Emperor Tiberius: Monster or Misunderstood?

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Speaker 1 So, stay tuned for that one. Today, we are in the ancient Mediterranean world.

Speaker 1 We're going to Imperial Rome and the story of Rome's second emperor, the Emperor Tiberius, who's quite an infamous figure today, as you're going to hear, quite a complex character.

Speaker 1 Our guest is a good friend of mine and a fantastic classicist and author, who was also recently on the podcast to talk through the story of Antony and Cleopatra. She is, of course, Dr.

Speaker 1 Daisy Dunn, the beloved Daisy, who I know so many of you wanted more episodes with, and we are delivering. I really do hope you enjoy.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 The year is 14 AD, and the much-loved Emperor Augustus, the man who established the Roman Empire, is dead at the ripe old age of 75.

Speaker 1 A new figure steps into the power vacuum, his grim and taciturn stepson, Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus. Now ancient historians paint a portrait of Tiberius as a man in slow, agonizing decline.

Speaker 1 We're going to trace his path from a brilliant general and statesman to a paranoid tyrant retreating to his palatial fortress on the island of Capri, the place that gave birth to horrific legends of perversions, cold-blooded executions, torture, and of a man who ruled from his very own ancient Epstein island.

Speaker 1 But how much of his legacy is the truth? Well, joining me today is the author, classicist, and friend of the podcast, Dr.

Speaker 1 Daisy Dunn, to explore the reign and retreat of Rome's second and perhaps most tragic emperor.

Speaker 1 Daisy, hello, great to have you back on the show.

Speaker 11 Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 We were last time about Antony and Cleopatra.

Speaker 1 This time, Tiberius always feels a bit of a weird one, Tiberius, because you know, he's following in the footsteps of the first emperor, which always feels, you know, big footsteps to Phil.

Speaker 1 But at the same time, I don't want that to cover up the bad stuff in his story, because it is one just with all of these rumors surrounding it.

Speaker 11 It's a really interesting rule. I'll say that, because Augustus, in some way, a lot of people have idealised his rule to a degree.
And Tiberius, they're quite keen to portray him as the opposite.

Speaker 11 He's almost the villain in the piece. And that's not quite what happens.

Speaker 1 And also the fact that there is so much more to his story than just when he was emperor.

Speaker 11 Exactly, exactly. And I think a lot of people focus on the end of his rule, which isn't so good.
And they kind of don't look at the man that he actually was.

Speaker 11 But I think the man behind the throne, the man behind the power, there's a lot kind of going on. He's actually sort of a lot more cultured, I think, than people give him credit for.

Speaker 1 Set the scene for us. Whenabouts in Roman history are we talking with the story of good old Tiberius?

Speaker 11 So we're looking, as you said, after Augustus. Augustus dies in AD 14, and that's when Tiberius becomes emperor.
and he rules until AD 37.

Speaker 11 But obviously his life, he's quite, he's 55 when he comes to power, so he's had a long life before then. So we're looking, you know, right the way back into the end of the first century BC.

Speaker 1 Do we have a rich amount of sources surviving for his life?

Speaker 11 We do actually. I mean, they're fairly good for Tiberius.
I mean, my favourite, you've got Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars.

Speaker 11 biographical source, Suetonius' writings, the early second century, so not a million miles away from Tiberius in time. And he was head of Rome's library, so he had access to the imperial archives.

Speaker 11 So he has some material to work with. Tacitus, other big kind of king of the historians at this time, working a similar time.
In his annals, he dedicates a lot of time to Tiberius.

Speaker 11 Cassius Dio, another of the historians later, sort of second to third century. We have bits of the sort of the Roman poets, which is quite useful.

Speaker 11 A bit of Ovid, a bit of all kinds of people, actually. I mean, they're quite good, plenty, again.

Speaker 1 And the infamous episodes in Tiberius' life, which I'm sure we'll explore a few of them in our chat today, do you find those stories in all of those different sources or are they more prevalent in one than the other?

Speaker 11 There are bad stories in the sources, in most of those sources, I would say. I mean, Suetonius goes to town on him.
Tastis does to an extent as well.

Speaker 11 So, I mean, I think there's a fair sort of idea of negativity associated with him.

Speaker 1 And I guess so also the job of the historian today is sorting fact from fiction, trying to figure out what is just scandalous rumour, but what might have some basis of truth in it as well.

Speaker 11 Exactly. And I think with Tiberius, that becomes quite difficult because you find actually with a lot of these emperors, and particularly with Suetonius, they like this idea of a narrative arc.

Speaker 11 the idea that people begin well and then they're you know corrupted by power and things turn sour and they want to show this kind of arc of corruption and this seems to be you know like a narrative device a lot of the time so it's quite difficult as a historian today to look past that sometimes to try and work out what's actually going on.

Speaker 1 Well, let's go back to the beginning. So can you explain to us Tiberius' background, his family? What do we know?

Speaker 11 So Tiberius was a Claudian on both sides of the family. So Claudian family, great, elite, prestigious, old family in ancient Rome.

Speaker 11 But the beginning of his life, in spite of that, is quite difficult because he is born to a man called Tiberius Claudius Nero. They like to pile the names out.

Speaker 1 Big names as well, Tiberius Claudius Nero.

Speaker 11 He's got all of them. And he was like a moderately successful politician.
But he happened to fight on the opposite side to Octavian in the civil wars of the late Roman Republic.

Speaker 11 And this results to him going on the run, essentially, with his young family. And that was his wife, who is Livia Drusilla, their toddling son, Tiberius.

Speaker 11 And Livia was actually pregnant with her next child, who was Drusus at that time. So they have to actually escape from Rome.
They go to Sicily, they take refuge there.

Speaker 11 They even seek out Mark Antony in the east. You know, they are really in trouble.
So this is incredibly difficult. I mean, Tiberius is there at one point.

Speaker 11 He apparently tries to, he almost gives away their sort of hiding space by crying. You know, it's a difficult beginning.

Speaker 11 And then it becomes even harder because he moves back to Rome when it's safe enough to do so.

Speaker 11 And Octavian, incredibly, makes a play for Livia. And Olivia has to marry him.
and Livia's already married. Octavian himself is also married to Scrabonia.

Speaker 11 She's just giving birth to their daughter Julia and it's just such a scandal in Rome as a result of this.

Speaker 11 So the couple break up. So Livia has to marry Octavian instead.
She then gives birth to Jusus afterwards and because in Roman law it's really the fathers who get custody of the children.

