Tiberius: The Reluctant Emperor of Rome

As was the Roman custom, Augustus adopted his stepson Tiberius as his heir, and Tiberius became Rome’s second emperor in 14 CE. Ancient authors did not remember Tiberius kindly, inevitably comparing him to Augustus and finding him lacking. But they also consistently describe him as both a reluctant heir and a martyr emperor who would rather be doing anything else. During the 3rd century CE, scores of ambitious Romans would die for the imperial purple, so why was Tiberius so reluctant?

Unlike Gaius Caligula or Commodus, Tiberius was not born to the imperial purple. He was born on November 16, 42 BCE, just a few years after Julius Caesar’s death and long before it was clear that Rome would permanently cease to be a republic and become an empire.

The baby Tiberius was not related to Julius Caesar nor his grandnephew and adopted son Gaius Octavius Caesar. He was the son of Tiberius Claudius Nero, a Roman senator from an old Patrician family who had served under Julius Caesar, and Livia Drusilla, another Roman aristocrat.

During the civil war that followed Caesar’s death, Tiberius Senior decided to cast his lot with Mark Antony, taking Livia and Tiberius with him to join the Antonian camp in 41 BCE. After three years, he changed his mind and returned to Rome.

When the family arrived in Rome, Octavius met Livia and reportedly fell instantly in love, despite being married to his second wife, Scribonia, whom he divorced on the day she gave birth to his daughter Julia. Octavius also convinced Tiberius Senior to divorce his heavily pregnant wife. Livia then gave birth to her second son, who was known as Nero Claudius Drusus, at the end of 38 BCE, and married Octavius at the start of 37 BCE.

Both Tiberius and Drusus were taken into Octavius’s home to be raised by the man who would become Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.

Raised for Power? Augustus Preferred Successors

While Tiberius and Drusus were raised and educated to be senators and generals, the young boys were probably not raised being told that one day they would be emperor.

Livia probably expected to have Augustus’s biological sons, although that never happened. Augustus also expected his daughter Julia to have sons, which she did with Augustus’s friend Marcus Agrippa. They had three sons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar and Agrippa Postumus, plus two daughters, Julia and Agrippina. Augustus actively favored his biological family over his wife’s two sons.

Looking to ensure succession, Augustus first adopted Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the son of his sister Octavia, born the same year as Tiberius. He adopted Marcellus and married him to his daughter Julia in 25 BCE, but Marcellus died of a fatal illness in 23 BCE. He was the first member of the imperial family to be buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Agrippa

In 21 BCE, Augustus had his friend and righthand man Agrippa divorce his wife to marry Julia, effectively making Agrippa his successor. In this case, Augustus seems to have prioritized trust, friendship, and a reliable set of hands over family. Notably, Augustus had been ill with the same sickness as Marcellus in 23 BCE, so his mortality may have been weighing on his mind.

Augustus awarded the proven and loyal general Agrippa powers that almost matched his own, including pronconsular imperium, granting him consular authority in the provinces, and tribunicia potestas, giving Agrippa civil power in the city of Rome. He was given command of Rome’s eastern provinces. Unfortunately, Agrippa died on campaign in 12 BCE. Despite having built his own mausoleum, Agrippa too was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Gaius and Lucius Caesar

Next, Augustus turned his attention to his grandsons, the sons of Julia and Agrippa, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, born in 20 and 17 BCE respectively. The two boys were singled out for power from a young age, graduating through the offices of the cursus honorum at an accelerated rate. They were named princeps iuventutis, which marked them out as heirs. Tacitus says that Augustus had a “consuming desire” to see them accelerated to power (Annales 1.3).

The very young Gaius was given a command in the eastern provinces in 1 BCE, and he was made consul in 1 CE, at the age of just 19. Meanwhile, the younger Lucius was designated as consul for the year he turned 19 and was given authority to consecrate buildings in Rome. He was then sent on military training in Hispania, where he unexpectedly died of illness in 2 CE. Gaius would follow him into the mausoleum two years later when he also died of illness in 4 CE. Augustus’s plans were shattered yet again.

In 4 CE, Augustus was already in his 60s and the question of an heir was a pressing one. Julia and Agrippa had another son, Agrippa Posthumus, and Augustus adopted him. But he doesn’t seem to have thought that the 16-year-old was prepared for the same kind of power and responsibility as his older brothers had been, so he also adopted Livia’s son Tiberius as an older and more experienced successor.

Tiberius as Heir: Round One

Augustus had not previously ignored Tiberius and his younger brother Drusus. Tiberius was also pushed through the cursus honorum at an accelerated speed, becoming consul for the first time in 13 BCE at the age of 29, several years before the standard minimum age. His military career began earlier in 20 BCE in the east alongside Augustus, reclaiming the standards lost by Crassus from the Parthian Empire. He was a general, alongside his brother Drusus, in Gaul and alongside the Danube, conquering Raetia.

