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TIBERIUS II. 



TIBERIUS II. 



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LCOITJS M.] Drusus, the son of Tiberius, who had governed the 

 Roman part of Germany with great ability, was poisoned by Sejanus 

 (A.D. 23), and this crime was followed by a great many others, with 

 which it is possible that the emperor was very imperfectly acquainted. 

 His practice was to shut himself up within bis palace, and to spend 

 his time in the most revolting debauchery. After the death of Drusus, 

 Tiberius recommended to the senate as his successors Nero and 

 Drusus, the sons of the unfortunate Germanicus and of Agrippinn, 

 who was still alive. In A.D. 26 Sejanus at last persuaded him to retire 

 from public affaire. Tiberius followed his advice, and went to Capua 

 and Nola, until at last he fixed his residence on the island of Capreso 

 in the Gulf of Naples. The life which he led at Caprese was a series 

 of infamous pleasures. 



From this time all public affairs were directed by Sejanus : the 

 emperor was inaccessible. T. Sabinus, a friend of Nero, was put to 

 death ; statues were erected to Sejanus, and received divine honours. 

 After the death of Livia, in A.D. 29, the authority of Sejanus was at 

 its height; but at last Antonio, the aged mother of Germanicus, 

 penetrated through the barriers of Caprese, and informed the aged 

 Tiberius that Sejanus had left him only the name of emperor. She 

 was supported by Macro, the commander of the Praetorian guard. In 

 consequence of this information, Tiberius ordered the senate to con- 

 demn Sejanus ; and the senate obeyed : Sejanus, his family, and his 

 friends, were put to death in A.D. 31. Some time after this event, 

 Tiberius retired from Caprese, and took up his residence at a villa 

 near Misenum, which had formerly belonged to Lucullus. (Suetonius, 

 'Tiberius,' c. 73.) On the 16th of March A.D. 37, he fell into a 

 lethargy, and everybody believing him to be dead, Caligula, the third 

 eon of Germanicus, the favourite of old Tiberius, was proclaimed 

 emperor. However, Tiberius recovered, and Macro, in order to save 

 himself and the new emperor, ordered him to be suffocated in hia bed. 

 Thus died Tiberius, at the age of seventy-eight, after a reign of 

 twenty-three years. (Tacitus, ' Annal.,' vi. 50 ; Suetonius, ' Tiberius,' 

 c. 73.) 



There is little doubt that the crimes said to have been committed 

 during the reign of Tiberius, either by himself or by others in his 

 name, are real facts. But the question is whether they are all to be 

 imputed as crimes to Tiberius. His insanity is a fact which can 

 hardly be doubted; a dark melancholy, disgust of life, and misan- 

 thropy, had taken possession of him, and his struggle with the idea 

 of self-destruction often threw him into wild despair. He found 

 consolation in the sufferings of others, and thus gave those bloody 

 orders which he afterwards regretted. The unnatural pleasures to 

 which he was addicted were only another mode of soothing the 

 despair of his soul. It is probable that his insanity was complete 

 when he retired to Caprese. Sometimes he had lucid intervals, in 

 which he wrote those letters of which Suetonius gives some extracts 

 (' Tiberius,' c. 67), and in which he confesses the wretched state of his 

 soul. His physical health was excellent, until some days before his 

 death. Tiberius loved the arts and literature. According to Suetonius, 

 he wrote a lyric poem, ' Conquestio de L. Csesaris Morte ; ' he also 

 wrote poems in Greek, choosing for his models Euphorion, Rhianus, 

 and Parthenius, the author of an erotic poem which has come down 

 to us. 



(Suetonius, Tiberius; Vellcius Paterculus, ii., c. 94, &c. ; Tacitus, 

 Annal., lib. L-vi. ; Dion Cassius, lib. xlvi.-xlviii. ; Horn, Tiberiiis, ein 

 Historisches Gemalde. The character of Tiberius has been defended 

 by Buchholz, Philosophische Untersuchungen, vol. ii., p. 49, &c.) 



TIBE'RIUS II., ANI'CIUS THRAX, FLA'VIUS CONSTAX- 

 TI'NUS, one of the greatest and most virtuous emperors of the east. 

 He was born in Thrace towards the middle of the 6th century, and 

 belonged to a rich and very distinguished family, the history of which 

 is unknown to us. He was educated at the court of Justinian, whose 

 successor, Justin II. (565-78), loved him as his son, and employed him 

 in various civil and military offices. In 573 Tiberius, who was then 

 general of the imperial guards, commanded the army against the 

 Avars, who were powerful north of the Save and the Danube. His 

 lieutenant having neglected to watch the passages of the Danube, 

 Tiberius was surprised by the Avars and lost a battle. However, he 

 recovered this loss, and concluded a peace, by which the possession of 

 the important fortress of Sirmium, now Mitrowicz, on the Save, near 

 its junction with the Danube, was secured to the Romans. This was 

 one of the few advantages obtained by the Greek armies during the 

 unfortunate reign of Justin II. Italy, which had been conquered by 

 Justinian, was overrun by the Longobards ; the Berbers ravaged the 

 kingdom of Carthage, which had been taken from the Vandals ; and 

 on the Persian frontier Chosroes (Khosrew) made various conquests. 