Speaker 11 Tiberius and his brother went to live with their father rather than be raised by the stepfather stepfather, Octavian. And their father dies when Tiberius is nine.

Speaker 11 He actually delivers the sort of funeral eulogy for him. And at that point, they'd have gone into the imperial palace and be raised by Octavian, the stepfather, and back to his mother.

Speaker 1 That young kid, Tiberius, could never have imagined that that would have been his future when he was, you know, very, very young, fleeing Rome.

Speaker 1 you know, believing that his family were on the opposite side to the figure who would ultimately become his his stepfather, Octavian, who would ultimately become Augustus.

Speaker 11 It's such an astonishing story. I mean, I think, you know, Livia and Octavian getting together full stop is such a shocker.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's interesting you're saying there that Livia had to marry Octavian, because sometimes people say that Livia orchestrated the marriage with Octavian, but it seems like you think the other way around.

Speaker 11 I think the other way around. I mean, I'm making it sound probably like a lot more pressure than it was, but I think it was high pressure.

Speaker 11 I mean, Tastis says that he was completely overcome by lust for her body, which I think we kind of push aside slightly. I mean, she has something to gain from this relationship.

Speaker 11 She has lost a lot of her property because of having to go on the run, so she can potentially recover some of her losses. And I mean,

Speaker 11 the funny thing is that her first husband, so Tiberius Claudius Nero, seems to be like surprisingly okay with us. Like he actually like presides over the wedding feast.
So he's there. So

Speaker 11 it's an arrangement. It's not like a kind of absolutely forced marriage, but it's something that takes place and it just changes the course of history really for the whole family.

Speaker 1 I mean, absolutely. And we could do a whole episode exploring the whole whole life of Tiberius growing up before he becomes emperor.
I'm going to try and narrow that down into only a few questions

Speaker 1 imperial Tiberius story. But can you talk us through then? Let's fast forward past the Battle of Actium.
Octavian defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra, who we've already talked about,

Speaker 1 and becomes the last man standing and then becomes Augustus.

Speaker 1 Tiberius at this time, he's now in the imperial family with Augustus, Olivia and so on. Do we know much about his life at this time when he's growing up and now finds himself at the center of this new

Speaker 1 still quite fragile Roman order?

Speaker 11 Well he gets advantages from the fact that he's actually entered this family with Octavian, Octavian being the victor as you say.

Speaker 11 So he is sort of pushed into a sort of public career probably earlier than most people. So he gets a good education.
He learns Greek really, really well.

Speaker 11 He's said to be quite good at sort of learning oratory.

Speaker 11 And he sort of features in some of the military parades that Octavian puts on. So the Actium celebrations, he features.
He's then sort of sent off. He gets sort of early career advantages.

Speaker 11 He goes off and fights in Germany. He goes to Armenia.
He installs a new king in Armenia. So he has sort of early, early, early successes, exactly.
And this, you probably wouldn't have had.

Speaker 11 I mean, for a start, I think he is, he's only 28 when he becomes consul. Consul is a chief magistrate of Rome, usually you're sort of 40, 42.

Speaker 11 So he's had an elevated career as a result of his connections with Octavian.

Speaker 1 And does he also have an interest like so many other elite Romans at the time in philosophy and the like and being a very much a man of the arts at the same time?

Speaker 11 Well, I've got to confess, I've got a huge confession, Tristan. I've been really, really harsh on Tiberius in the past.
I've kind of presented him slightly as being a bit

Speaker 11 like sort of science-y and like not really very cultured, sort of like not very civilized okay and i kind of stand by this

Speaker 11 anyone who does sciences nowadays are not very civilized is that also well i don't mean sciences in the literal sense i mean that he is pedantic okay right yeah pedantic rather than kind of like very very cultured and really appreciating literature on its own merit that's what i and i kind of stand by this because what we're told in the sources is that he he likes greek he likes philosophy in particular

Speaker 11 But when he delivers his speeches, they're not particularly creative. They're not kind of inspiring.
And Suetonius says that he loves Greek myth. So you think, okay, fine.

Speaker 11 But the detail in this is that he likes to apparently pick out sort of obscure bits of Greek myth and then test people on it.

Speaker 11 So he'd go around like asking scholars, for example, what was the name of Hecuba's mother?

Speaker 11 And to me, this sounds like someone who kind of like is one of these people who collects knowledge for its sake, you know, like for trivia, so they can show off how much they know.

Speaker 11 Pub quiz type of knowledge rather than like deep appreciation.

Speaker 11 That's my impression. But like it is based on the sources, but that's how I feel about him.

Speaker 1 Sounds like being an ancient history podcast host today, to be fair.

Speaker 1 But wow, so that's very interesting because doesn't he go to Rhodes at one point as well later on? Or he actually gets more interested in that as time goes on?

Speaker 11 Yeah. So, I mean, Rhodes, this is six BC.
So we're going forward in time. Sorry, I know we're going a bit forward.
No, no, no.

Speaker 11 But so this is interesting because he goes off and it's really unexpected. He's kind of at the height of his powers at that point.
He's really been doing well in Germany.

Speaker 11 He's been having sort of various sort of powers given to him. And he disappears and he is exhausted at that point.
And when he's in Rhodes, he seems to be going to lots of lectures.

Speaker 11 He goes to philosophy lectures. He seems to kind of take it a little bit easy and become maybe a little bit more cultured.
But it's a kind of baffling thing because he's been doing so well.

Speaker 11 And Augustus, as he's then become, Octavian's turn into Augustus, he is really trying to keep him. in Rome.
And Tiberius is like, no, no, I'm going to go.

Speaker 11 And he actually starves himself so that he can go. So he gets his way.
He gets away.

Speaker 11 and the really interesting thing is is he wrote some memoirs which we don't have now they're kind of brief memoirs but we know from a quotation from those memoirs that he said that he was going because he didn't want to be compared or to be seen to be competing with his two stepsons gaius and lucius who were being elevated and were being very sort of they're very very popular with the Roman people.

Speaker 1 Because at that time, this is important, isn't it, whilst I kind of get us ready for the next question. Tiberius is not the the labelled successor of Augustus.

Speaker 1 So can you talk us through how it ultimately does come to Tiberius being Augustus's, well, next in line?

Speaker 11 Yeah, so Tiberius is absolutely not number one choice for Augustus for successor. I mean, he's pretty low down in the pile, to be honest.
I mean, Augustus really would like to have his own blood.

Speaker 11 That's what he wants.

