To Tacitus and later writers a sinister feature of Tiberius’ reign was the increase in the number of treason-trials and of the informers (delatores) who were ready to bring charges of treason against prominent men in the hope of reward, since, if successful, they received at least a quarter of the confiscated property of the condemned. But Tactius had lived through and suffered from the period of delation and judicial murders with which the reign of Domitian ended, so that his account of how the reign of Tiberius degenerated through the application of the law of treason can hardly be accepted uncritically at its face-value. The evil arose partly because Rome had no public prosecutor, but left it to private individuals to bring abuses to official notice, and partly because of the incompleteness of the definition of the crime of maiestas. This had meant any offence against the State, but was now used to protect the emperor against treachery or even insult.
Many early cases of alleged slander or libel, often based on flimsy evidence, were dismissed by Tiberius with the contempt they deserved; some of them in fact may only have been brought as test cases in order to establish precedents. One of the early spectacular trials was that of a young noble, Scribonius Libo Drusus, in A.D. 16. He was charged before the Senate with plotting against Tiberius, Germanicus and Drusus (some mysterious marks were found against their names in his notebook) and also with magical practices; he committed suicide before the end of the trial. Tiberius was not involved in the matter personally and Libo probably was guilty of ‘nefaria consilia’ as the Fasti recorded. It is not possible here to refer to the numerous cases mentioned by Tacitus, but it may safely be asserted that at any rate until A.D. 26 Tiberius showed good sense and moderation in face of a growing evil.8
4. SEJANUS
The death of Germanicus had conveniently opened up the path to the principate for Tiberius’ own son Drusus who hitherto had been loyally willing to play second fiddle to his cousin Germanicus whom he liked. Although allegedly cruel, Drusus was competent as his handling of the Pannonian mutiny had shown. He held a consulship in 15, and again in 21 with Tiberius; in the next year he received tribunicia potestas. Further, not only his own, but the future succession seemed secured, since in 19 his wife Livilla (the sister of Germanicus) had borne him twin sons.9
Soon, however, the bright hopes of Drusus were overcast by the sinister shadow of Sejanus. L. Aelius Seianus was the son of a knight of Etruscan descent, L. Seius Strabo, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. An able administrator, he quickly won the approval and then the personal friendship of Tiberius, who appointed him first joint Praetorian Prefect with his father (in 14) and then sole Prefect (16 or 17). His influence was immensely increased when (between 21 and 23) he was permitted to concentrate the Guard in permanent barracks near one of the gates of Rome. The confidence that Tiberius reposed in Sejanus whom he named the ‘socius laborum’, angered Drusus, who on one occasion even struck him in the face. But the rivalry soon ended in 23; Drusus suddenly died. It was later suspected that he had been poisoned by his wife whom Sejanus had seduced, but of such foul play Tiberius had no suspicion, and even without it the shock of his son’s death was grievous enough. However, he still had his friend Sejanus to rely upon, and since Drusus’ child was too young (the other twin died), he decided to adopt the sons of Germanicus namely Nero (not the future emperor) and (a third) Drusus, whose mother Agrippina still survived.
The influence of Sejanus grew steadily and he began to plot to secure the succession for himself. Though Tiberius refused his request to be allowed to marry Livilla in 25 after divorcing his wife, he made skilful use of the treason law to strike down a number of potential enemies and began to implant in Tiberius’ mind jealous fears of Agrippina, her children and friends. Though these became his victims, it is uncertain how far they were innocent victims. There was little love lost between Tiberius and Agrippina, and her hostility was potentially dangerous since, as the widow of Germanicus, she was popular with the army, but whether she actually plotted against him remains obscure. Sejanus’ path was further cleared when he persuaded Tiberius to leave Rome (26) and retire to Capreae (27); the emperor’s faith in him was strengthened since on the way there Sejanus saved his life when the roof of a grotto in which they were dining collapsed.9a Tiberius’ motives in leaving Rome were probably mixed: he was 67 and tired of the responsibilities of office, he had been saddened by Drusus’ death, he may have found his mother Livia trying, and he may even have thought that he would be safer away from Rome. But although he still attended to public business, his retirement had serious constitutional repercussions: it was one thing for the Senate to debate matters in the emperor’s presence, and another to have to seek his views by correspondence and await the replies of one who was their princeps but not in law their dominus.