 Justin, feeling his incompetency, and having lost his son, looked for a 

 regent, and his choice fell upon Tiberius. The great talents of Tibe- 

 rius, his amiable character, his generosity and love of justice, and his 

 .sincere piety, had won him the hearts of the nation, and the esteem 

 of the emperor and his ministers. Justin was confirmed in his choice 

 by the empress Sophia, whose private views on this occasion harmo- 

 nised with the interest of the state. Tiberiua was the handsomest 

 man at the court, and it seems that Sophia intended to marry him 

 cu the death of Justin. However this may be, before she declared in 

 his favour she asked him whether he was married. Tiberius imme- 

 diately guessed the motive of the question, and answered that he was 



not, although he was secretly married to a lady named Anastasia. He 

 thus gained the protection of the empress, and was proclaimed Caesar 

 by Justin on the 7th of December 574, in a most solemn assembly of 

 the civil and military officers, and of the clergy under the presidency 

 of the patriarch Eutychius, by whom Tiberius was crowned with the 

 imperial diadem. In this assembly the emperor Justin addressed to 

 his future successor the remarkable speech (Theophylactus, iii. 11), 

 which Gibbon translates thus : " You behold the ensigns of supreme 

 power. You are about to receive them, not from my hand, but from 

 the hand of God. Honour them, and from them you will derive 

 honour. Respect the empress your mother you are now her son 

 before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood, abstain from 

 revenge, avoid those actions by which I have incurred the public 

 hatred, and consult the experience rather than the example of your 

 predecessor. As a man, I have sinned ; as a sinner, even in this life 

 I have been severely punished : but these servants (his ministers), 

 who have abused my confidence and inflamed my passion, will appear 

 with me before the tribunal of Christ. I have been dazzled by the 

 splendour of the diadem : be thou wise and modest ; remember what 

 you have been, remember what you are." To this speech of a dying 

 sinner, Tiberius answered, " If you consent, I live ; if you command, 

 I die : may the God of heaven and earth infuse into your heart what- 

 ever I have neglected or forgotten." 



The burden of government devolved upon Tiberius, whose authority 

 was never checked by Justin. The war with Persia prevented Tibe- 

 rius from expelling the Longobards from Italy ; but he sent there all 

 the troops he could dispose of, and succeeded in maintaining the 

 imperial authority in the exarchate of Ravenna, on the Ligurian coast, 

 in the fortified places in the Cottian Alps, in Rome, in Naples, and in 

 the greater part of Campania and of Lucauia. He saved Rome and 

 Pope Pelagius II. from the Longobards by sending a fleet laden with 

 provisions (775). Some years later .he concluded an alliance with the 

 Prankish king Chilperic, who checked the Longobards in the north of 

 Italy, and Tiberius succeeded in bribing several of the thirty Longo- 

 bardian dukes, who, after the murder of King Clepho (573-74) and 

 during the minority of Antharis, imitated in Italy the Thirty Tyrants 

 of Athens. The daughter of King Alboin and Rosamond, who had 

 fled from Italy, was then living at the court of Constantinople. 



The most important event in the reigns of Justin and Tiberius 

 was the war with Persia. Khosrew, the king of Persia, had made 

 extensive conquests in Asia Minor during the reign of Justin. In 

 575 Tiberius concluded a partial truce for three years with him, on 

 condition that hostilities should cease except on the frontiers of 

 Armenia, where the war was still carried on. These frontiers being 

 easily defended on account of the great number of defiles in the 

 Armenian Mountains, Tiberius levied a strong army while Khosrew 

 lost time iu forcing passages or in besieging small fortified places. For 

 several centuries the Eastern empire had not seen such an army as was 

 then raised by Tiberius. A hundred and fifty thousand men, among 

 whom were many Teutonic and Slavonic barbarians, crossed the 

 Bosporus in 576, under the command of Justinian, and advanced to 

 the relief of Theodosiopolis, the key of Armenia. Theodore, the 

 Byzantine general, defended the fortress against the whole army of 

 Khosrew. At the approach of Justinian the Persian king left the 

 siege and advanced to meet the Greeks. The encounter took place 

 near Melitene (in the district of Melitene in Armenia Minor). The 

 Persians were routed, and many of them were drowned in their retreat 

 across the Euphrates; twenty-four elephants, loaded with the treasures 

 of Khosrew and the spoil of his camp, were sent to Constantinople. 

 Justinian then advanced as far as the Persian Gulf, and a peace was 

 about to be concluded in 577 ; but Khosrew broke off the iiegociations 

 on account of a victory which his general Tamchosroes (Tam-khosrew) 

 unexpectedly obtained over Justinian by surprising him in Armenia. 

 Tiberius now recalled Justinian, and appointed in his place Mauritius, 

 who was afterwards emperor. Mauritius restored the old Roman pre- 

 caution of never passing the night except in a fortified camp; he 

 advanced to meet the Persians, who had broken the truce of 575, and 

 attacked the empire on the side of Mesopotamia (577). The Persians 

 retired at the approach of Mauritius, who took up his whiter quarters 

 in Mesopotamia (577-78). 



On the 26th of September 578 Tiberius became sole emperor by the 

 solemn abdication of Justin, who died on the 5th of October next. 

 After the funeral of Justin, when the new emperor appeared in the 

 Hippodrome, the people became impatient to see the empress. The 

 widow of Justin, who was in the Hippodrome, expected to be pre- 

 sented to the people as empress ; but she was soon undeceived by the 

 sight of Anastasia, who suddenly appeared at the side of Tiberius. 

 In revenge, Sophia formed a plot against Tiberius, and persuaded 

 Justinian, the former commander in the Persian war, to put himself 

 at the head of the conspiracy. Tiberius however was informed of this 

 design. Justinian was arrested, and the emperor, by pardoning him, 

 made him for ever his faithful friend. Sophia was deprived of her 

 imperial pension and palaces, and she died in neglect and obscurity. 



A quarrel broke out between Eutychius, the patriarch, and Grego- 

 rius, the apocrisiarius of Constantinople, who could not agree on the 

 state of the soul after death. The Greeks were then the most disputa- 

 tious people in the world about religious matters, and their disputes 

 often led to serious trouble. The emperor accordingly undertook to 