Speaker 11 So, first of all, it looks very likely that Marcellus, who is married to his only daughter, Julia, might be the favoured candidate for power. He dies very young, so Julia is widowed.

Speaker 11 She is then married to Marcus Agrippa, who is the right-hand man of Augustus. Top guy.
Top guy. They have five children, and three of them are boys.

Speaker 11 One of the boys is the third boy is born after Agrippa dies. So he's called Agrippa Postumus.

Speaker 11 Hence, posthumously posted.

Speaker 1 That's quite an on-the-nose name right there, yeah.

Speaker 11 It is, but it's a Roman thing. That's what they did.
So the eldest two sons are Gaius and Lucius, and they look like very strong candidates.

Speaker 11 Agrippa himself, he was supposedly the man that Augustus gave his seal ring to when he thought that he was dying of an illness. So he looked like a viable candidate, even though he wasn't a relation.

Speaker 11 So then we've got Gaius and Lucius, but they also die really young. So they die within 18 months of each other at the beginning of the first century AD.

Speaker 11 So, I mean, this is catastrophic, really, for Augustus. So it's only actually in AD 4 that he makes Tiberius his co-heir with Agrippa Postumus.

Speaker 11 He adopts both of them, and it said this is for the sake of the race publica.

Speaker 1 Outplay or just unlucky? What do you think?

Speaker 11 There's a lot of effort in some of the sources to present Livia as having a hand in these, but I don't believe it. I don't believe it.

Speaker 11 I mean, I think, I mean, Marcellus, there was clearly some kind of plague going around Rome at that time. Augustus recovered, Marcellus didn't.
There's no way she had a hand in that.

Speaker 11 Gaius and Alecius, Gaius succumbs to a wound that he sustains sustains in battle when he's off in the east.

Speaker 11 Alecius gets unwell for some illness, we're not quite sure what it is, when he's in Marseille on his way to Spain. These look like all like natural deaths.

Speaker 11 I mean, it's kind of part and parcel of being a Roman in this period. You know, the odds against you are, you know, they're stacked against you.
It's very difficult.

Speaker 1 And Tiberius's younger brother, Drusus, he's already died fighting in Germany as well, hasn't he? So that, you know, so by this time, there is just Tiberius and Agrippa Postemus left.

Speaker 1 And if we we mention Agrippa Posthumus briefly, he just looks, from what they say, incompetent or just not up for the job. So he kind of goes out of the picture.

Speaker 11 He goes out of the picture.

Speaker 11 I mean, I feel your heart goes out to this boy. I mean, maybe I'm just being soppy, but it's very difficult.
I mean,

Speaker 11 his mother, Julia, is Tiberius's second wife. She is exile to an island.
His father has died before he's born. He's seen his two elder brothers both die within 18 months of each other.

Speaker 11 I mean, this is really tough for Agrippopostomus.

Speaker 11 And it's said that his behavior is absolutely terrible, that he has foul moods, he's violent, he's aggressive, he's particularly hostile towards Livia.

Speaker 11 And ultimately, he's actually exiled to an island in AD7.

Speaker 11 And it's, you know, he's then completely sort of out of the picture. And it's just very, very difficult.
I mean, Tiberius at that point has been asked to adopt his nephew.

Speaker 11 He's Jusus's son, Germanicus. There's like another iron in the fire, if you like.
But for Agrippopostomus, he is out of sight, out of mind, and he will be finished off.

Speaker 11 And this is where possibly Livia does have some involvement in that.

Speaker 1 Interesting, yeah, we'll get to that in a moment. And also interesting for you to introduce another character who will mention Germanicus.
So you've always got three generations now, don't you?

Speaker 1 Augustus, he's now got Tiberius as his heir, but then told Tiberius to adopt Germanicus. So then there's another in line because Tiberius is already getting on by this time.

Speaker 11 He is, and he has a son of his own as well called Drusus. I mean, there's too many, but too many of these names being recycled, but he's another Druisus.

Speaker 1 So Drusus and Germanicus would joint rule after is that the idea?

Speaker 11 So there's an idea. There's always an idea of doing things in pairs.
Okay. Yeah.
Interesting.

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Speaker 1 I feel one other thing we should mention, because you also mentioned her name, Augustus' daughter, Julia.

Speaker 1 Should we talk then about Tiberius' marriages and also his marriage to Julia? Because this also feels important when exploring Tiberius' character.

Speaker 11 So Tiberius starts off by having a very promising, happy marriage. And this is to a woman called Vipsania, who is a daughter of Marcus Agrippa.

Speaker 11 And she was just a baby when she was betrothed to Tiberius. They grew up.
They got married. They had children.
Everything seems to be going splendidly for them.

Speaker 11 And then Julia is widowed. by Agrippa and 10 months go past, more than 10 months, 10 months is just the minimum time you're allowed to be a widow in Rome.

Speaker 11 Essentially, that's because if you're pregnant, there'd be no chance of the baby, there being any doubt over the father. So that time elapses.
Augustus is desperate for Julia to remarry.

Speaker 11 And he finally sees, he says, okay, well, let's marry her to Tiberius because

Speaker 11 Augustus and Livia had been unable to have their own child. Apparently, they had a child who didn't survive.
So they haven't been able to unite their two bloodlines.

Speaker 11 If they can get Tiberius and Julia to have a child, they will have achieved that. So that's the great plan.
But Tiberius and Julia are about as different from each other as you can possibly imagine.

Speaker 1 They don't get on, do they?

Speaker 11 They don't get. I mean, they're step-brother and stepsister.
I mean, they've had to grow up part of their childhood together.

Speaker 11 They're not going to have like some, I mean, not that a load of Roman marriages have like some great positive romance between them. That's not always the case.
There are a lot of arranged marriages.

Speaker 11 But there is absolutely no love between these two. A lot of pressure on their shoulders, nonetheless.
And Tiberius is still in love with Vepsania.

Speaker 11 I mean, he actually sees her in the street at one point and he's completely like dumbstruck by her and he's in a real state after that.

Speaker 11 And so then sort of measures are put in place to stop them from ever seeing each other again.

Speaker 11 So it's horrible. It's horrible.
So they're forced together. They do actually conceive a child, but the son actually dies when he's very, very young.

Speaker 11 And that seems to sort of drive them even further apart. And then what happens is stories start to spread about Julia having affairs.

Speaker 11 And this is largely when Tiberius is in Rhodes, when he's gone off in 6 BC, so he's kind of disappeared. So she is in Rome on her own.