The influence of Sejanus was increased not only by Tiberius’ retirement but also by the death in 29 of the empress-mother at the age of eighty-six; Livia, whose help to her husband Augustus in earlier days had been great, more recently had exercised some restraint at court.10 In this very year Tiberius denounced Agrippina and her son Nero, and the Senate banished them; in 30 Sejanus persuaded Tiberius to send the other boy Drusus to Rome, where he was promptly imprisoned. Having thus eliminated possible successors to Tiberius, Sejanus now moved to bolder action. He secured the commands of some of the provincial armies for his friends, he at last obtained Tiberius’ permission to marry a member of the imperial family (presumably Livilla), and he was nominated as joint consul with Tiberius for 31: he was clearly to be the successor. But Tiberius’ suspicions were at long last aroused when he received a message from Antonia (the widow of his brother Drusus and the mother of Germanicus) that made him doubt Sejanus’ loyalty. Yet he acted slowly and with caution. He summoned to Capreae and safety Gaius (the future emperor Caligula and the youngest son of Germanicus) who had hitherto been allowed to survive in Rome in neglect. It was soon learnt that his brother Nero was dead, thanks no doubt to Sejanus. When he entered his consulship in 31 Sejanus is said to have received proconsular imperium, but when Tiberius resigned his consulship in May Sejanus had to do the same. Neither man could wait indefinitely, but while Sejanus was maturing his plot Tiberius struck first. He appointed Sutorius Macro to succeed Sejanus as Praetorian Prefect and secured the allegiance of the Vigiles. On 18 October Sejanus, unsuspecting, attended the Senate to hear the consul read a despatch from Tiberius in which he expected that he would be given tribunician potestas: but as the content of this ‘verbosa et grandis epistula’ gradually unfolded, Sejanus found himself tricked: it ended not with honours for Sejanus but by denouncing him as a traitor. The Senate then condemned him; he was strangled in prison and his body was torn to pieces by the mob. His children and many of his partisans were illegally put to death by the Senate and the mob in Rome. Later Tiberius took further vengeance, though the reign of terror depicted by Tacitus is probably exaggerated; as late as A.D. 33 Tiberius ordered the death of twenty of Sejanus’ followers who were still in prison, but he then granted a kind of amnesty to the survivors. This dramatic rise and fall of an emperor’s favourite has powerfully impressed the imagination of later generations.11
5. PROVINCIAL AFFAIRS UNDER TIBERIUS12
In general Tiberius remained loyal to Augustus’ ‘consilium coercendi intra terminos imperii’, and made only those changes that security demanded. The main provincial alterations affected the East, where the client-kings of Cappadocia, Commagene and Cilicia died. Cappadocia, whose king Archelaus had died in Rome where he had been summoned on suspicion of treason, and Commagene were made Roman provinces; Cilicia was incorporated in the province of Syria. While this reorganization was carried out by his legates, Germanicus was, with the acquiescence of the Parthian king, installing a ruler on the Armenian throne. This arrangement gave peace until c. A.D. 34 when the death of the Armenian king stimulated Artabanus III of Parthia to intervene, but after meeting L. Vitellius, legate of Syria from 35 to 37, on the Euphrates, he agreed to accept the Roman settlement
of a certain Mithridates on the Armenian throne.13 Vitellius did good work also in Judaea, where the governor Pontius Pilate (26–36) had committed a series of blunders which culminated in the unnecessary massacre of some Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim. After despatching Pilate to Rome to stand trial Vitellius conciliated Jewish feelings by restoring the High Priest’s vestments and by sending his troops on a detour to avoid bringing their standards onto Jewish soil. Few contemporaries, however, can have realized that the most important event for the future of the Roman empire as well as for the later world, that took place in the reign of Tiberius, was the life and teaching of Jesus Christ in Palestine under the procuratorship of Pilate who, yielding to the hatred of the Jews, ordered his crucifixion (p. 307 f.).
Little change was made on the Rhine-Danube frontier after Tiberius had decided not allow Germanicus to continue with his plan to advance to the Elbe (see p. 228 f.). In fact when the Frisii revolted in A.D. 28 against oppressive taxation, Tiberius did not attempt to reduce them. On the Danube he made an interesting experiment of a type which was developed only by his successors in the second century; he settled on the north bank of the river (in Czecho-Slovakia) some Suebi and Marcomanni under a native ruler called Vannius to form a breakwater against invasion. He also tried to strengthen the frontier in S.E. Europe by combining the senatorial provinces of Achaea and Macedonia with the imperial province of Moesia, thus putting the whole of the Balkans under one command; this was held by C. Poppaeus Sabinus already governor of Moesia (A.D. 11–15), for an extremely long period (A.D. 15–35) and the arrangement remained in force until 44.
