Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1130

Rh 1118 TIBERIUS. a depraved imagination could suggest: lust and cruelty are not strangers. It is said, too, that he was addicted to excess in wine : he was not originally avaricious, but he became so. He aflfected a regard to decency and to externals. He was the prince of hypocrites ; and the events of his reign are little more than the exhibition of his detestable character. [Tacitus.] Tiberius was about thirteen years of age when he accompanied Augustus in his triumphal entry into Rome (b. c. 29) after the death of M. An- tonius: Tiberius rode on the left of Augustus and Marcellus on his right. Augustus conferred on Tiberius and his brother Drusus titles of dignity, while his grandsons, Cains and Lucius, were still living: but besides Caius and Lucius, Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus, had superior claims to the succession, and the prospect of Tiberius suc- ceeding to the power of his mother's husband seemed at one time very remote. The death of Agrippa made way for Tiberius being employed in public affairs, and Augustus compelled him, much against his will, to divorce his wife Vipsania Agrippina, the daughter of Agrippa, by whom he had one son, and who was then pregnant, and to marry Julia (b. c. 11 ), the widow of Agrippa, and the emperor's daughter, with whom Tiberius did not long live in harmony. He had one child by Julia, but it did not live. He was employed on various military services during the lifetime of Augustus. He made his first campaign in the Cantabrian war as Tribunus Militum. In B. c. 20 he was sent by Augustus to restore Tigranes to the throne of Armenia. Ar- tabazus, the occupant of the throne, was murdered before Tiberius reached Armenia, and Tiberius had no difficulty in accomplishing his mission. (Dion Cass. liv. 9.) It was during this campaign that Horace addressed one of his epistles to Julius Florus (i. 12), who was serving under Tiberius. In B. c. 15, Drusus and his brother Tiberius were engaged in warfare with the Rhaeti, who occupied the Alps of Tridentum (Trento), and the exploits of the two brothers were sung by Horace (Carm. iv. 4, 14 ; Dion Cass. liv. 22.) In b. C. 13 Tiberius was consul with P. Quintilius Varus. In b. c. 11, the same year in which he married Julia, and while his brother Drusus was fighting against the Germans, Tiberius left his new wife to conduct, by the order of Augustus, the war against the Dalma- tians who had revolted, and against the Pannonians. (Dion Cass. liv. 31.) Drusus died (b. c. 9) owing to a fall from his horse, after a campaign against the Germans between the Weser and the Elbe. On the news of the accident, Tiberius was sent by Augustus, who was then at Pavia, to Drusus, whom he found just alive. (Dion Cass. Iv. 2.) He conveyed the body to Rome from the banks of the Rhine, walking all the way before it on foot (Sueton. Tiber. 7), and he pronounced a funeral oration over his brother in the forum. Tiberius returned to the war in Germany, and crossed the Rhine. In B. c. 7 he was again in Rome, was made consul a second time, and celebrated his second triumph. (Veil. Pat. ii. 97.) In B. c. 6 he obtained the tribunitia potestas for five years, but during this year he retired with the emperor's permission to Rhodes, where he spent the next seven years. Tacitus {Ann. i. 53) says that his chief reason for leaving Rome was to get away bom his wife, who treated him with contempt, and TIBERIUS. whose licentious life was no secret to her husband : probably, too, he was unwilling to stay at Rome when the grandsons of Augustus were attaining years of maturity, for there was mutual jealousy between them and Tiberius. During his residence at Rhodes, Tiberius, among other things, employed himself on astrology, and he was one of the dupes of this supposed science. His chief master in this art was Thrasyllus, who predicted that he would be emperor. (Tacit. Ann. vi. 21.) Augustus had not been very ready to allow Tiberius to retire to Rhodes, and he was not willing to let him come back ; but, at the instance of Caius Caesar, Tibe- rius was allowed to return, A. D. 2. He was re- lieved from one trouble during his absence, for his wife Julia was banished to the island of Paiidataria (b. c. 2), and he never saw her again. (Dion Cass. Iv. 10.) Suetonius says that Tiberius, by letter, entreated the emperor to let Julia keep whatever he had given her. Tiberius was employed in public affairs until the death of L. Caesar (a. d. 2), which was followed by the death of C. Caesar (a. d. 4). Augustus, now being without a successor of his own blood, adopted Tiberius, the son of his wife Livia, with the view of leaving to him the power that he had himself acquired ; and at the same time he required Tibe- rius to adopt Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus, though Tiberius had a son Drusus by his wife Vipsania. (Sueton. Tiber. 15 ; Veil. Pat. ii. J 03.) Augustus was not ignorant of the character of Tiberius, but, like others in power, he left it to a man whom he did not like, and could not esteem, rather than allow it to go out of his family. Au- gustus had indeed adopted Postumus Agrippa, the brother of C. and L. Caesares, but there was nothing to hope for from him ; and Germanicus was too young to be adopted by Augustus with a view to the direct sticcession. From the year of his adoption to the death of Augustus, A. D. 14, Tiberius was in command of the Roman armies, though he visited Rome several times. He was sent into Germany a. d. 4, and the historian Velleius Paterculus accompanied hira as praefectus equitum. Tiberius reduced all Illyricum to subjection a. D. 9; and in a. d. 12 he had the honour of a triumph at Rome for his German and Dalmatian victories. Tiberius dis- played military talent during his transalpine cam- paigns ; he maintained discipline in his army, and took care of the comforts of his soldiers. In A. d. 1 4 Augustus held his last census, in which he had Tiberius for his colleague. Tiberius being sent to settle the affairs of Illyricum, Augustus accompanied him as far as Beneventum, but as the emperor was on his way back to Rome he died at Nola, on the lyth of August, A. D. 14. Tiberius was immediately sum- moned home by his mother Livia, who managed affairs so as to secure the power to her son, so far as such precaution was necessary. If nothing more had been known of Tiberius than his conduct during the lifetime of the emperor, he might liave descended to posterity with no worse character than many other Romans. His accession to power developed all the qualities which were not un- known to those who were acquainted with him, but which hitherto had not been allowed their full play. He took the power which nobody was pre- pared to dispute with him, affecting all the while a great reluctance ; and he declined the name of Pater