triumph, and 

 he was consul for the second time in the same year. 



Tiberius was now at the height of his fame ; he was respected by the 

 army, and admired by the people ; and he enjoyed the confidence of 

 the emperor. He nevertheless suddenly abandoned his important 

 functions, left Rome, and, without communicating his motives to 

 anybody, retired to the island of Rhodes. So firm was his resolution 

 to retire from public affairs, that he refused to take any nourishment 

 for four days, in order to show his mother that her prayers and tears 

 could not keep him any longer in Rome. (Suetonius, ' Tiberius,' c. 

 10.) During eight years he led a private life at Rhodes, renouncing 

 all honours, and living in the Greek style, and on terms of equality 

 with those around him, with whom he kept up a friendly intercourse, 

 especially Greek philosophers and poets. The Romans were surprised 

 to see the step-son of their emperor retire to a distant island ; and 

 various hypotheses were raised to explain the motive of his voluntary 

 exile. The disgusting conduct of his wife Julia was supposed to be a 

 sufficient cause for this extraordinary resolution ; but Tiberius him- 

 self afterwards avowed that he had renounced public business in order 

 to escape all charges of having formed ambitious schemes against his 

 step-sons Caius and Lucius Caesar, who were created ' principes juven- 

 tutis,' and appointed successors of Augustus in the very year in which 

 Tiberius went to Rhodes. It seems that he was dissatisfied with the 

 elevation of these two young men, and that there was discord between 

 him and them ; for when he afterwards wished to go back to Rome, 

 Augustus would not allow it until Caius Caesar had consented, and it 

 was also on condition that he should take no part in the government 

 of the state. From all this we may conclude that Tiberius and his 

 mother Livia had perhaps been intriguing to exclude Caius and Lucius 

 Caesar from the succession, and that he preferred a voluntary exile to 

 a compulsory banishment, such as was inflicted by Augustus upon his 

 own daughter Julia. But this is mere supposition, and there are no 

 facts on which a direct accusation against Tiberius can be sustained. 

 With regard to his banished wife Julia, Tiberius acted with great 

 delicacy, notwithstanding her conduct, and he besought Augustus to 

 leave her all those presents which he had formerly given her. (Sue- 

 tonius, 'Tiberius,' c. 12, 13.) At last Tiberius returned to Rome 

 (A.D. 2), and was received by the people with demonstrations of great 

 joy. In the same year Lucius Caesar died at Massilia (Marseille), and 

 his death was followed by that of his brother, who died in A.D. 4, in 

 consequence of a wound which he had received in the Parthian war. 

 Augustus then adopted Tiberius as his future successor, in A.D. 4, 

 and Tiberius in his turn was compelled by Augustus to adopt Drusus 

 Gennanicus, the son of his late brother Drusus Nero. Augustus also 

 adopted M. Agrippa, the posthumous son of Agrippa and Julia, but he 

 did not designate him as a successor in the empire. The imperial 

 throne was thus secured to the house of the Claudii. In the same 

 year (A.D. 4) Tiberius was appointed commander-in-chief in Germany, 

 and he was accompanied by the historian Velleius Paterculus, who 

 was praefectus equitum. After having subdued the Bructeri, and 

 renewed the alliance with the Chatti, Tiberius in A.D. 5 made a cam- 

 paign against the Longobards, who were defeated ; and he obliged the 



whole north-west of Germany to acknowledge the Roman authority. 

 In the following year (A.D. 6) he led 70,000 foot and 4000 hone against 

 Maroboduus, the king of the Marcomanni, who was saved from ruin 

 by a rising of the inhabitants of Pannouia and northern Illyrk-uiii, 

 who intercepted the communications of the Roman army with Italy. 

 Tiberius employed fifteen legions and an equal number of auxiliaries 

 against these nations, and, in spite of difficulti*- * of every description) 

 he quelled the outbreak within three years. ThU war was t*|>eoiaUy 

 dangerous because the Germani threatened to join the Punuouiuns, 

 but Tiberius prevented their junction by negociations and by the 

 success of his arms. After having celebrated his third triumph, he 

 was again sent against the Germani, who had slain Varus aud his 

 army (A.D. 9). Tiberius, who was accompanied by Germanicus, suc- 

 ceeded in preventing the Germani from invading the countries on the 

 left bank of the Rhine, and be then celebrated his fourth triumph. 