Three small wars occurred during the reign: in Thrace, Gaul and Africa. In Thrace, which Augustus had divided between two native rulers, one king murdered the other in 19. Rome intervened by force, deposed the survivor, entrusted his realm to Rhoemetalces II, and installed a resident Roman officer in what had been the eastern kingdom of Cotys. Native Thracian risings were crushed in 21 and 25. Tiberius established a settlement called Tiberia, perhaps a new foundation at Philippopolis.
A rising took place in Gaul in A.D. 21, led by two Romanized Gallic nobles, Julius Florus and Julius Sacrovir. The chief cause may have been economic distress, arising from the demands of the campaigns of Germanicus and from exactions of Roman businessmen, but another potent factor was Druidism, which Augustus and Tiberius disliked, partly because of its potentially dangerous nationalist and anti-Roman influence, and partly perhaps because they disapproved of the human sacrifice and cruelties which were alleged to have formed part of the worship (although such ritual murders by this time may have become less common in Gaul than in Britain).14 Augustus had forbidden Roman citizens to take part in the cult, and Tiberius took some measures against it, possibly suppressing the Druidical priesthood. The revolt, which was chiefly supported by the Aedui and Treveri, was crushed without difficulty when the legions of Upper Germany, commanded by C. Silius, were brought up to help the urban cohort stationed at Lugdunum (the only Roman troops in the vast area of the Gauls). Silius, however, abused his victory and three years later was exiled by Tiberius for extortion.
The third rising was that of the Musalamii in Africa, led by a Numidian named Tacfarinas who had deserted from the Roman army and raided Roman territory from the south (A.D. 17).15 Africa was a senatorial province, but the commanders that the Senate sent to deal with Tacfarinas were not very successful in guerrilla warfare. On Tiberius’ advice Junius Blaesus, the Pannonian commander and uncle of Sejanus, was sent out in 20; after some victories for which he was hailed as imperator, he was succeeded by P. Cornelius Dolabella who finally trapped and killed Tacfarinas (24). With peace restored, Africa quickly settled down to a period of prosperity, as shown by the public buildings that were constructed during Tiberius’ reign at such places as Thugga and Bulla Regia, and it continued to be one of the main granaries of the Empire.
These disturbances should not obscure the fact that in general the provinces enjoyed peace and increasing prosperity under Tiberius’ administration. He told a governor who had collected more than the legal amount of taxation that ‘you should shear my sheep, not flay them’, and in the main the governors that he chose were good: L. Vitellius is an excellent example, while Pontius Pilate was far below the average. Governors were made responsible for their wives’ misdoings, and Tiberius was harsh to bad governors, some of whom preferred to commit suicide rather than face a trial for extortion. At the time of disaster he could be liberal: for instance after Asia had suffered severely from an earthquake in A.D. 17, he advised the Senate to excuse the city’s taxes for five years, and he himself gave Sardes ten million sesterces. Asia showed its gratitude by voting a temple to Tiberius, Livia and the Senate, which was erected at Smyrna. But Tiberius did not encourage any widespread growth of emperor-worship, since he refused a similar request from Spain: he told the Senate that he was satisfied to be human, to perform human duties, and to occupy the first place (principem) among men.16
6. TIBERIUS’ LAST YEARS
Tiberius, proud and lonely in spirit, suffered a severe shock when he realized that the friend that he had trusted for so many years had proved disloyal, but his grief and disillusionment will have been sharply intensified when he was suddenly made aware that this treachery was no recent development. The widow of Sejanus, before committing suicide, revealed in a letter to Tiberius that eight years earlier Sejanus had seduced Livilla and that they had poisoned Tiberius’ own son Drusus. For nine months the emperor refused to leave his villa; he suffered a severe nervous breakdown and spent most of the rest of his life at Capreae, never again entering Rome. Malicious stories arose that he passed his time on this secluded island in debauchery and vice, but they are substantiated by no first-century evidence, and are not made more plausible by the fact that he lived to be seventy-seven and that he is known to have enjoyed the company of scholars, jurists and men of letters as well as of astrologers. A more serious aspect of his absence was the continued dependence of the Senate in Rome upon him. Old and weary, he was not prepared to submit again to the formal duties of earlier days, and disinclination will have been strengthened by the knowledge that he was safer in Capreae from risk of a conspirator’s knife. But he in no way disregarded his duty to the empire as a whole, and he carried on his work on its behalf.
