Son of Tiberius. Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus Tiberius Julius Caesar

After the death of Augustus, August 19 at age 14

Over time, Tiberius became unsociable and suspicious, which was the reason for his decision to leave Rome and go to Campania on Capri. He never returned to Rome. From 21 to 31, the country was practically ruled by the prefect of the Praetorians, Sejanus. Among others, Drusus, the son of Tiberius, became a victim of his ambition. After the execution of Sejanus, Macron took his place.

Shortly before his death, Tiberius went to Rome, but, seeing its walls from afar, he ordered to immediately turn back, without stopping at the city. The emperor hurried back to Capri, but fell ill in Astura. Having recovered a little, he reached Mizen and then finally fell ill.

When those around decided that Tiberius's breathing had stopped and began to congratulate the last surviving son of Germanicus and his heir, they suddenly reported that Tiberius had opened his eyes, a voice returned to him and asked to bring him food. This news plunged everyone into awe, but the prefect of the Praetorians, Macron, who did not lose his composure, ordered the old man to be strangled.

Memory of Tiberius Caesar

In cinema

The BBC series I, Claudius, based on the novel by Robert Graves, was played by George Baker.

The film "Cyclops", in the role of Tiberius Eric Roberts.

The film "Caligula" - in it Caligula enters the fight with Tiberius for the throne. Peter O'Toole as Tiberius.

The film "The Investigation" - Max Von Sydow.

Dragon Sword - Adrien Brody.

Mini-series "Caesars" (UK, 1968). Andre Morell as Tiberius

Family of Tiberius Caesar

Father - Tiberius Claudius Nero.
Mother - Livia Drusilla

First wife - Vipsania Agrippina.
Son - Julius Caesar Drusus.

The second wife is Julia the Elder.
Son - Claudius Nero.

16.03.0037

Tiberius Julius Caesar

Roman Emperor (14-37)

Pontifex

The second Roman emperor from the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Great Pontiff. Consul. During his reign, Jesus Christ was crucified. Mentioned in the Gospel of Luke under the name of Tiberius Caesar.

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus was born on November 16, 42 BC in the city of Rome. The boy was the son of Senator Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla, the stepson of Augustus after Livia's remarriage. He belonged to a branch of the ancient patrician family of Claudius. In his younger years, he fought a lot on the outskirts of a vast empire.

He first became famous for the fact that, commanding a small army, he forced the Parthians to return the eagles of the Roman legions, which they had previously conquered. Later, already in the position of praetor, Tiberius fought in Europe. After successes in Transalpine Gaul, he received the powers of consul. Returning to Rome, he found himself at the center of political intrigues.

Emperor Augustus forced him to divorce his wife and married his daughter. However, the marriage was unsuccessful. Soon Tiberius went into voluntary exile in Rhodes. Later, Augustus returned him to Rome, where he received the title of tribune and became the second man in the capital.

After the death of Augustus, August 19 at age 14 Tiberius became emperor. He continued to rule, preserving the traditions of the previous ruler. Not striving for new territorial acquisitions, he finally consolidated Roman power in the vast empire of Augustus. Until then, order and calm reigned in the provinces; the just demands of the legions: the reduction in service life and the increase in salaries were satisfied, but the strictest discipline was restored. Desperate governors, corrupt judges and greedy publicans met a formidable pursuer in Tiberias. There was also a fight against sea robbery.

Tiberius departed from the norms of relatively short-term proconsular governorship, especially in the most prestigious provinces of Africa and Asia. Governors and officials often remained in their provinces for many years: Lucius Ellius Lamia ruled Syria for nine years, Lucius Arruntius ruled Spain for the same number of years, and in both cases these governors did not leave Rome at all and ruled their provinces only nominally. On the other hand, Mark Junius Silan was in fact the governor of Africa for six years, and Publius Petronius of Asia, Gaius Silius commanded the Upper German army from 14 to 21 years.

Of all the governors of Tiberius, the most famous without a doubt is Pontius Pilate, under whom Jesus Christ was crucified. Another prominent position was occupied by Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus, who from the age of 12 until his death remained the governor of Moesia, and in the 15th year also received Macedonia and Achaia.

Due to tax increases in the provinces, Tiberius made his famous demand "that his sheep be sheared, not skinned." Indeed, in the West there was only one uprising due to higher taxes - in 21 among the Trevers and Aedui. Much more significant than the battles in Gaul were the unrest in Thrace. Separatist sentiments began there, during which the bands of Reskuporis, the king of the northern part of the province, began to attack the territories of the de facto co-ruler, Kotys. After the intervention of Rome, Cotys was killed, but Reskuporis fell into a trap and was taken to Rome, where he was completely deprived of power by the senate and deported to Alexandria.

Under Tiberius, the economy was recovering. The emperor cut many expenses, including military ones. Rome moved from a policy of capturing new lands to a policy of strengthening borders and developing provinces. Despite the stinginess, Tiberius allocated huge sums for the restoration of cities affected by earthquakes, built many roads. However, the policy of the emperor did not like the nobility, conspiracies and assassination attempts forced him to stay outside the walls of Rome for a long time, in his villa in Mizena.

Tiberius. Marble. St. Petersburg.
State Hermitage.

Tiberius I, Claudius Nero - Roman emperor from the Julius - Claudius clan, who ruled in 14-37 years Rod November 16, 42 BC. + March 16, 37

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (42 BC - 37 AD) - the second Roman emperor, from the Julio-Claudian dynasty. According to Gumilyov, Tiberius was a dry man, very businesslike, he accepted the veneration of himself as a god. And after that in Roman Empire, from Tiberius to Constantine, the emperor was revered as a god, whoever he was. Because he was the standard by which every Roman citizen or subject of the empire had to be equal. Any deviation from this imperative, whether in Europe, in the Muslim world, in the Eastern Christian, in the Far East, or even among the Indians of Central America, was seen as something odious and unacceptable ( "Strings of History", 294).

Quoted from: Lev Gumilyov. Encyclopedia. / Ch. ed. E.B. Sadykov, comp. T.K. Shanbai, - M., 2013, p. 578.

Tiberius Claudius Nero (Roman emperor 14-37). Emperor's stepson august, the son of his wife Livia from his first marriage, Tiberius was not immediately recognized as heir. After a quick and successful career as a general, he retired into self-imposed exile on the island of Rhodes. And only after the death of all contenders for the throne, he was recognized as heir and co-ruler at the age of 56. Tiberius remained loyal to the policies of Augustus, but due to the economic course (which, by the way, strengthened state structures) and severe cruel character, he was never popular, unlike his adopted son Germanicus, who probably became a victim of suspicion and envy Tiberius. At the same time, the emperor was heavily dependent on the praetorian guards, and primarily on the prefect Sejanus, who stimulated many trials and executions, with the most common accusation being an affront to the emperor's majesty. Tiberius spent the last ten years of his life on the island of Capri; reports about his orgies Suetonius. Tacitus fixed the image of a tyrant and a hypocrite for Tiberius, this characteristic, however, is not consistent with the latest research by scientists.