Speaker 11 And she is sort of accused of having affairs with five or six or more noblemen. And this is disastrous.

Speaker 11 And it's really, really embarrassing for Augustus because, as part of his legislation, he has made adultery a crime. It's illegal to have affairs.

Speaker 11 And then his own daughter has supposedly, you know, fallen foul of this law. Yeah, not great.
It's really, really bad politics, isn't it?

Speaker 11 So he exiles her to an island, to Planasia, which is off the west coast of Italy. It's very, very remote.
It's very lonely. She goes off there with her mother.
Tiberius is then left.

Speaker 11 And, I mean, in Tiberius' favour, Augustus had actually considered killing her, his daughter. Tiberius is the one who actually stayed his hand.
He said, you know, we need to show leniency.

Speaker 1 Tiberius stays Augustus's hand from killing his own daughter. Yes.
I mean, that's as terrible as it can get.

Speaker 11 But it is horrific. It is.
I mean, Tiberius even says she can keep the presents that he gave her. I mean, this is the good side of Tiberius, right? This is showing him in a much more positive light.

Speaker 11 I think part of it is politic on his side.

Speaker 11 He knows that if he authorises the death of Julia, her sons, who are still alive at this point, are going to take it out on him and it could be trouble down the line.

Speaker 11 So I think he knows politically it's a better idea to show some kind of leniency towards her at this stage.

Speaker 1 So that's really nicely set the scene for as we approach the death of Augustus. So what do we know about Tiberius's succession to the emperorship?

Speaker 11 Well, this whole idea of succession is clouded in mystery in Rome. Because you bear in mind,

Speaker 11 there's no sort of precedent for passing power down under this new political system.

Speaker 11 And there's still this kind of mirage, this idea that they might return to the Republic, that there isn't kind of a monarchical system that's set up here.

Speaker 11 And so Augustus hasn't been speaking kind of audibly to the people about having a successor at all. It's all kind of slightly murky and clouded.
His will names Tiberius as co-heir with Livia.

Speaker 11 So he gets two-thirds of his property and it's very obvious from this that he is the heir. But even so, Tiberius isn't certain of this, even himself.

Speaker 11 So he goes back to Rome after Augustus dies and he is named and he kind of accepts the fact that he is going to be the heir, but he doesn't really know what that means and he's not quite sure whether it's legitimate or not.

Speaker 11 And this is partly because there's mutinying along the Rhine, for example. There are people calling for Germanicus to be made the next leader rather than Tiberius.

Speaker 11 So he's not sure that his position is secure. He immediately goes to the Senate.
He wants the Senate to kind of tell him that it's all okay and that, you know, he is in charge.

Speaker 11 But he's also quite reluctant. I mean, we have quotes from him.

Speaker 11 He apparently says that, I think it's before he comes to power, he says that Governing the empire is going to be like holding a wolf by the ears.

Speaker 11 So I think there's a real sense of of fear on his part of what he's inheriting. He's not quite sure whether it's legitimate that he is a successor at all.

Speaker 11 He wants the Senate to tell him, we're told that the Senate is looking to him, looking for leadership.

Speaker 11 Again, this could be kind of biased in the sources that these people have become so kind of servile to the idea of having an emperor that they want him to come to power.

Speaker 11 But I mean, the clinching bit of evidence here is the fact that we know that from Josephus, one of our historians who particularly writes about the Jewish history.

Speaker 11 He actually counts back the rule from Tiberius' death. So he gives us the number of years, days, and months that he ruled.

Speaker 11 And by his kind of calendar of events, Tiberius is only coming to power in mid-October.

Speaker 11 Augustus died in August. So you've got about two months going by where he's kind of prevaricating.
So there isn't this kind of smooth transition. And the sources really mislead us here.

Speaker 11 Livia is supposed to have, you know, made these two announcements together that Augustus is dead and her son is emperor. It isn't quite so smooth.

Speaker 11 There seems to be a real period of kind of prevarication and uncertainty as well.

Speaker 1 And people figuring out what to do. But Tiberius ultimately does end up the man to succeed as the next emperor.

Speaker 1 I mean, do we know much then about once we get to October, let's say, he does start to kind of consolidate his control?

Speaker 1 Does he target others straight away or does he promise to follow in the footsteps of Augustus and do the same things that he did?

Speaker 11 I think he wants to do things very much his own way.

Speaker 11 Which is bold. That's very bold.
It's really bold. But bear in mind, yeah, he's a big boy now.
He's 55. He thinks he can do it all.
He's just past childhood. Absolutely.

Speaker 11 He's had a wealth of experience across the empire. He knows the empire very, very well.
He's got a huge military record behind him. He's got triumphs.

Speaker 11 He's had essentially sold power to Augustus this before he died. He got given sort of tribunician power, which is one of this kind of power without office situation.

Speaker 11 So he's kind of confident in himself. What he does, though, is he tries to defer to the Senate on as many issues as possible.

Speaker 11 So things like the placement of the legions, sort of buildings and things like that. He's referring to the Senate on quite a lot of things, which is interesting.
It suggests a kind of step back.

Speaker 11 He also puts sort of elections of the magistrates, the key kind of governors of Rome, in the hands of the Senate, taking it away from the people somewhat.

Speaker 11 And Augustus, when we look back on his rule, I think what we really remember him for, as well as these kind of like weird adultery laws and stuff, is his building programme.

Speaker 11 You know, he's he's the one who claims to have found room made of brick and left it made of marble. Great quote.
Great quote. Fantastic.
And you know, it's true.

Speaker 11 I mean, he does reform a lot of the temples in particular. It's a real kind of reform.
Tiberius isn't really interested in that.

Speaker 11 I mean, he re-establishes the Temple of Concord, but that's like his main kind of piece, really, on a kind of political side, sorry, architectural side. He seems to be doing things very differently.

Speaker 11 He doesn't seem to be very concerned with trying to please people. He cuts the pay of actors.
He's not keen on putting on loads of public shows to try and endear people to him.

Speaker 11 He even bans kissing Tristan.

Speaker 11 I mean, like, killjoy. That's what happened nowadays.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 I mean, how, how did he manage to enforce that? That's quite something. And is this also a time beyond Imperium Sine Fine, like Empire Without Limit?

Speaker 1 Of course, you've had the disastrous Tuterburg Forest battle, Varus losing three legions in Germania, later years of Augustus.

Speaker 1 But Tiberius has a rich military record behind him. Is he still interested in expanding the empire or not?