 Velleius Paterculus, an able judge of military talents, gives us a most 

 favourable idea of him as a general. Suetonius Bays aUo that, sharing 

 in all the hardships of the common soldiers, be maintained a severe 

 discipline, but at the same time he carefully watched over the security 

 and the comfort of the soldiers. 



Augustus died at Nola on his return from Naples, where he had 

 accompanied Tiberius, who was going to conduct the war in Illyria 

 (29th of August, A.D. 14). Anxious to sec her son at that critical 

 moment in Rome, Livia concealed the emperor's death until Tiberius, 

 who was informed of it by messengers, had arrived at Nola. (Dio. 

 Cassiu?, vi. 30, 31.) 



Tiberius became en; peror in his fifty-fifth year, at an age when both 

 the virtues and the vices have acquired strength from habit, and when 

 a man's character seldom changes. Until that time he was generally 

 supposed to be a virtuous man ; his virtues were imbued with the 

 severe gravity of his character. Amoug his biographers none has 

 blamed his eariy life; yet no sooner was he emperor, than he was 

 charged with crimes the most dreadful and disgusting. His former 

 life is represented as dissimulation and hypocrisy. An example 4jf 

 such dissimulation is known in history. Sixtus V. concealed bis real 

 intentions for thirty years ; however it was not his real character 

 which he thus concealed ; but by retiring from affairs, and by simu- 

 lating disease and infirmity, he made the cardinals believe that by 

 choosing him pope they would make him their instrument, because his 

 infirmities would not allow him to act with energy. Tiberius however, 

 except the eight years that he spent in Rhodes, was constantly 

 employed in matters which, although they would have allowed him to 

 conceal his real disposition, he could never have managed with such 

 success, unless his conduct had been directed by the force of his real 

 character. 



Augustus succeeded in making himself master of the republic by 

 accumulating in his person the different high functions of the state. 

 Tiberius, proud and energetic, abolished even the shadow of the 

 sovereignty of a nation which he despised. The Romans being suffi- 

 ciently disposed to obedience, the only obstacles in his way were the 

 worn-out institutions of the ancient republic. Immediately upon the 

 accession of Tiberius, Agrippa Postumus was put to death, probably 

 by order of Tiberius (Suetonius, ' Tiberius,' c. 22 ; Tacitus, ' Annal.,' 

 i. 6.) About this time the supreme power was offered by the troops 

 on the Lower Rhine to Germanicus, who however refused it; and the 

 mutiny was quelled by him and by Drusus, the son of Tiberius, who 

 commanded in Pacnonia. Tiberius began by some enactments which 

 tended to ameliorate the state of morals ; he abolished the comitia 

 for the election of the various officers of the state, and transferred the 

 election to the senate, the members of which were subservient to him. 

 It has been already said that Tiberius intended to destroy the last 

 remnants of the ancient sovereignty of the people, and to supplant 

 the majesty of the Roman nation by the majesty of the emperor. 

 Augustus had already employed the Lex Julia Majestatis to punish 

 the authors of libels against his person (Tacitus, ' Annal.,' i. 72) ; 

 and his example was followed by Tiberius, who established the Judicia 

 Majestatis, by which all those who were suspected of having impugned 

 the majesty of the emperor either by deeds or words, were prosecuted 

 with the utmost severity. The number of the delatores, or denouncers 

 of such crimes, daily increased, and a secret police was gradually 

 established in Rome, as well organised and as well supported by spies 

 as the secret police of Napoleon. The property, honour, and life of 

 the citizens were exposed to the most unfounded calumnies, and a 

 general feeling of anxiety and moral disease prevailed throughout the 

 empire. The natural severity of Tiberius gradually degenerated into 

 cruelty, and he showed symptoms of that misanthropy and that gloomy 

 state of mind which increased with years. In the meantime Germani- 

 cus, the favourite of the army, had avenged the defeat of Varus, but 

 Tiberius recalled him from Germany, and sent him into the East 

 (A.D. 17). Germanicus conquered Cilicia and Commagene, and he 

 renewed the alliance with the Parthians, but he died suddenly at 

 Antioch (A.D. 19.) Public opinion accused Cneius Piso, the commander 

 in Syria, of having poisoned Germauicus by order of the emperor ; 

 but before Piso could be sent to trial, he was found dead. 



Sejanus, the son of a Praefectus Praetorio, succeeded in obtaining 

 the confidence of the emperor (A.D. 19-22), who henceforth gradually 

 abandoned to him the direction of public affairs, of which Sejanus 

 became the absolute master from the year A.D. 22. [SEJANUS, 