Who is who in the ancient world. Directory. Ancient Greek and Roman Classics. Mythology. Story. Art. Politics. Philosophy. Compiled by Betty Radish. Translation from English by Mikhail Umnov. M., 1993, p. 260-261.

Tiberius, the stepson of Augustus, belonged to the ancient patrician family of the Claudians. His father in the Alexandrian war was the quaestor of Gaius Caesar and, commanding the fleet, greatly contributed to his victory. In the Perusian war, he fought on the side of Lucius Antony and, after the defeat, fled first to Pompey in Sicily, and then to Antony - in Achaia. At the conclusion of a general peace, he returned to Rome and here, at the request of Augustus, gave him his wife, Livia Drusilla, who by this time had already given birth to a son, Liberius, and was pregnant with her second child. Shortly thereafter, Claudius died. The infancy and childhood of Tiberius were difficult and restless, as he accompanied his parents everywhere in their flight. Many times during this time his life was on the verge of death. But when his mother became the wife of Augustus, his position changed dramatically. He began military service in 26 BC. during the Cantabrian campaign, where he was an army tribune, and a civil tribune in 23 BC, when, in the presence of Augustus, he defended King Archelaus, the inhabitants of Trall and the inhabitants of Thessaly in several processes and brought Fannius Caepion to court, who, with Varro Murena plotted against Augustus, and secured his conviction for lèse majesté. In the same year he was elected quaestor.

In 20 B.C. Tiberius led the march of the Roman troops to the east, returned the Armenian kingdom to Tirana, and in his camp, in front of the tribune of the commander, laid a diadem on him. He received the praetorship in 16 BC. After her, for about a year he ruled Shaggy Gaul, restless because of the strife of the leaders and the raids of the barbarians, and in 15 BC. waged war in Illyria with vindeliki and rets. Tiberius became consul for the first time in 13 BC.

The first time he married Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Agrippa. But although they lived in harmony and she had already given birth to his son Drusus and was pregnant for the second time, he was led in the II year BC. give her a divorce and immediately marry Julia, daughter of Augustus. For him, this was an immeasurable spiritual anguish: he had a deep affection for Agrippina. Julia, by her disposition, was disgusting to him - he remembered that even under her first husband she was looking for intimacy with him, and they even talked about it everywhere. He missed Agrippina even after the divorce; and when he happened to meet her only once, he followed her with such a long and full of tears that measures were taken so that she would never again come into his eyes. At first, he lived in harmony with Julia and answered her with love, but then he began to move away from her more and more; and after the son, who was the guarantee of their union, was gone, he even slept separately. This son was born in Aquileia and died as an infant.

In 9 B.C. Tiberius waged war in Pannonia and conquered the Brevci and Dolmatians. For this campaign he was awarded a standing ovation. The next year he had to fight in Germany. They write that he captured 40,000 Germans, settled them in Gaul near the Rhine and entered Rome in triumph. In 6 B.C. he was given tribune power for five years.

But in the midst of these successes, in the prime of life and strength, he suddenly decided to retire and retire as far as possible. Perhaps he was driven to this attitude towards his wife, whom he could neither blame nor reject, but he could no longer endure; perhaps - the desire not to arouse hostility towards himself in Rome and to strengthen his influence by his removal. Neither the request of his mother, who begged him to stay, nor the complaint of his stepfather in the senate that he was leaving it, did not shake him; meeting even more determined resistance, he refused food for four days.

Finally obtaining permission to leave, he immediately set off for Ostia, leaving his wife and son in Rome, without saying a word to any of those who were seeing him off, and kissing only a few goodbye. From Ostia he sailed along the coast of Campania. Here he lingered was at the news of the illness of Augustus; but since rumors began to spread that he was waiting for his wildest hopes to come true, he set off into the sea almost in the very storm and finally reached Rhodes. The beauty and healthy air of this island attracted him even when he anchored here on his way from Armenia.

Here he began to live as a simple citizen, content with a modest house and a little more spacious villa. Without a lictor and without a messenger, he now and then walked around the gymnasium and communicated with the local Greeks almost as an equal. He was a regular visitor to philosophical schools and readings.

In 2 B.C. he learned that Julia, his wife, had been condemned for debauchery and adultery, and that Augustus, on his behalf, had given her a divorce. He was glad of this news, but nevertheless considered it his duty, as much as he could, to intercede with his stepfather for his daughter in his repeated letters. The following year, Tiberius' term as tribune expired, and he considered returning to Rome and visiting his relatives. However, in the name of Augustus, it was announced to him that he would leave all concern for those whom he so willingly left. Now he was forced to remain in Rhodes against his will. Tiberius withdrew into the interior of the island, abandoned the usual exercises with a horse and weapons, abandoned his father's clothes, put on a Greek cloak and sandals, and lived in this form for almost two years, every year more and more despised and hated.

Augustus allowed him to return only in the year 2, on the condition that he would not take any part in public affairs. Tiberius settled in the gardens of the Maecenas, indulged in complete peace and was engaged only in private affairs. Nona, three years later, Gaius and Lucius, the grandsons of Augustus, to whom he intended to transfer power, died. Then, in the year 4, Augustus adopted Tiberius together with the brother of the deceased, Marcus Agrippa, but first Tiberius had to adopt his nephew Germanicus.

Since then, nothing has been lost for the rise of Tiberius - especially after the excommunication and exile of Agrippa, when he obviously remained the only heir. Immediately after the adoption, he again received tribune power for five years and was entrusted with the pacification of Germany. For three years, Tiberius pacified the Cherusci and the Chavci, strengthened the borders along the Elbe and fought against Marobod. In the year 6, news came of the fall of Illyria and an uprising in Pannonia and Dalmatia. He was also entrusted with this war, the most difficult of the external wars of the Romans after the Punic one. With fifteen legions and an equal number of auxiliaries, Tiberius had to fight for three years with the greatest hardships of every kind and extreme lack of food. He was recalled more than once, but he stubbornly continued the war, fearing that a strong and close enemy, having met a voluntary concession, would go on the attack. And for this perseverance he was richly rewarded: all Illyricum, which stretches from Italy and Noricum to Thrace and Macedonia, and from the Danube to the Adriatic Sea, he subjugated and brought to obedience.

Circumstances made this victory even more important. Just about this time, Quintilius Varus died in Germany with three legions, and no one doubted that the German victors would have united with the Pannonians if Illyricum had not been conquered before that. Therefore, Tiberius was assigned a triumph and many other honors.

In 10, Tiberius again went to Germany. He knew that the reason for the defeat of Varus was the recklessness and carelessness of the commander. Therefore, he showed extraordinary vigilance, preparing for the crossing of the Rhine, and himself, standing at the crossing, checked each cart for anything in it that was beyond the proper and necessary. And beyond the Rhine, he led such a life that he ate sitting on the bare grass, and often slept without a tent. He maintained order in the army with the greatest severity, restoring the old ways of censure and punishment. With all this, he entered into battles often and willingly, and in the end he succeeded. Returning to Rome in 12, Tiberius celebrated his Pannonian triumph.