Speaker 11 Well, to look at what he actually did, you'd seem not. I mean, it seems that most of his military experience is actually before he becomes emperor.

Speaker 11 I mean, there's no great equivalence kind of military campaign after he becomes emperor, which is really peculiar, isn't it? I mean, he seems to have really enjoyed that.

Speaker 11 What we read about him, he seems to be most comfortable when he's with the soldiers. He's the kind of man who likes to kind of get his...

Speaker 11 his hands dirty or his bottom dirty even he's actually sort of said to be i don't mean that

Speaker 11 I mean,

Speaker 11 he likes to sit on the turf with his men eating lunch. I'm saying something's completely innocent.

Speaker 1 Okay, not having toilet facilities out in the field.

Speaker 11 I came out really wrong.

Speaker 11 But, you know, he's a kind of like down with the men, you know, type of figure. So you'd think that he'd be really desperate to get back onto his horse, you know, go through the provinces.

Speaker 11 He's seen vast victories over the Pannonians, the Dalmatians. He's won victories.

Speaker 11 He's very, very successful militarily, but he doesn't seem to be very desperate to reinstate this or kind of have some great victory once he's emperor.

Speaker 1 Pannonians, Dalmatians, they are places in the Balkans, not dog breeds, just to say they're right as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and so how much do you think that this new direction from Tiberius, you know, now that he's emperor, wants to do things his own way, but not going back to the military sphere, how much of an influence do you think his mother has on all this?

Speaker 11 Well, the sources suggest a huge influence, which I don't quite believe. He seems to have a very difficult relationship with Livia, his mother, after he comes to power.
She's getting on in years.

Speaker 11 I mean, bear in mind, he's 55. We've said that several times already, but she's like really getting quite elderly.
And the Senate are very, very respectful of her. She is their Augusta.

Speaker 11 She is the woman who they decide they want to name on monuments.

Speaker 11 Tiberius gets really cross when they put her name and his name. side by side.
He doesn't understand why she's having such a big kind of part in his public life. And I think so far so true.

Speaker 11 I kind of think there is probably a little bit of kind of conflict between the two of them over their kind of respective spheres of influence.

Speaker 11 One thing we do know about Tiberius, he's not very comfortable with women being in power, particularly when it comes to Germanicus's wife.

Speaker 11 So Germanicus' adopted son, his wife, Agrippina, is very happy there in Germany at the beginning.

Speaker 11 And, you know, Tiberius supposedly complains about there being nothing left for the generals to do when she's going around assuming so many of the responsibilities that are usually taken by men.

Speaker 11 So, you know, he doesn't seem to be very comfortable per se with women in power. And I think with Livia, he feels slightly overshadowed by her and the fact that people are so respectful of her.

Speaker 11 So she suffers a fall when he doesn't go to her. And then when she actually dies, she dies in her mid-80s.
He doesn't actually go to the funeral. Wow.
Oh, that's sad.

Speaker 1 But that's interesting if we kind of keep on that familial kind of links with Tiberius at the moment. You mentioned Germanicus there and his wife, Agrippina, because this feels one of the big

Speaker 1 early-ish events in his reign, which is how this all also comes tumbling down to another familial problem with this.

Speaker 1 Well, what happens to Germanicus?

Speaker 11 Poor Germanicus. Yes.
I mean, Germanicus is a people's hero. He's really, really, really popular.
And he's a successful military man. He's been in Germany.

Speaker 11 He's been with Agrippina, their young children there, who include Caligula, by the way. Oh, yeah.
Little boots. That's how he gets his name.
He gets given this little kind of military little boots and

Speaker 11 military army. It's Gaius, that's his name.
But he's called Caligula because because of this. So they're a very popular family.
And Tiberius seems to really support Germanicus.

Speaker 11 But then rumours arise that he is responsible for his death. And this is because Germanicus has been sent east and Germanicus is looking after the army there.

Speaker 11 And Tiberius decides to put Piso, who is a former consul, he'd served alongside him in the consulship, an old friend of his, he decides to send him to govern Syria.

Speaker 11 And these two men fall out spectacularly in the east.

Speaker 11 And Germanicus is making requests of Piso. He is his senior, so he asks for forces to be sent to Armenia, for example, and Piso just refuses to do it.

Speaker 11 He reverses so many of the things that are asked of him. And the situation becomes so bad between them that Germanicus actually renounces Piso's friendship.

Speaker 11 So all of this is said to sort of reflect back onto Tiberius. People are saying, well, maybe Tiberius really wanted to kind of knock Germanicus off his high horse.

Speaker 11 And so therefore he sent Piso out knowing that he would disagree with him. And this would kind of, you know, put some of the limelight back onto Tiberius rather than Germanicus.

Speaker 1 So he's jealous, I'm guessing. Yeah,

Speaker 11 which is quite difficult to see. I mean, AD 17, so two years before Germanicus dies, he wins a triumph.
and Tiberius arranges for money to be paid out to the Roman people in Germanicus' name.

Speaker 11 This doesn't look like the action of someone who is inherently jealous of him.

Speaker 11 But it says a lot about people's wariness of Tiberius, that they are so willing to indulge this theory that he is behind the fallout between him and Piso.

Speaker 11 So what happens is Germanicus actually dies in the east. And he, as he is dying, says that he's been poisoned by Piso, because admittedly he has some really bizarre symptoms.

Speaker 11 I mean, we're told that he has weird bruising all over his body. We're told that he is frothing at the mouth.

Speaker 11 I mean, how do you explain that for a man who's in his 30s, in the prime of his life, he's healthy? How do you explain that? So Agrippina is absolutely distraught by this.

Speaker 11 She sails back with his ashes, holding some of the children by the hands. There's huge outpouring of emotion in Rome, which Tiberius then makes the mistake of trying to quell.

Speaker 11 This is a bad move on Tiberius' part. You understand why he does it? Because people are overturning altars.
There is public mourning in the streets. There's kind of civil unrest.

Speaker 11 And if there's one thing that Tiberius is, he he is a stickler for discipline. And that begins with kind of military discipline.
But when he's emperor in Rome, he's putting garrisons around the city.

Speaker 11 He's stamping out foreign cults, any kind of disorder. He wants all of it out the way.
He wants completely peaceful life, essentially. So he is upset by the outcry of emotion over Germanicus.

Speaker 11 The people's sympathy are very much with Agrippina and the family. And Tiberius says, okay, let's bring the trial to court.
And he has it heard before the Senate. And Piso is found guilty.