Moreover, when Agrippa died in 12 BCE, Tiberius was forced to divorce his first wife, Vispania the daughter of Agrippa, and marry Julia, just as Marcellus and Agrippa had done before him. The sources suggest that Tiberius was decidedly unhappy about this because he truly loved his wife Vispania and was humiliated by the promiscuous behavior of Julia.

Tiberius campaigned further along the Danube and Rhine and was Rome’s most famous general. Following the death of his brother Drusus in 9 BCE, Tiberius was recalled to Rome made consul again in 7 BCE when he celebrated a modest triumph, which had become rare in Rome. In 6 BCE he began to share tribunicna potestas with Augustus and, just like Agrippa, was offered command in the east.

But at this point, everything changed. Rather than accept the eastern command, the 36-year-old general announced that he was withdrawing from public life and retiring to Rhodes. Exactly why he did this is unclear. Tacitus and others suggest it was the unhappy conditions of his marriage. Suetonius also suggests that Augustus begged Tiberius to stay, but this seems unlikely.

Augustus was a master of political maneuvering, which is why he was able to establish imperial Rome. Unexpected deaths aside, when he wanted something to happen, it happened. It is noteworthy that despite all the honors and powers Augustus bestowed on Tiberius, he never adopted him. Even in 6 BCE, Augustus seems already to have put most of his hopes on young Gaius and Lucius. Suetonius also suggests that the specific reason given by Tiberius for his retirement was “to avoid suspicion of rivalry with Gaius and Lucius” who were now grown (Tiberius 1.11.5).

A likely scenario is that Augustus made it clear to Tiberius that he was a caretaker, and that Gaius and Lucius were to inherit. Whether Tiberius and Augustus agreed that Tiberius should go into retirement to make way for the young boys, or Tiberius decided he would no longer be used and belligerently went into retirement, the decision was made.

When Gaius Caesar died in 4 CE, Augustus was left with few options. He adopted both the young Agrippa Posthumous and Tiberius, who seems to have returned to Rome willingly enough under these conditions.

But even with this new adoption, it must have been clear to Tiberius that he was not Augustus’s preferred heir. A condition of Tiberius’s adoption was that he adopt Germanicus, the son of Tiberius’s brother Drusus and Augustus’s niece Antonia Minor, despite Tiberius having his own adult son. It must have been clear to Tiberius in 4 CE that he was still a caretaker.

In 6 CE, the now-heir Tiberius was sent to Illyricum to deal with an uprising. When more troops were needed, Augustus sent Germanicus to assist, not Agrippa Posthumous. The sources suggest that this was because, at this time, Augustus came to accept that Posthumous was brutish, violent, and ill-suited for power. He was disowned and exiled, leaving Tiberius as the sole direct heir, but subject to succession conditions.

Tiberius seems to have worked closely with Augustus over the following years, sharing his burdens. He also campaigned in Germania between 10-12 CE, celebrating another small triumph on his return to Rome in 12 CE. In 13 CE, he technically held all the same powers as Augustus, making him co-emperor.

When Augustus died at age 75 in 14 CE, the 55-year-old Tiberius was confirmed as his successor smoothly. It had taken a while, but his path had been laid out.

The sources suggest that Livia was behind the moves made to bring her son to power. She is accused of potentially being involved in the deaths of Gaius and Lucius, and instrumental in the banishment of Posthumous, leaving her son without opposition. This feels more like routine slander of powerful imperial women than accusations based on hard evidence.

If Livia was determined to make Tiberius Augustus’s successor, she did not do a great job. It took her more than 40 years to get Augustus to adopt her son. The sources also suggest that she exercised a lot of influence over Tiberius, but she was unable to stop him from retiring to Rhodes as a vital moment in his career.

While it seems intuitive that mothers have ambitions for her sons and that she may have pointed out the qualities of Tiberius to Augustus, the idea that she was a ruthless killer in the pursuit of power for Tiberius doesn’t really track.

Becoming Augustus

The sources suggest that Augustus gave Tiberius some pretty strict guidelines on what to do when he became emperor that went beyond making Germanicus his heir. For example, he reportedly told Tiberius not to try and extend the borders of the empire. Augustus also probably planned the process of his deification and gave Tiberius instructions.

Augustus probably also told Tiberius to refuse excess honors and maintain the appearance of humility and to present himself as the first among equals. This is a strategy that had served Augustus well in the 50 years he used to establish imperial Rome. But Rome was a very different place at the start of Tiberius’s reign than it was when Augustus was pioneering the principate in the 20s BCE.