In 13, the consuls introduced a law that Tiberius, together with Augustus, would govern the provinces and take a census. He made a five-year sacrifice and went to Illyricum, but from the road he was immediately called back to his dying father. He found August already exhausted, but still alive, and remained alone with him all day.

He kept the death of Augustus a secret until the young Agrippa was put to death. He was killed by a military tribune assigned to him to protect him, having received a written order about this. It is not known whether the dying Augustus left this order or whether Livia dictated on his behalf with or without the knowledge of Tiberius. Tiberius himself, when the tribune reported to him that the order had been executed, declared that he had not given such an order.

Although he decided without hesitation to immediately accept the supreme power and already surrounded himself with armed guards, a pledge and a sign of dominance, however, he renounced power for a long time, playing the most shameless comedy: then he reproachfully told his imploring friends that they did not know what this monster - power, then with ambiguous answers and ostentatious indecision kept the senate in tense ignorance, approaching him with kneeling requests. Some even lost patience: someone, amidst the general noise, exclaimed: “Let him rule or let him go!”; someone told him to his face that others were slow to do what they had promised, while he was slow to promise what he was already doing. Finally, as if against his will, with bitter complaints about the painful slavery he imposed on himself, he assumed power.

The reason for his hesitation was the fear of the dangers that threatened him from all sides: two rebellions broke out in the troops at once, in Illyricum and Germany. Both troops made many extraordinary demands, and the German troops did not even want to recognize a ruler who was not appointed by them, and with all their might encouraged Germanicus, who was in charge of them, to power, despite his decisive refusal. It was this danger that Tiberius most feared.

After the cessation of the rebellions, finally getting rid of fear, he at first behaved like an exemplary one. Of the many highest honors, he received only a few and modest ones. Even the name of Augustus, which he inherited, he used only in letters to kings and rulers. Since then, he has received the consulate only three times. Compliance was so disgusting to him that he did not let any of the senators near his stretcher either for greetings or on business. Even when in a conversation or in a lengthy speech he heard flattery, he immediately interrupted the speaker, scolded him and immediately corrected him. When someone addressed him as "sovereign", he immediately announced that he should not be insulted like that again. But he endured irreverence, slander, and insulting verses about him patiently and steadfastly, proudly declaring that in a free state both thought and language should be free.

To senators and officials, he retained his former greatness and power. There was no case, small or large, public or private, that he did not report to the Senate. And the rest of the affairs he always conducted in the usual manner through officials. The consuls enjoyed such reverence that Tiberius himself invariably stood in front of them and always gave way.

But gradually he made me feel the ruler in himself. His natural sullenness and innate cruelty began to manifest themselves more and more often. At first he acted with an eye to the law and public opinion, but then, filled with contempt for people, he gave full power to his secret vices. In 15, the process of the so-called lèse-majesté was initiated. This old law was hardly applied under Augustus. When Tiberius was asked whether those who were guilty of this law should be brought to justice, he replied: “The laws must be obeyed,” and they began to fulfill them with extreme cruelty. Someone removed the head from the statue of Augustus to replace it with another; the case went to the senate and, in view of the doubts that arose, was investigated under torture. Gradually it came to the point that it was considered a capital crime if someone beat a slave or changed clothes in front of the statue of Augustus, if he brought a coin or a ring with the image of Augustus to a latrine or a brothel, if he spoke without praise about any of his words or deed. Tiberius turned out to be no less severe towards his relatives. To both of his sons - both to his native Drusus and to his adopted Germanicus - he never experienced paternal love. Germanicus inspired him with envy and fear, as he enjoyed the great love of the people. Therefore, he tried in every possible way to humiliate his most glorious deeds, declaring them useless, and condemning the most brilliant victories as detrimental to the state. In 19, Germanicus died suddenly in Syria, and it was even believed that Tiberius was responsible for his death, giving a secret order to poison his son, which was carried out by the governor of Syria, Piso. Not satisfied with this, Tiberius later transferred his hatred to the entire Germanicus family.

His own son Drusus was disgusted by his vices, as he lived frivolously and dissolutely. When he died in 23 (as it turned out later, poisoned by his wife and her lover Sejanus, prefect of the Praetorians), this did not cause any grief in Tiberius: almost immediately after the funeral, he returned to his usual affairs, forbidding prolonged mourning. The envoys from Illion brought him condolences a little later than the others, - and he, as if grief had already been forgotten, mockingly replied that he, in his turn, sympathizes with them: after all, they lost their best fellow citizen Hector (Suetonius: "Tiberius"; 4, 6, 7-22, 24-28, 30-31, 38, 52.58).

In 26, Tiberius decided to settle away from Rome. It is reported that he was expelled from the capital by the lust for power of his mother Livia, whom he did not want to recognize as his co-ruler and from whose claims he could not get rid of, because the power itself went to him through her: it was reliably known that Augustus was thinking of transferring the principate to Germanicus, and only after many requests of his wife surrendered to her persuasion and adopted Tiberius. With this, Livia constantly reproached her son, demanding gratitude from him (Tacitus: "Annals"; 4; 57). From then on, Tiberius never returned to Rome.

At first, he sought solitude in Campania, and in 27 he moved to Capri - the island attracted him primarily because it was possible to land on it in only one small place, and on the other sides it was surrounded by the highest cliffs and the depths of the sea. True, the people immediately secured his return with relentless requests, since a misfortune occurred in Fideny: an amphitheater collapsed at the gladiatorial games, and more than twenty thousand people died. Tiberius moved to the mainland and allowed everyone to come to him. Satisfying all the petitioners, he returned to the island and finally left all government affairs. He no longer replenished the decuries of horsemen, did not appoint either prefects or military tribunes, did not change governors in the provinces; Spain and Syria were left without consular legates for several years, Armenia was captured by the Parthians, Moesia by the Dacians and Sarmatians. Gaul was devastated by the Germans - but he did not pay attention to this, to great shame and no less damage to the state (Suetonius: "Tiberius"; 39-41). Tiberius had at his disposal twelve villas with palaces, each of which had its own name; and as much as before he was absorbed in the cares of the state, so now he indulged in secret lust and vile idleness (Tacitus: "Annals"; 4; 67). He started special bed rooms, nests of hidden debauchery. Gathered in crowds from everywhere, girls and boys vying with each other copulated in front of him in threes, arousing his fading lust with this spectacle. Here and there he adorned the bedrooms with pictures and statues of the most obscene quality, and laid out the books of Elephantis in them, so that everyone in his labors would have at hand the prescribed sample. Even in the forests and groves, he arranged places of Venus everywhere, where in the grottoes and between the rocks, young people of both sexes portrayed fauns and nymphs in front of everyone. He also got boys of the tenderest age, whom he called his fish and with whom he played in bed. He was inclined to lust of this kind both by nature and by old age. Therefore, the painting of Parrasius, which depicted the copulation of Meleager and Atlanta, refused to him by will, he not only accepted, but also placed it in his bedroom. They say that even during the sacrifice, he once became so inflamed with the charm of a boy carrying a censer that he could not resist, and after the ceremony almost immediately took him aside and corrupted, and at the same time his brother, a flutist; but when after that they began to reproach each other with dishonor, he ordered that their knees be broken. He mocked women, even the most noble ones.