Speaker 11 He's condemned, but he actually dies before he's punished. And Livia actually steps in and saves Piso's wife, Planquina, who is meant to be equally guilty.
So it's really astonishing.

Speaker 11 So it's a really strange story. It says AD 19 and it puts a real blot on that year.

Speaker 1 So Tiberius has now lost one of his potential successes, as you say, the...

Speaker 1 the adored Germanicus and his family and lost quite a bit of guess kudos and reputation from it as well, from his handling of it.

Speaker 1 Something which was also interesting that you mentioned there was his bringing of troops into the city of Rome itself.

Speaker 1 So, is this when we start getting the influence of the Praetorian guard right at the centre of imperial control and the setting, the creation of an actual camp for these soldiers in Rome?

Speaker 11 Yes. I mean, this, can you imagine the sight of Rome? It completely changes.
It suddenly looks like a completely different city as a result of this.

Speaker 11 There's a real kind of climate of, I think, anxiety and fear over this. And this is, as you say, largely the influence of the advisors that Tiberius has, namely one particular advisor who is Sejanus.

Speaker 11 He is the prefect of the Praetorian Guard. He is a trusted member.
He's been working with the imperial family for about 15 years by this point. But he's quite a shady character.
He is ruthless.

Speaker 11 He is ambitious. He really seems to have ambitions beyond his station.
And he seems to be taking on an increasingly prominent role in terms of decision making.

Speaker 11 If I have one criticism criticism of Tiberius at this stage in his rule, he's not very good at making decisions.

Speaker 11 He kind of dithers a lot over what to do. And Sir Janus seems to be a lot more decisive.
And Tiberius comes to rely on him more and more.

Speaker 1 So what then happens in these years? I guess now the early 20s, Odyssey? I mean, so Germanicus is gone. Livia dies, is it 21 around that time?

Speaker 11 Around that time. Around that time.

Speaker 1 So Sir Janus seems to be his main man in Rome. So what do we know about Tiberius' rule during those early 20s?

Speaker 11 So it becomes embroiled, and the sources give a really good impression of this, it becomes embroiled in these treason trials. So this great crime of this time is maestas

Speaker 11 in Latin, which means it's where we get our word majesty from.

Speaker 11 It's meant to be kind of crimes against the sort of the majesty of Rome and its people, but effectively it becomes kind of crimes against the emperor and his majesty.

Speaker 11 This is actually begun under Augustus. So this isn't a kind of invention of Tiberius that you have these trials for maestas.
They begun under Augustus.

Speaker 11 But the problem that arises and this is partly linked to the fact that tiberius seems to be so sort of heavily reliant initially on the senate is you get growing corruption in the senate and you get people who are willing to inform on each other for maestas knowing that if they secure a successful conviction that they are entitled to a proportion of the condemned's property wow so senators start sort of almost spying on each other, looking around, trying to report each other for Maestas.

Speaker 11 It becomes scary, you know, it becomes quite frightening and it becomes a tool really for Sejanus in particular to purge the Senate of members who are kind of obstructing him.

Speaker 11 And also Agrippina as well. I mean, there's real sort of difficulty between Agrippina and Tiberius since she came back.
Real sort of conflict between the two of them.

Speaker 11 And Sejanus starts by accusing a lot of her friends of treason. So she's seen people going down around her.
And she has these two sons who are called Nero and Jusus. Sorry, I've got another

Speaker 11 Jusus.

Speaker 11 All those names.

Speaker 11 And initially, Tiberius starts to sort of raise these boys up. You know, he kind of admits them to the Senate.
They look like possible, viable, you know, part of his future.

Speaker 11 But Sejanus starts to spread rumors that Agrippina is hungry for power and he invents something called the party of Agrippina.

Speaker 11 He said there are people gathering around her and that there could be civil war unless he do something about her sort of dominance within Rome. So she becomes a kind of a victim of all of this.

Speaker 11 And her downfall is really, really dire. You're looking at me wanting more.

Speaker 11 Of course. You can't leave it there.

Speaker 11 Well, I mean, it happens after Tiberius has left Rome. Oh, okay, right.
So it comes a little bit later.

Speaker 11 But what happens is Tiberius gets completely ground down by Sejonia's complaining about her becoming kind of haughty.

Speaker 11 Tiberius then writes a letter and he denounces her for her arrogant and haughty mouth.

Speaker 11 He says says that she is intent on going over to the legions in Germany and getting sort of support there and seeking refuge there.

Speaker 11 And then he denounces her elder son, Nero, for sexual depravity, whatever that means at that point. And then Jussus.

Speaker 11 That's probably the extent of it. So he's sent off into exile.
Agrippina is sent off into exile. In the meantime, she's actually beaten up by a centurion.
She loses an eye.

Speaker 11 I mean, this is absolutely foul. This is horrible.
And Jusus, the younger son, is imprisoned. And he's starved.

Speaker 11 And we're told that he actually eats the contents of his mattress so that he can stay alive. And he manages about eight days before he also dies.

Speaker 11 So, this is really, I mean, Tiberius blames Sejanus for this.

Speaker 11 Later, he says that, you know, Sejanus is really attacking the family of Agrippina, which I kind of think is slightly hiding behind Sejanus at that point.

Speaker 1 His indecision going forward or being lured into believing Sejanus, quite frankly. And poor old Caligula, he's the one left, isn't he? Which doesn't bode well for what happens next.

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Speaker 2 Hi, folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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Speaker 1 There is another

Speaker 1 important family figure who we need to talk about before Tiberius' retreat once again linked to Sejanus which is of course one of his sons adopted sons Germanicus is out the picture but he still had another son at that time didn't he

Speaker 11 another Drusus another Drusus another Drusus but his fate gets entwined with Sejanus and it doesn't end well no it's really really difficult because Jusus is married he has his own son who's called Tiberius Gamellus.

Speaker 1 Okay back to Tiberius.

Speaker 11 Let's call him Gamelus.

Speaker 1 Okay, Gamellus.

Speaker 11 Or Gemellus, whatever you want to call him. And Jusus is really the hopes for the future for Tiberius, really, at that point.

Speaker 11 But rumour then begins to spread gradually that his wife is plotting against him and that she's having an affair with Sejanus.

Speaker 1 The one and only Sejanus.

Speaker 11 I know. And so, I mean, this is absolutely devastating because what happens is Jusus is still very young and he dies in 23 BC.

Speaker 11 And Tiberius, as far as Tiberius is concerned at that point, it's a natural death. He seems to be ill and there's no kind of suspicion about it.