Following Augustus’s precedent, Tiberius also refused some honors, such as the title pater patriae and the civic crown. But rather than being seen as humble, the sources suggest that he came across as a reluctant ruler and an arrogant hypocrite. They also suggest that Tiberius chose to avoid autocratic rule and encourage the Senate to debate and act. Rather than promote senatorial independence, this led to anxiety as the Senate tried to guess Tiberius’s wishes. This was the start of the antipathy that existed between Tiberius and the Senate throughout his reign and fed into the treason trials that made Tiberius so deeply unpopular.

Tiberius also followed Augustus’s precedent when it came to planning for his succession. He had already adopted Germanicus according to Augustus’s wishes, and despite half-hearted attempts by the German troops to make their commander Germanicus the new emperor following the death of Augustus—which Germanicus refused—Tiberius continued to promote him as heir. He was granted a full triumph, much larger than any Tiberius had celebrated, in Rome in 17 CE. He was then given command of the eastern part of the empire in 18 CE, just as Agrippa and Tiberius had received under Augustus. But Germanicus died the following year.

Tiberius was now free to consider his own son Drusus as potential heir; he shared tribunician power with him from 22 CE but Drusus died the following year. Tiberius then turned his attention to Germanicus’s sons: 17-year-old Nero, 15-year-old Drusus, and 11-year-old Gaius Caligula. Tiberius adopted the elder two as his heirs in 23 CE. A few years later, in 27 CE, Tiberius retired again, this time to Capri, fulfilling his imperial duties from a distance while trusting his young heirs, his mother Livia, and the praetorian prefect Sejanus to manage things in Rome.

This turned out to be a disaster. Sejanus, hungry for power himself, became bold following the death of Livia in 29 CE. He began treason trials to eliminate senators that he did not trust, and used those same mechanisms to accuse Agrippina, Germanicus’s wife, and her two eldest sons of treason against the emperor. They were exiled in 30 CE, where they would later die. Tiberius would arrest and execute Sejanus the following year, leaving him again with no heirs.

In 33 CE, Tiberius adopted Gaius Caligula, Germanicus’s only remaining son, and Tiberius Gemellus, the son of his own son Drusus (who was about five years younger than Gaius) as his heirs. In 35 CE, he summoned the boys to Capri where he would take them “under his wing” and prepare them for the future. When Tiberius died in 37 CE, the elder and more popular Caligula would succeed to power, and kill his cousin Gemellus to squash any potential competition.

While we know that Tiberius spent the last ten years of his reign outside of Rome living in Capri, we don’t know why. Unlike Marcus Aurelius, who left an insight into his thoughts and challenges as emperor through his Meditations, we don’t really have any idea what Tiberius was thinking at any point, before or after he became emperor.

The sources would have us believe that Tiberius became sick of life at court and wanted to escape. This seems plausible. He had a terrible relationship with the Senate, he felt like he had been betrayed by his own family and by the one man outside of his family he thought he could trust — Sejanus. Plus, he had watched pretty much every other member of his family die.

The sources would also have us believe that Tiberius was a “dirty old man” who turned Capri into a personal pleasure palace. The walls of the palace were apparently decorated with pornographic imagery, and it was here that he hosted orgies and drank too much. The worst crimes he is accused of are pedophilia with infants and raping boys as part of sacrificial ceremonies, before having their legs broken.

Of course, none of the authors who recorded these accusations were contemporaries or eyewitnesses, and they are like similar accusations made against other “bad” emperors. The accusations may stem from contemporary gossip. It is not hard to imagine scared and resentful senators sitting around and wondering what the old emperor did all day while locked away on Capri. It is probably something we will never know.

What we do know is that Tiberius was never meant to be emperor. He was not related to Julius Caesar, and his father chose the wrong side, at least for a while, during the wars that followed the fall of the republic and the start of the empire. He only found himself in the orbit of imperial power because Augustus really liked his mother.

Tiberius was brought up in the imperial household and was trained to be one of the most important generals and statesmen in Rome. But he was not groomed to be emperor. Throughout Augustus’s reign, the choices of the old emperor made it clear that Tiberius was initially supposed to be on the sidelines, then a caretaker for young men with better bloodlines, and then a last resort. Even when he was finally adopted as heir, it was on the condition that Tiberius overlook his own son for a more favorable member of the Julio-Claudian household.

It is not hard to imagine this treatment making Tiberius hungry for power and willing to do whatever it took to get it but it seems to have had the opposite effect. He knew he was not meant to be emperor and seemed resigned to that fate. He accepted the challenge when it was thrust upon him, but he never reveled in it.