29 turned out to be fatal for many relatives of Tiberius. First of all, Livia, his mother, with whom he had been at odds for many years, died. Tiberius began to move away from her immediately after taking power, and openly broke after she, in a fit of annoyance at his ingratitude, read out some ancient letters of Augustus, where he complained about the cruelty and stubbornness of Tiberius. He was immensely offended that these letters were kept for so long and were turned against him so maliciously. In all three years from his departure to her death, he saw her only once. He did not visit her later when she fell ill, and made her wait in vain when she died, so that her body was buried only many days later, already decomposing and rotting. He forbade her deification, and declared the will invalid, but he dealt with all his friends and relatives very soon (Suetonius: "Tiberius"; 43-45, 51).

This was followed by the time of boundless and merciless autocracy. During the life of Livia, there was still some kind of refuge for the persecuted, since Tiberius had long been accustomed to obey his mother, and Sejanus, his evil genius and earpiece, did not dare to rise above the authority of his parent; now both of them rushed, as if freed from a bridle, and attacked the widow of Germanicus Agrippina and her son Nero (Tacitus: "Annals"; 5; 3). Tiberius never loved her, but involuntarily hid his feelings, as the people transferred to her and her children the love that they always had for Germanicus. Sejanus strongly inflated this hostility. He sent imaginary well-wishers to her, so that they, under the guise of friendship, warned her that poison had been prepared for her and that she should avoid the dishes offered to her by her father-in-law. And so, when Agrippina had to lie down at the table near the princeps, she was gloomy and silent, did not touch a single dish. Tiberius noticed this; by chance, or perhaps wanting to test her, he praised the fruits placed before him and handed them to his daughter-in-law with his own hand. This further strengthened the suspicions of Agrippina, and she, not having tasted the fruits, handed them over to the slaves (Tacitus: "Annals"; 4; 54). After that, Tiberius did not even invite her to the table, offended by the fact that he was accused of poisoning. For several years Agrippina lived in disgrace, abandoned by all her friends. Finally, slandering her, as if she wanted to seek salvation either at the statue of Augustus, or at the army, Tiberius exiled her to the island of Pandatheria, and when she began to grumble, her eyes were beaten. Agrippina decided to die of hunger, but her mouth was forcibly opened and food was put in. And even when she, stubbornly, died, Tiberius continued to viciously pursue her: from now on, he ordered her very day of birth to be considered unlucky. Two sons of Agrippina - Nero and Drusus - were declared enemies of the fatherland and starved to death.

However, Sejanus was not able to take advantage of the fruits of his treachery. In 31, already suspecting him of intrigues against himself, Tiberius, under the pretext of a consulate, removed Sejanus from Capri (Suetonius: "Tiberius"; 53-54, 65). Then Antonia, the widow of his brother Drusus, reported to Tiberius that Sejanus was preparing a conspiracy, intending to deprive him of power with the help of the Praetorians (Flavius: Antiquities of the Jews; 18; 6; 6). Tiberius ordered the prefect to be seized and executed. During the investigation, many atrocities of Sejanus were revealed, including the fact that, on his orders, Drusus, the son of Tiberius, was poisoned. After that, Tiberius became especially ferocious and showed his true face. Not a day passed without execution, whether it was a holiday or a reserved day. With many, children and children of their children were condemned together. Relatives of the executed were forbidden to mourn them. Accusers, and often witnesses, were given any rewards. No denunciation was denied credibility. Any crime was considered criminal, even a few innocent words. The bodies of the executed were thrown into the Tiber. An old custom forbade killing virgins with a noose - therefore, underage girls were corrupted by an executioner before execution. Many were tortured and executed on Capri, and then the corpses were thrown from a high cliff into the sea. Tiberius even came up with a new method of torture: people were drunk with pure wine, and then their limbs were suddenly bandaged, and they languished from the cutting bandage and from urinary retention.

Shortly before his death, he went to Rome, but, seeing its walls from a distance, he ordered to turn back, without stopping at the city. He hurried back to Capri, but fell ill in Astura. After recovering a little, he reached Mizenum and then finally fell ill (Suetonius: "Tiberius"; 61-62, 72-73). When those around decided that Tiberius's breathing had stopped and began to congratulate Gaius Caesar, the last surviving son of Germanicus and his heir, they suddenly reported that Tiberius had opened his eyes, his voice returned to him and he asked to bring him food. This news plunged everyone into awe, but the prefect of the Praetorians, Macron, who did not lose his composure, ordered the old man to be strangled, Throwing a heap of clothes over him. Such was the end of Tiberius in the seventy-eighth year of his life (Tacitus: "Annals"; 50).

All the monarchs of the world. Ancient Greece. Ancient Rome. Byzantium. Konstantin Ryzhov. Moscow, 2001

Tiberius. Marble. Rome. Torlonia Museum.

Tiberius Claudius Nero, who went down in history under the name of Tiberius, the eldest son of Libya from his first marriage, was born in 42 BC. e.; after his adoption by Augustus in 4, Tibsrius Julius Caesar became known; having become emperor, he officially called himself Tiberius Caesar Augustus.

By nature, Tibsrius was not stupid, his character was reserved and secretive. As Dion Cassius writes, “he was a man with many good and many bad qualities, and when he showed good things, it seemed that there was nothing bad in him, and vice versa” (Dion Cass. 58, 28).

Augustus played with the fate of Tiberius as easily as with the fate of all his relatives. Having decided to marry him to his daughter Julia the Elder, Augustus did not take into account the fact that Tibsrius was very attached to his wife Vipeania Agrippina, from whom he had a son Drusus the Younger and who was expecting a second child.

Tiberius obeyed the order of Augustus, divorced his beloved wife and married the hated Julia the Elder.

“For him it was an immense mental anguish: he had a deep heartfelt attachment to Agrippina. Julia was disgusted by her disposition - he remembered that even under her first husband she was looking for intimacy with him, and they even talked about it everywhere. He yearned for Agrippina even after the divorce, and when he happened to meet her only once, he followed her with such a look, long and full of tears, that measures were taken so that she would never again come into his eyes ”(Light. Tib. 7 ).

After living for some time with Julia the Elder, Tiberius in 6 BC. e. left Rome and went to the island of Rhodes, where he spent eight years in self-imposed exile. After breaking up with Julia, he was no longer married.

Augustus adopted Tiberius only in the year 4, when he was already 46 years old, and he was an unfriendly, impenetrable, arrogant, hypocritical, cold-blooded and cruel man.