Speaker 11 I mean, he's devastated by this, but it seems to be one of those things, you know, there's another death in the family.

Speaker 11 It's only a little bit of time later, like a couple of years later, that he begins to learn that actually this wasn't a natural death, that Sejanus was behind the death of Drusus.

Speaker 11 And I mean, the source for this seems to be Sejanus' own wife, Epicarta, who seems to, obviously, she's got a bit of an axe to grind.

Speaker 11 Her husband's having an affair with this woman, Livilla, who is married to to juice so how sort of trustworthy this is we don't know but it says a lot i think about the character of sojanus and also the character of tiberius that tiberius believes that sojanus is behind the death of juices and this really tips him over the edge and i think this this is responsible for a huge change in personality that we see in tiberius at this stage Is this the change that is epitomized by the year 26 AD?

Speaker 11 It is.

Speaker 1 What is it?

Speaker 11 AD 26. Tiberius, I would say, and it's always difficult to try and diagnose people with any kind of illness or mental illness, you know, when you're looking back from our point into the ancient past.

Speaker 11 But I would say that Tiberius seems to suffer from a mental breakdown. He decides to leave Rome.
He goes off to Capri, the island of Capri, and he seems to be suffering from paranoia. at this stage.

Speaker 11 He chooses Capri partly because it is so well isolated. It's surrounded by rocks.
There are cliffs. He can live high up in a palace, surrounded with very good kind of natural security.

Speaker 11 There's only one bay that people can come in by. So he feels kind of safe there.
And as we've seen, he's gone off to roads earlier in his career.

Speaker 11 It's not the first time he's disappeared from the public eye. He's done it again, but he intends to do it for good.

Speaker 11 He's quite old at this point. You know, he's in his mid to late 60s.
He is kind of stooped. He's...

Speaker 11 exhausted and he seems to turn to drinking and what we read of his early life he seems to be quite a abstemious kind of chap you know he's not one for big feasting or drinking a military man right you know the discipline vibe exactly he's disciplined we don't read about him being a kind of real gourmand or being you know a real kind of larger out not their headlock

Speaker 11 not their headlock but he's not that type of guy you know but suddenly he's drinking very very heavily so he seems to be sort of descending into alcoholism into paranoia he's having some kind of breakdown he's on the island and he's just he's so paranoid that i mean there's a great story that comes up in the...

Speaker 1 Are you thinking of the crab and the fish?

Speaker 11 I am thinking of the crab and the fish.

Speaker 11 I love the crab and the fish story. So there's a fisherman who catches this enormous, I think it's a mullet, and he decides to bring it to Tiberius and kind of make a gift of it to him.

Speaker 11 But in order to do so, he actually clambers up all of these rocks to reach the palatial home that Tiberius has set himself up in.

Speaker 11 And Tiberius is so astounded that this man has managed to essentially breach his security, you know, by reaching him that he decides to slap him around the face with the fish instead.

Speaker 11 And I mean, this is really Monty Python, isn't it? I mean, like, it really is, like, before it's time.

Speaker 11 But then you have the man, this poor man, thinking, you know, I just want to give you a present, you know, dude, what are you doing?

Speaker 11 He's like, thank goodness.

Speaker 1 And it's not, it's not just the slapstick of slapping you around the face. It's like the scales, isn't it? And so the flesh is ripped off the fisherman's body.
So it's not just...

Speaker 11 Yeah, I'm making this sound more humorous than it is.

Speaker 1 Here I am filling in the cory details, but you know,

Speaker 1 it is horrific.

Speaker 11 It's horrific. And, But the man, the fisherman, poor fisherman, he actually says, thank goodness I didn't give you the crab that I caught earlier.
And then Tiberius is like, right, crab, crab.

Speaker 11 And then like, he gets the kind of whip around with the crab as well. So it's poor man.
And he's just trying to give him a present. I mean, this is terrible.

Speaker 1 That is the Monty Python line, though, isn't it? Thank goodness I didn't bring the crab as well. And then the one thing you don't say, I guess we should mention.

Speaker 1 the other part of this story, which is this idea that, you know, Capri does become an ancient Epstein Island equivalent, quite frankly. And it's like paedophilia as well.

Speaker 1 And as difficult as it is, we should mention it because it's another key part of the rumours that really gain a lot of traction the longer that he stays in Capri.

Speaker 11 This is really grim. Yeah, this also is a horrible on this.

Speaker 11 I mean, we have a lot of kind of descriptions of the fact that Capri is so kind of secretive, so it lends itself to this kind of rumor and this kind of report.

Speaker 11 There's a lot of woodland, and we're told that Tiberius was dressing up kind of young boys and girls in kind of as nymphs and as like Pan, he's kind of the woodland god.

Speaker 11 He's getting boys to kind of swim with him and kind of nibble him. And like, it's, you know, I don't want to go into too much detail.
It's just, it's gross. I mean, it's really, really horrible.

Speaker 11 I mean, there's a kind of like slightly lighter side to it. He said to do his house up with lots of kind of artistic art.

Speaker 11 And I think my favourite bit is the only bit I can kind of laugh at amid all of this, is he's meant to have an erotic library.

Speaker 11 And the way that this is explained among the sources, I think it's Tastis, says that he had these books which showed you kind of sexual positions.

Speaker 11 And it's just in case he had someone there to have kind of sex in front of him and they didn't know what to do, he could then get a library book down and show him how it was done.

Speaker 11 Which I just think it's just so weird. Anyway, so it's really difficult one.

Speaker 11 How much of this do we believe? I mean, it's really, really, really hard to know. I mean,

Speaker 11 I'm not making any excuse for him, but I'm trying, what I am trying to do is try to explain his changed personality when I say that I think he is sort of mentally, he's in a very, very deep depression.

Speaker 11 He has been completely knocked for six by by this news about his son and his death i think he is an alcoholic he seems to be drinking all day

Speaker 11 and i think he he just doesn't seem to be completely in control in the way that he has been throughout his life that obviously doesn't forgive his behavior which is horrible and it's just it's hard to know whether all of it is true or whether this is kind of people making stuff up i kind of think he's he's you know he's in mid-60s is he really up to having all that sex is it all kind of mainly voyeuristic it's very very difficult to know Yeah, very much so.

Speaker 1 So when does he decide that he does actually need to think about a successor?

Speaker 11 Surprisingly late. I mean, already in his kind of mid-60s,

Speaker 11 he's left it quite late, hasn't he, really?

