Tiberius: 42 BC - 37 AD

Written by @MarchOfTheWest

Seclusion In the Shadow of Greatness.

Upbringing & Early Life

A mere name in a history book for most, Tiberius’ life reveals the reality of standing in the shadow of a legend while lacking the same drive and ambition that built the foundation of everything you have.

Tiberius was raised around greatness–he even lived it during his military career–but eventually grew to reject it in favor of self indulgence. A great commander with many victories under his belt, who later in life became a hedonist and neglected his duties to Rome. Though he didn’t quite level up to the insanity of his successor, Caligula, Tiberius was still a massive downgrade from Augustus. He never could escape the shadow of the great man who preceded him; and perhaps he didn’t want to.

But why would a man so accustomed to greatness abandon it?

Rise to Power

From the beginning, the young Tiberius was surrounded by politics and power. He was a little boy when his mother, Livia, married Octavian; the man who would define an era. His step father was already immensely powerful when Tiberius entered into his family, and, when he became Augustus, had total power over the senate and people of Rome. This no doubt gave Tiberius access to the best education and many powerful connections. He made sure not to squander his early adulthood. 

His military career was highly impressive; he led troops into German lands that lay just beyond Roman reach, expanding the borders of the empire and consolidating what had previously been conquered. But while Tiberius exhibited many great qualities, true greatness always seemed to elude him. His military talent would lose relevance as Roman expansion slowed, and consolidation took priority. He did find a worthy heir in Germanicus, a talented young member of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, who became an idealized hero in the eyes of the people. A brilliant commander in Germania who was able to exact revenge on the Germans for the Teutoburg Forest disaster, Germanicus led eight legions and was overall an absolute stud. 

The Chosen Son (Germanico) 

The people and the elite saw in Germanicus a new Caesar. And when he died an early death–a curse that fell upon so many other great Roman commanders throughout the ages–that was possibly a result of poisoning, the last vestiges of true greatness during Tiberius’ reign melted away forever. 

Rome’s second emperor also showed a knack for the traditions of the senate. His family had long been prominent during the age of the republic, and Tiberius had little interest in ruling alone anyway. Though as his pettiness grew more apparent, he became known to the senate as a tyrant. His lavish lifestyle and appointment of Sejanus to power did not help his reputation improve.

Tiberius prided himself in his adherence to traditional values. Yet later in life, on the island of Capri, he engaged in some of the most decadent and hedonistic acts that were known at the time. All while leaving Rome in the hands of murderous paranoid tyrants who rightly sullied the perception of Tiberius’s rule.

Exile 

Leaving a scoundrel like Sejanus in charge of running the empire was not just a momentary lapse in judgment, but rather the inevitable result of Tiberius’ negligence. It is speculated that Tiberius’ degenerate behavior had a lasting physiological effect on Caligula, and if that is so, which is far from certain, then it merely shows not even Augustus’ own family could escape the decadence that Rome’s elite indulged in. Caligula’s own mother, the widow of Germanicus, died by starvation after being exiled as result of a rivalry with Sejanus. Whether or not Caligula saw firsthand the degenerate lifestyle Tiberius led, it is certain that the political turmoil that occurred under Tiberius served as a prelude to the madness of Caligula’s short reign.

What cannot be denied is that while the elite were plagued by some of Tiberius’ mishaps, the common people of Rome continued to enjoy the fruits of the Pax Romana as if nothing was wrong at all. While they seemed to resent Tiberius and his less than stellar reputation, especially as he was in the shadow of the ever popular Augustus, there seems to be no significant decline in the general welfare of the Roman people. 

Conclusion

In short, Tiberius was not a terrible emperor, he was just one who was uninterested in ruling his empire. But an empire as great as Rome deserves more than just a passive or reluctant ruler. Constant, active, and steady leadership is required for an empire of that nature.

For it is men like Augustus who build, and men like Caligula who destroy, but it is often men like Tiberius–trapped in the middle–who are left to manage the intervals between greatness and chaos. Men who find ruling to be tedious. And this reluctance eventually feeds into seclusion; the total abdication of responsibility.

As Tiberius’ life was a wild mix of greatness and chaos, it is fitting that his reign sat between the glory that preceded him and the total insanity that followed. The loss of greatness with the death of Gemanicus, and the forfeit of duty that the island of Capri represented. Not the best man for the era, but a man who embodied the Roman Empire’s constant drift between glory and mayhem.