“People said that once, after a secret conversation with Tiberius, when he left, the sleeping bags heard the words of Augustus: “Poor Roman people, what slow jaws he will fall into!” It is also not unknown that Augustus openly and openly condemned the cruel temper of Tiberius, that more than once, when he approached him, he interrupted too cheerful or frivolous conversation, that he even agreed to adopt him only to please his wife’s stubborn requests and, perhaps, only in a vain hope. that with such a successor, the people will rather regret him ”(St. Tib. 21).
Suetonius writes about the beginning of the reign of Tiberius:

“He convened the Senate and turned to him with a speech, but, as if unable to overcome his grief for the deceased Augustus, he exclaimed with sobs that it would be better for him not only to lose his voice, but also to lose his life, and handed over the text of the speech for reading to his son Drusus Junior.
Although Tiberius did not hesitate to assume the possession of power and began to use it, although he had already surrounded himself with armed guards, a pledge and a symbol of domination, yet in words he renounced power for a long time, playing the most shameless comedy. Either he reproachfully told his pleading friends that they did not even know what a monster this power is, then he kept the senate in tense ignorance with ambiguous answers and cunning indecision, which approached him with kneeling requests. Some even lost patience, and someone, amidst the general noise, exclaimed: “Let him rule or let him go!” Someone told him to his face that others were slow to do what they had promised, while he was slow to promise what he was already doing. Finally, as if against his will, with bitter complaints about the painful slavery he imposed on himself, he assumed power. But here, too, he tried to inspire hope that someday he would resign his power; here are his words: “...until it seems to you that the time has come to give rest to my old age” (St. Tib. 23-24).

“And in Rome, meanwhile, consuls, senators, and horsemen began to compete in the expression of servility. The more noble someone was, the more hypocritical he was and looked for a proper facial expression, so that it could not seem that he was either happy about the death of Augustus, or, on the contrary, saddened by the beginning of a new principate: this is how they mixed tears and joy, mournful lamentations and flattery ”(Tats Ann. 1, 7).

The Senate kowtowed to Tiberius so frankly that he got into the habit, “leaving the Senate building, to say in Greek: “O people created for slavery!”. Obviously, even he, with all his hatred of civil freedom, was disgusted by such base servility” (Tats. Ann. III, 65).

Under Tiberius, according to the figurative definition of Tacitus, “traces of dying freedom still remained” (Tats. Ann. I, 74).
Tiberius left the senate some semblance of its former greatness and sometimes kept silent at meetings, not using the right of the princeps to be the first to state his opinion. True, the senators felt even worse from such "respect for freedom", because it was difficult for them to guess what the secretive emperor wanted.

Tiberius forever deprived the popular assembly of the right to choose officials; this right he transferred to the Senate.

Under Tiberius, the word "emperor" still retained the meaning of the highest honorary military title.

“Tiberius graciously allowed the soldiers of the commander Blaise to proclaim him emperor for the victory in Africa; it was an old honor, which the army seized by a joyful impulse rendered to its commander, there were several emperors at the same time, and they did not enjoy any preferential rights. And Augustus allowed some to bear this title, and Tiberius allowed Blaise, but - for the last time ”(Tatz. Ann. III, 74).

Subsequently, the title "emperor" became the privilege of the princeps alone, and gradually the princeps began to be called emperor.
Strengthening his power, Tiberius in 21-22. built a military camp on the outskirts of Rome, which housed all the Praetorian cohorts - the personal troops of the princeps.

Tiberius did not seriously think about expanding the borders of the Roman Empire and abandoned an active policy of conquest.
Tiberius put all the malice of his perverted soul into the fight against the Roman nobility; he gave full force to the so-called law of insulting the majesty of the Roman people and the person of the emperor, which played the most regrettable role in the history of the Roman Empire.
Tacitus explains it this way:

“Tiberius restored the law on humiliation of majesty, which, bearing the same name in the old days, pursued a completely different one: it was directed only against those who caused damage to the army by betrayal, civil unity by unrest, and, finally, the greatness of the Roman people by bad government ; deeds were condemned, words brought no punishment. Augustus was the first to inquire into malicious writings on the basis of this law, indignant at the audacity with which Cassius Severus denigrated noble men and women in his impudent writings; and then Tiberius, when Pompey Macro asked him whether to reopen the cases of lese majesty, replied that the laws must be strictly observed. And he was also annoyed by poems distributed by unknown writers about his cruelty and arrogance and disagreement with his mother ”(Tats. Ann. I, 72).

“The most pernicious of all the disasters that those times brought with them was that even the most prominent of the senators did not hesitate to write vile denunciations, some openly, many secretly” (Tats. Ann. VI, 7).

Gradually, year by year, Tiberius became more and more gloomy, unsociable and cruel.

In 27, he parted forever with Rome and retired to Capri; this small island was the property of Octavian Augustus, who built a modest summer villa there for himself. Tiberius built eleven more luxurious villas with palaces. Constantly moving from one villa to another, the reclusive emperor ruled the Roman Empire from there, indulging in vile debauchery and terrifying everyone; persons objectionable to him, at his command, were thrown into the sea from a steep rocky shore near the villa of Jupiter, the most magnificent of all Above the famous Blue Grotto was the villa of Damekut, a legend has been preserved that, through a secret passage in the rock, the gloomy emperor descended into a grotto decorated with marble statues and bathed in it waters.

However, even in Capri there was no salvation for Tiberius from his own crippled and vicious soul. One of his letters to the Senate began like this: “What should you write, most respectable fathers of senators, or how should you write, or what should you not write about at the present time? If I know this, then may the gods and goddesses send me even more painful suffering than those that I feel every day and which lead me to death.
Tacitus, who preserved these words for history, adds:

“So his own villainy and abominations turned out to be an execution for him! And it is not for nothing that the wisest of the wise, Socrates, used to say that if we could look into the soul of tyrants, then we would have a spectacle of wounds and ulcers, for as whips tear the body, so cruelty, lust and evil thoughts tear the soul And indeed, neither autocracy nor solitude protected Tiberius from mental anguish and torment, in which he himself confessed ”(Tats. Ann. VI, 6)

Tiberius died in 37 at the age of seventy-eight. Tacitus describes his death thus:

“Already Tiberius left the bodily, left the vital forces, but still did not leave the pretense, he retained the former callousness of the spirit and coldness in speech and in his eyes, but sometimes forced himself to friendliness, trying to hide behind it the extinction already obvious to everyone. Even more often than before, moving from place to place, he finally settled, at the Misensky Cape (near Naples), in the estate that once belonged to Lucius Lucullus.

There it was discovered that he was on the verge of death; and it happened in the following way.