He doubtless became more suspicious and morose, and a certain natural indecision increased, but the view that he developed into a sinister tyrant whose rule ended in a reign of terror must not be accepted without some reservations. To the supporters of Sejanus he proved implacable and ruthless, but he did not strike down his victims without inquiry: in A.D. 32 seven people who were accused were saved, and of the nine who perished Tacitus implies that only two were innocent. The number of well-known persons accused of treason throughout the whole twenty-two years of his reign has been put at sixty-three, and although this indicates no very healthy state of affairs it scarcely suggests indiscriminate murder. Tiberius’ victims certainly included young Drusus, the son of Germanicus, and possibly also the boy’s mother, Agrippina who is said to have starved herself to death on the island to which she had been banished. Her third son Gaius was kept at Capreae, practically a prisoner.
Tiberius still devoted care to public affairs. He alleviated a financial crisis in 33 due to shortage of currency by establishing a loan-fund of one hundred million sesterces from which debtors could borrow without interest.16a Three years later he made a similar princely gift for relief after a fire on the Aventine. Where possible he practised economy: he spent little on public shows or buildings, or on the upkeep of a lavish court, so that he was enabled to reduce the unpopular sales-tax from one per cent to one-half per cent, and to leave 2700 million sesterces in the treasury when he died.
Since Tiberius was ‘solus et senex’, the question of the succession became increasingly urgent. His own grandson Gemellus (the son of Drusus) was as yet too young, his nephew Claudius was regarded as too foolish, and so he turned to his grand-nephew Gaius,
despite his evil promise, but the issue was by no means certain, since in 35 Tiberius made Gaius and Gemellus his jointheirs: perhaps he hoped to live until Gemellus was of full age when Gaius might be set aside. At any rate though Gaius, who would be popular because of his Julian connexion, was allowed to hold a quaestorship in 33, Tiberius did nothing to train him for greater responsibility. However, the Praetorian Prefect, Macro, began to seek Gaius’ favour, and both men were rumoured to have hastened Tiberius’ end when he lay ill near Misenum in March 37. The news of Tiberius’ death was received in Rome with joy: the people, long deprived of public amusements could cry ‘To the Tiber with Tiberius’ while the Senate refused to accord divine honours to the man whom many had increasingly come to suspect and fear.
If Tiberius had died shortly before or shortly after his accession, he would have been judged very differently by later generations. As it is, his years of competent and even outstanding service as soldier and administrator have been overlaid by the hatred which his last years engendered. Further, it is difficult to modify the impression that must remain on the mind of all readers of Tacitus’ masterly portrait of Tiberius, even when they recognize that it is coloured by the historian’s own experiences under Domitian: the work of genius may be spell-binding. Yet even though Tiberius did not lack his admirers, such as the soldier historian Velleius Paterculus (who significantly published his work in A.D. 30 before the last excesses), it is true that Seneca and the elder Pliny, who lived through the reign, both condemn Tiberius and contrast the later with the earlier years. In general Tiberius’ wise continuation of the policy of Augustus, even if it lacked brilliance, provided a valuable period of stability for the young Principate. His administrative and foreign policy was good: if he failed at home to win the full co-operation of the Senate, that was partly their responsibility and partly because the task was too delicate for a man of his temperament. He honestly tried, but he failed and his failure was made irremediable by his retirement to Capreae. That he sometimes hid his real feelings behind ambiguous phrases may argue an attempt by a man who lacked his brother’s affability (‘civile ingenium’) to allow freedom of discussion to the Senate rather than a sinister natural hypocrisy. And few will believe that he maintained a mask of virtue for nearly seventy years and rejoiced when he could throw it aside and emerge as a bloodthirsty tyrant. It was his tragedy that, while trying to do his duty as he saw it, he was plunged into a position that he had not sought and that demanded other talents than he possessed and that he increasingly realized this: ‘tristissimus homo’.
From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 Page 38