Speaker 11 What happens is he is sent over, Gaius, who is the son of Domanicus. He's the surviving, so he's the future Caligula.
He's a teenager.

Speaker 1 Scathed beyond recognition from everything that's happened to his family since he's been a baby.

Speaker 11 Yeah, he's another one. He's had a really disastrous kind of upbringing, really horrible.
And in his teenage years, he's said to have sex with his sisters, and you know, it's like really horrible.

Speaker 11 So, if you've already got a troubled young man and then you're going to send him to Capri to be with Tiberius, I mean, not the best kind of

Speaker 11 idea at that point.

Speaker 11 So, really, really quite difficult. But he seems to spend a lot of time there with Tiberius, so it's looking more and more like he's going to be made a successor.

Speaker 11 And what Tiberius ultimately does is he lines him up together with Tiberius Gamelus, the grandson, to be his kind of joint heirs.

Speaker 1 And I guess maybe one, maybe a small victory that we can also talk about here is Sir Janus's crimes do finally catch up with him in the meantime.

Speaker 11 They do. I mean, he'd think they probably had already.
Yeah, he's been in Rome. He's been in Rome.
He's been, yeah, he's been running everything. And well, Tiberius actually accuses him of treason.

Speaker 11 So this comes with

Speaker 11 and I mean, this is, yeah, it's horrible. He has him killed.
He has his son hanged. He has his daughter raped and hanged.

Speaker 11 And their bodies are rolled down the steps of Rome into the river. So that's the ending for them.

Speaker 11 And I think for the Romans, it's very difficult. Was this kind of a sigh of relief? I think they're feeling very kind of vulnerable, the people in Rome at this point.

Speaker 11 They feel like they've been completely abandoned by Tiberius. And the really difficult thing is Tiberius, I think the great mistake he makes really is he lets everything go.

Speaker 11 You know, he's tried so hard, and particularly across the empire, so many of his kind of earlier military advantages are kind of undone. And

Speaker 11 he leaves everyone in power for too long. You know, he leaves governors in power for years and years and years.
There's no kind of change around of staff.

Speaker 11 And when you have that happening across the empire, you're bound to have a growth of corruption. I mean, Pontius Pilate is one of the guys.
I think he's, oh, is he kind of nine years, I think? On TP.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it's around that time.

Speaker 1 He's the 30s. Of course he's in the 30s.

Speaker 11 He's left in power for nine years. I mean, come on.
I mean, like, this just seems to be happening all over the place. He just doesn't seem to switch people around.

Speaker 11 He's just kind of completely let go and obviously rome is going to descend the empire's going to descend into chaos at that point he just becomes completely absent he doesn't care at all as you say maybe that complete mental breakdown so it's really not a good final few years for tiberius how does it all end well he gets the age of i think he's about 77 okay um is that right 80 37 yeah so and he is supposedly kind of living it up still in Capri.

Speaker 11 And there are kind of rumours he seems to get a chill. He seems to have a pain in his side, but he seems to try and carry on.
You know, that great old sort of military spirit stays with him.

Speaker 11 He tries to kind of persevere in spite of it all. And he actually, we read of him kind of going to an arena and kind of throwing a javelin at a boar, you know, even though he's like dying.

Speaker 1 77 throwing a javelin, okay, death stop.

Speaker 11 Yeah. He seems to still be, you know, fighting and okay.

Speaker 11 But then he falls very, very unwell at Mycenaeum, sort of in the Bay of Naples, and he dies there. And there is sort of, there are various suggestions.

Speaker 1 suggestions one of the sources suggests that maybe caligula helped to finish him off at the end with a pillow or something like that as well exactly and that he kind of fell just next to his bed and died there we don't really know for sure how he died but you know he's lived a ripe old age for that time he has hasn't he especially also considering that he only became emperor when he was in his mid-50s yeah and so rules for some 20 years On the larger scale of it, we've largely focused on Tiberius the man, but if we focus on like Tiberius the reign and almost kind of take him out of it, how successful do you actually think the reign is in the whole story of the forming of the Roman Empire?

Speaker 11 Well, the funny thing is, he might be a kind of disaster on the page when you read about him, you know, as you say, as a man in the sources.

Speaker 11 But actually, he left Rome in quite a strong position and it was quite wealthy. I mean, you know, people were doing quite well.

Speaker 11 It wasn't left, you know, in the doldrums in terms of sort of like the financial strength, the economy of Rome was actually flourishing.

Speaker 11 And that's probably partly because he hadn't had any great military campaign during his rule. He was able to kind of preserve money in that way.

Speaker 11 There are also stories of him sort of extracting money from wealthy men and women actually across the provinces as well. So financially, Rome's quite stable.

Speaker 11 They have felt quite sort of rudderless within the city. I think they're kind of, you know, wanting

Speaker 11 a better leader. But Rome isn't as messy as you'd think, I think, when you actually read the description of him actually disappearing for so long on Capri.

Speaker 11 You know, there is a lot of kind of mire in terms of the treason trials and the mess of Sejanus and there's a lot of kind of ill feeling resulting out of that.

Speaker 11 But actually, it's fairly stable and prosperous.

Speaker 1 Arstival, how do you think we should remember Tiberius today?

Speaker 11 I think much earlier in his rule, he was a great military figure. You know, I think, yes, he was kind of propelled to power because of the family that he found himself in.

Speaker 11 But actually, he did a lot off his own own bat. You know, he achieved things militarily that other people had not achieved.
He was respected in that sphere.

Speaker 11 And I kind of think he was very, very capable. He was a man of discipline.
He was not outgoing.

Speaker 11 You know, he was not this kind of affable, likable character like Germanicus or so many of the other players around him. He seems to have been very introspective, very reserved.

Speaker 11 And because of that, people had great uncertainty of like where he was, what he was thinking.

Speaker 11 So I kind of imagine him as a kind of quieter figure, but someone who was actually capable, but who really suffered after the death of his son and descended into

Speaker 11 something like tyranny.

Speaker 1 Daisy, it's been absolutely fascinating listening to you talk through all of this.

Speaker 1 Like the story of Tiberius is a fascinating one with all of those tales that survive, from the grim ones to the really interesting ones also regarding his military career and his pre-emperorship career.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast and explain it all to us.

Speaker 11 Oh, my pleasure.

Speaker 1 Well, there you go. There was my good friend Dr.
Daisy Dunn returning to the podcast to talk through the story of Tiberius, the Emperor Tiberius. I hope you enjoyed the episode.

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That's all from me.

Speaker 1 I'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 2 Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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