Among his confidants was one very skillful doctor named Charicles, who not only treated him constantly (Tiberius did not like to be treated and was always in good health), but was with him in case he needed medical advice. And so Charicles, saying that, allegedly, he was going somewhere on his own business, as a sign of respectful farewell, touched Tiberius’s hand and felt his pulse. But he did not deceive the emperor, and Tiberius, perhaps angry at this and therefore tried all the more not to show anger, ordered to prepare a feast and stayed on it longer than usual, as if wanting to pay attention to the departing friend Charicles, however, he confidently told Macron, the prefect of the praetorian (head of the praetorian cohorts), that life in Tiberius was barely glimmering and that he would not last more than two days. This alarmed everyone: continuous meetings of those around went, and messengers rushed to the legates (commanders of the legions) and to the troops.

17 days before the April kalends (March 16), Tiberius' breath stopped, and everyone decided that his life had left him. And already in front of a large group of congratulators, the heir Gaius Caesar (Caligula) appeared to take the reins of government into his own hands, when it suddenly became known that Tiberius had opened his eyes, his voice returned to him and he asked to bring him food to restore the forces that had left him.

This terrifies everyone, and the assembled scatter, again assuming a mournful look and trying to seem ignorant of what has happened, while Gaius Caesar, who had just seen himself as a ruler, plunged into silence, expecting the worst possible outcome for himself.
But Macron, who has not lost his self-control and determination, orders Tiberius to be strangled by throwing a pile of clothes over him ”(Tats. Ann. VI, 50)
Tiberius was not deified.

Materials of the book were used: Fedorova E.V. Imperial Rome in person. Rostov-on-Don, Smolensk, 1998.

Read further:

All Romans(biographical index in alphabetical order)

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Pilate Pontius (I in AD), the fifth Roman procurator of Judea, Samaria and Idumea under the emperor Tiberius.

TIBERIUS(Tiberius Caesar Augustus, at birth was named Tiberius Claudius Nero, Tiberius Claudius Nero) (42 BC - 37 AD), Roman emperor from 14 to 37 AD. His mother Livia divorced her husband in 38 BC to marry Octavian (later Emperor Augustus). After Tiberius was adopted by Augustus (4 AD), he was called Tiberius (Julius) Caesar, and after the death of Augustus - Tiberius Caesar Augustus. Tiberius accompanied Augustus on a trip to the East in 20 BC. (and represented in his person the person of the emperor at the coronation of the king of Armenia, and also received from the Parthians the Roman military banners they had taken during the defeat of Crassus in 53 BC) and to Gaul in 16 BC, and then devoted himself to the main way of a military career. He conquered Pannonia on the Danube (in 12-9 BC), after which he led campaigns in Germany (9-7 BC and again in 4-6 AD). In 6–9 AD Tiberius suppressed uprisings in Illyricum and Pannonia. Tiberius subjugated the area in the north of the Empire up to the Rhine and Danube and consolidated Roman domination here, turning these rivers into the northern borders of the Roman Empire.

Tiberius' personal life was sacrificed by Augustus to his dynastic combinations. In 11 BC Augustus forced Tiberius to divorce his pregnant wife, Vipsania Agrippina, by whom he already had a son, Tiberius Drusus, and to marry Augustus's widowed daughter Julia. This marriage was unsuccessful, and, perhaps, had a detrimental effect on the character of Tiberius. Augustus' plan was to make Tiberius guardian of Julia's two eldest sons from her marriage to Agrippa, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, to one of whom Augustus planned to transfer power. But in 6 BC. Tiberius was tired of being an obedient tool, he retired and retired to the Greek island of Rhodes, where he was until 2 AD. This caused the displeasure of Augustus, especially since just before that he had endowed Tiberius with the powers of a tribune for a five-year term. In 2 BC Augustus condemned Julia to exile for adultery and facilitated her divorce from Tiberius. In 4 AD, after the death of Lucius and Gaius Caesar, Augustus adopted Tiberius, obliging him to adopt Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus and great-nephew of Augustus. For the next 10 years, Tiberius was, in essence, the co-ruler of the emperor.

Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, and on September 17, a meeting of the Senate took place, at which a kind of competition in hypocrisy took place: the senators pretended that they could not wait to express their admiration for the new sovereign, and Tiberius pretended to be unworthy of this honor and unable to accept responsibility for the Empire. In the end, of course, he gave in to the requests.

The Principate of Tiberius passed under the sign of fidelity to the precepts of Augustus. In the field of foreign policy, he followed the principle of maintaining existing borders. After the death of King Archelaus in 17 AD. Cappadocia became a Roman province. Mathezhi in Lugdun Gaul in 21 AD were easily suppressed. Twice the Roman Empire was threatened by conflict with Parthia, but in 18 AD. Germanicus, who was sent to the East with emergency powers, was able to take him away, and just before the death of the emperor, peace was preserved thanks to the governor of Syria, Lucius Vitellius. The provinces flourished under Tiberius, not least because of the peace and frugality of the emperor.

The Roman population resented the lack of public spectacles, reproaching the emperor for stinginess (after his death, 2.3 billion or even 3.3 billion sesterces remained), although the usual distribution of bread continued under Tiberius, albeit on a smaller scale. Relatives of Tiberius himself and members of the most noble senatorial families were subjected to executions and exiles, and the number of accusations of treason being dealt with in the Senate was constantly increasing. When in 19 A.D. Germanicus died in Syria, the Romans suspected that he was poisoned on the orders of Tiberius. In 23 AD in Rome, the son of Tiberius Drusus died, poisoned by the prefect of the Praetorian guard Elius Sejanus, the right hand of Tiberius. From that moment on, accusations of treason and execution that arose one after another were connected mainly with the problem of succession to the throne. Hatred of society or fear for one's life (but by no means a desire to indulge in heinous perversions, as gossipers claimed) prompted Tiberius to leave Rome and in 26 AD. leave for Capri. The absence of Tiberius had a negative impact on the administration of the Empire. Sejanus, who replaced Tiberius in Rome, was eager for power, but in 31 AD. Tiberius accused him of conspiracy and executed him.

In Rome (but not in the provinces), the reign of Tiberius was perceived as a disaster, mainly due to the inability or unwillingness to stop the avalanche of treason trials and because of the emperor's lack of a sense for loyal people. Tiberius died in Campania, where he moved from Capri.

AND I. Kozhurin

Pleasure Cataloging

(emperor Tiberius and destruction

traditional Roman sexuality)

The phenomenon of pleasure in culture. Materials of the international scientific forum

The hero of this text will be the Roman emperor Tiberius, who for many centuries turned into a landmark figure of the era of the principate, who became a symbol of cruelty and refined debauchery. Within the framework of this conference, of course, there is no place to refute the established stereotypes. Let us only recall that even during the life of Augustus, Tiberius successfully commanded the Roman troops in the Illyrian company, which many contemporaries, and not without reason, considered the most difficult of all wars with external enemies, after the Punic wars. This is written not only by Velleius Paterculus in the "Roman History", which is considered official, but also by Suetonius, who can hardly be accused of sympathy for Tiberius.

Tiberius

a photo: corbis

In this regard, the characteristic “great” that O. Spengler rewards our hero, opposing him to the “insignificant” Augustus, is not accidental. We will try to show the non-triviality of Tiberius as a character in the Roman erotic epic. In addition, the emperor of interest to us became the character of one of the most famous films - symbols of the Western sexual revolution. We are talking about "Caligula" by Tinto Brass, where the scandalous director tried to recreate a picture of the debauchery that reigned in the palace of Tiberius on Capri, and P. O "Toole played the role of the princeps himself.

Let us turn to the "Life of the Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius, where the historian gives the genealogy of Tiberius, who belonged to the famous Claudian family. Representatives of the patrician family of Claudius became famous for both many outstanding services to Rome and various crimes. If we talk about the topic of interest to us, then the most famous act was Claudius Regillian, who tried to enslave a free girl, inflamed with passion for her, which led to the separation of the plebeians and a change in the Roman state system (449 BC). It is significant that, speaking of Caligula, Suetonius focuses on the virtues of his parents, in the case of Nero, on the contrary, on the negative personal qualities of the ancestors, but in the genealogy of Tiberius, he emphasizes the combination of good and criminal deeds.

Indeed, in comparison with the obviously insane successor and the guarding Nero, Tiberius looks like a man who is undoubtedly sane, responsible for his actions, and in this respect mysterious. So even Tacitus, who experienced negative feelings towards Tiberius, was forced to single out several periods in the life of the hero of our article. In the Annals, we find the following characterization of Tiberius: “his life was impeccable, and he deservedly enjoyed good fame, as long as he did not hold any office or, under Augustus, took part in government; he became secretive and cunning, pretending to be highly virtuous, while Germanicus and Drusus were alive; he combined good and bad in himself until the death of his mother; he was disgusting in his cruelty, but concealed from everyone his low passions, while he favored Sejanus, or, perhaps, was afraid of him; and in the end, with equal unrestraint, he indulged in crimes and vile vices, forgetting about shame and fear and obeying only his own desires ”(VI, 51. Per. A.S. Bobovich).

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P. Kinyar in the book “Sex and Fear” draws attention to Tiberius’s strange propensity for solitude for a ruler, calling him an anchorite emperor (Kinyar P. Sex and Fear: Essay. M, 2000, p. 22). At the same time, one can recall that our hero reluctantly accepted sole power after the death of his stepfather and even proposed to the Senate to revive the republic, but this idea was almost unanimously rejected by the senators. In addition, shortly after Tiberius assumed the highest government post, several attempts on his life were uncovered. Tacitus explained Tiberius's propensity for solitude for quite prosaic reasons - the desire to hide his cruelty and voluptuousness from his fellow citizens, and the famous historian repeats this explanation in several places of the Annals (IV, 57; VI, 1). However, he gives another interpretation of the behavior of the emperor - in old age, Tiberius was ashamed of his appearance (when he came to power he was already 56 years old, and he left Rome at the age of 68).

It should be noted that, before leaving Rome, the emperor showed a penchant for luxury and excess, although in his youth he participated in a number of military campaigns, where he behaved exemplarily - he ate sitting on the grass, slept without a tent, received visitors at any time of the day and etc. So, having delivered a speech in the Senate against Cestius Gallus, an old libertine and spendthrift, Tiberius, a few days later, himself asked for dinner with him, ordering that nothing of the usual luxury be canceled and naked girls served at the table. Also, while still in Rome, the emperor established the position of manager of pleasures, to which he appointed the Roman horseman Titus Caesonius Priscus, which was new. However, this innovation took root and, for example, surrounded by Nero, we will meet Petronius, the arbiter of pleasures (the hypothetical author of the famous Satyricon).

We turn to the most interesting aspect of Tiberius' life for this work, which characterizes him as a kind of cataloguer of pleasures. Let us turn to Suetonius, who wrote in the Life of the Twelve Caesars: “on Capri, being in solitude, he went so far as to have special bed rooms, nests of hidden debauchery. The girls and boys gathered in crowds from everywhere - among them were those inventors of monstrous voluptuousness, whom he called "spintriy" - vying with each other copulated in front of him in threes, arousing his fading lust with this spectacle ”(Tiberius, 43. Translated by M.L. Gasparov). By the way, Vitellius, one of the twelve Caesars, began his court career among the spintrii. It was said that the first elevation of Father Vitellius was the result of sexual favors rendered by his son to the emperor in Capri.

And here is what we find about the Caprian entertainments of Tiberius in the Annals of Tacitus: “Then for the first time such previously unknown words as sellaria and spintrii came into use - one associated with the name of the vile place where these debauchery was committed, the other with its monstrous appearance » (VI, 1). However, Tacitus was most outraged by the fact that free-born youths were the object of imperial voluptuousness, who seduced Tiberius not only with bodily beauty, but some with the chastity of youth, others with the nobility of the family. Like most accusers of this kind, the author of the Annals was indignant, in fact, not so much with the actions of the princeps as

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to the fact that his victims were "his own", representatives of the Roman aristocracy. The last slaves of the emperor, either by force or by promises, were lured to Capri. In this regard, Tacitus even compares the Roman emperor with an oriental despot, which indicates an extreme degree of rejection, both of the very style of government of Tiberius and his sexual preferences.

Let us continue, however, with our catalogue. “But he burned with an even more vile and shameful vice: it is a sin to even hear and talk about it, but it is even more difficult to believe it. He got boys of the tenderest age, whom he called his fish, and with whom he played in bed. And again there are references to the old age of our hero, his inability to satisfy erotic desires in the traditional way. Meanwhile, in the same passage, the sexual power of the emperor looks more than convincing: “They say that even during the sacrifice, he once became so inflamed with the charm of a boy carrying a censer that he could not resist, and after the ceremony almost immediately took him aside and corrupted, and at the same time his brother, a flutist; but when after that they began to reproach each other with dishonor, he ordered that their legs be broken” (Tiberius, 44). Thus, Tiberius is accused by the author of the "Life of the Twelve Caesars" not only of pederasty, but also of blasphemy.

However, not only the “material and bodily bottom”, but also the eye of Tiberius demanded satisfaction. So on Capri, on his orders, Venus's places were arranged in the forests and groves, where young men and girls portrayed fauns and nymphs. Equally, his dwelling was decorated with paintings and statues of an obscene nature, and in the books of Elephantis laid out everywhere, any participant in an orgy could find an example of the sexual position that the emperor demanded of him. Suetonius is especially outraged by the fact that Tiberius agreed to accept as a gift a picture of Parrhasius, depicting the copulation of Meleager and Atalanta, although he was offered to receive a million in money instead of her if the plot confuses him. Parrhasius - the most famous Greek painter, considered the founder of the genre of pornography. In one of the paintings, he depicted his beloved, Hetaera Theodotus, naked.

Matrons were also the object of desires of Tiberius, as Suetonius testifies. “He also mocked women, even the most noble ones: this is best shown by the death of a certain Mallonia. He forced her to surrender, but he could not get the rest of her; then he betrayed her to informers, but even at the trial he did not stop asking her if she was sorry. Finally, she loudly called him a hairy and smelly old man with an obscene mouth, ran out of the court, rushed home and stabbed herself with a dagger ”(Tiberius, 45). After that, the following poetic line became popular among the people: "The old goat man licks the goats!"

What in the behavior of Tiberius turned out to be unacceptable for Roman mores? P. Kinyar, whose work we mentioned above, notes that for the Romans, passivity is something obscene. Actions that are permissible in relation to a slave or a freedman are absolutely unacceptable if they are committed in relation to freeborns (Kinyar P. Decree. Op. C. 10). In this respect, Tiberius, who sodomizes young people from noble families, violates a fundamental taboo. True, in fairness, we note that the original predecessors of these

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young people were, for example, Julius Caesar, who in his youth was the lover of the Bithynian king Nicomedes, as well as Octavian Augustus, who achieved his adoption by Caesar at a “shameful price”.

Another point in the behavior of Tiberius, unacceptable to the strict mores of the Romans, was his use of cunnilingus in sexual games. However, he did not make an exception for matrons. It is in this vein that P. Kinyar interprets the emperor's harassment against Mallonia. Meanwhile, the loving feeling that the matron showed to a man, including her lawful husband, is something absolutely alien to the old Roman customs. It is clear that these morals have undergone noticeable corrosion by the time of the reign of Tiberius, but many remembered them - one of them was Mallonia. We will note the revolutionary nature of Tiberius's sexuality - here Ovid Nason, who asserted the equal right of the sexes to pleasure, can be recognized as his predecessor. This, according to Kinyar, caused the wrath of Augustus, who aspired to act as the guardian of the old morals, and exile to Tomy, where the great poet ended his days.

It is significant that one of the first acts of Kalshula who came to power was the destruction of the Tiberian sexual paradise. “The Spintrii, the inventors of monstrous pleasures, he drove out of Rome - he was hardly begged not to drown them in the sea” (Gai Kali gula, 16). However, in the future, Caligula, like his predecessor, proved to be a man unbridled in desires, including those of a sexual nature, although he did not achieve Tiberian sophistication in them. From the point of view of the Romans, these desires, with the exception of incestuous relations with sisters, seemed more or less traditional. The cataloging of pleasures was revived during the reign of Nero, who surpassed Tiberius in destroying traditional Roman behavior by turning his body into an object of sodomy by a freedman.

So Suetonius talks about Nero's connection with the freedman Doryphoros, to whom the princeps was given, "screaming and yelling like a raped girl" (Nero, 29). And here is what is told about the entertainments of the emperor in the Annals of Tacitus: “Nero himself indulged in revelry, not distinguishing between what was permitted and what was not permitted; it seemed that there was no such vileness in which he could show himself even more depraved; but a few days later he entered into marriage, arranging his solemn wedding rites, with one of the crowd of these dirty libertines (his name was Pythagoras); the emperor was wearing a fiery red wedding veil, there were attendants sent by the groom; here you could see a dowry, a marriage bed, wedding torches, and finally everything that covers the darkness of the night and in love joys with a woman ”(XV, 37).

(Tiberius Caesar Augustus, at birth was named Tiberius Claudius Nero, Tiberius Claudius Nero) (42 BC - 37 AD), Roman emperor from 14 to 37 AD. His mother Livia divorced her husband in 38 BC to marry Octavian (later Emperor Augustus). After Tiberius was adopted by Augustus (4 AD), he was called Tiberius (Julius) Caesar, and after the death of Augustus - Tiberius Caesar Augustus. Tiberius accompanied Augustus on a trip to the East in 20 BC. (and represented in his person the person of the emperor at the coronation of the king of Armenia, and also received from the Parthians the Roman military banners they had taken during the defeat of Crassus in 53 BC) and to Gaul in 16 BC, and then devoted himself to the main way of a military career. He conquered Pannonia on the Danube (in 12-9 BC), after which he led campaigns in Germany (9-7 BC and again in 4-6 AD). In 6–9 AD Tiberius suppressed uprisings in Illyricum and Pannonia. Tiberius subjugated the area in the north of the Empire up to the Rhine and Danube and consolidated Roman domination here, turning these rivers into the northern borders of the Roman Empire.

Tiberius' personal life was sacrificed by Augustus to his dynastic combinations. In 11 BC Augustus forced Tiberius to divorce his pregnant wife, Vipsania Agrippina, by whom he already had a son, Tiberius Drusus, and to marry Augustus's widowed daughter Julia. This marriage was unsuccessful, and, perhaps, had a detrimental effect on the character of Tiberius. Augustus' plan was to make Tiberius guardian of Julia's two eldest sons from her marriage to Agrippa, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, to one of whom Augustus planned to transfer power. But in 6 BC. Tiberius was tired of being an obedient tool, he retired and retired to the Greek island of Rhodes, where he was until 2 AD. This caused the displeasure of Augustus, especially since just before that he had endowed Tiberius with the powers of a tribune for a five-year term. In 2 BC Augustus condemned Julia to exile for adultery and facilitated her divorce from Tiberius. In 4 AD, after the death of Lucius and Gaius Caesar, Augustus adopted Tiberius, obliging him to adopt Germanicus, son of his brother Drusus and great-nephew of Augustus. For the next 10 years, Tiberius was, in essence, the co-ruler of the emperor.

Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD, and on September 17, a meeting of the Senate took place, at which a kind of competition in hypocrisy took place: the senators pretended that they could not wait to express their admiration for the new sovereign, and Tiberius pretended to be unworthy of this honor and incapable of accepting responsibility for the Empire. In the end, of course, he gave in to the requests.

The Roman population resented the lack of public spectacles, reproaching the emperor for stinginess (after his death, 2.3 billion or even 3.3 billion sesterces remained), although the usual distribution of bread continued under Tiberius, albeit on a smaller scale. Relatives of Tiberius himself and members of the most noble senatorial families were subjected to executions and exiles, and the number of accusations of treason being dealt with in the Senate was constantly increasing. When in 19 A.D. Germanicus died in Syria, the Romans suspected that he was poisoned by order of Tiberius. In 23 AD in Rome, the son of Tiberius Drusus died, poisoned by the prefect of the Praetorian guard Elius Sejanus, the right hand of Tiberius. From that moment on, accusations of treason and execution that arose one after another were connected mainly with the problem of succession to the throne. Hatred of society or fear for one's life (but by no means a desire to indulge in heinous perversions, as gossipers claimed) prompted Tiberius to leave Rome and in 26 AD. leave for Capri. The absence of Tiberius had a negative impact on the administration of the Empire. Sejanus, who replaced Tiberius in Rome, was eager for power, but in 31 AD. Tiberius accused him of conspiracy and executed him.

Literature

:
Gaius Suetonius Tranquill. Life of the Twelve Caesars. M., 1964
Cornelius Tacitus. Annals. - In the book: Cornelius Tacitus. Works, vol. 1. M., 1993