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XLI. Then returning to the island, he utterly neglected the conduct of state
affairs, from that time on never filling the vacancies in the decuries of the knights, nor
changing the tribunes of the soldiers and prefects or the governors of any of his
provinces He left Spain and Syria without consular governors for several years, suffered
Armenia to be overrun by the Parthians, Moesia to be laid waste by the Dacians and
Sarmatians, and the Gallic provinces by the Germans, to the great dishonour of the empire
and no less to its danger.
XLII. Moreover, having gained the licence of privacy, and being as it were out of sight
of the citizens, he at last gave free rein at once to all the vices which he had for a
long time ill concealed; and of these I shall give a detailed account from the beginning.
Even at the outset of his military career his excessive love of wine gave him the name of
Biberius, instead of Tiberius, Caldius for Claudius, and Mero for Nero. Later, when
emperor and at the very time that he was busy correcting the public morals, he spent a
night and two whole days feasting and drinking with Pomponius Flaccus and Lucius Piso,
immediately afterward making the one governor of the province of Syria and the other
prefect of the city, and even declaring in their commissions that they were the most
agreeable of friends, who could always be counted on. He had a dinner given him by Cestius
Gallus, a lustful and prodigal old man, who had once been degraded by Augustus and whom he
had himself rebuked a few days before in the Senate, making the condition that Cestius
should change or omit none of his usual customs, and that nude girls should wait upon them
at table. He gave a very obscure candidate for the quaestorship preference over men of the
noblest families, because at the emperor's challenge he had drained an amphora of wine at
a banquet. He paid Asellius Sabinus two hundred thousand sesterces for a dialogue, in
which he had introduced a contest of a mushroom, a fig-pecker, an oyster and a thrush.
Finally he established a new office, master of the imperial pleasures, assigning it to
Titus Caesonius Priscus, a Roman knight.
XLIII. Secessu vero Caprensi etiam sellaria excogitavit, sedem arcanarum libidinum, in
quam undique conquisiti puellarum et exoletorum greges monstrosique concubitus repertores,
quos spintrias appellabat, triplici serie conexi, in vicem incestarent coram ipso, ut
aspectu deficientis libidines excitaret. Cubicula plurifariam disposita tabellis ac
sigillis lascivissimarum picturarum et figurarum adornavit librisque Elephantidis
instruxit, ne cui in opera edenda exemplar imperatae schemae deesset. In silvis quoque ac
nemoribus passim Venerios locos commentus est prostantisque per antra et cavas rupes ex
utriusque sexus pube Paniscorum et Nympharum habitu, quae palam iam et vulgo nomine
insulae abutentes "Caprineum" dictitabant.
[XLIII and XLIV are examples of Prudishness in the Loeb translations, which refused to
translate the "dirty" bits. Here is a synopsis, after Robert Graves'
translation]: After retiring to Capri, where he had a private pleasure palace built, many
young men and women trained in sexual practices were brought there for his pleasure, and
would have sex in groups in front of him. Some rooms were furnished with pornography and
sex manuals from Egypt - which let the people there know what was expected of them.
Tiberius also created lechery nooks in the woods and had girls and boys dressed as nymphs
and Pans prostitute themselves in the open. The place was known popularly as
"goat-pri".]
XLIV. Maiore adhuc ac turpiore infamia flagravit, vix ut referri audirive, nedum credi
fas sit, quasi pueros primae teneritudinis, quos pisciculos vocabat, institueret, ut
natanti sibi inter femina versarentur ac luderent lingua morsuque sensim adpetentes; atque
etiam quasi infantes firmiores, necdum tamen lacte depulsos, inguini ceu papillae
admoveret, pronior sane ad id genus libidinis et natura et aetate. Quare Parrasi quoque
tabulam, in qua Meleagro Atalanta ore morigeratur, legatam sibi sub condicione, ut si
argumento offenderetur decies pro ea sestertium acciperet, non modo praetulit, sed et in
cubiculo dedicavit. Fertur etiam in sacrificando quondam captus facie ministri acerram
praeferentis nequisse abstinere, quin paene vixdum re divina peracta ibidem statim
seductum constupraret simulque fratrem eius tibicinem; atque utrique mox,quod mutuo
flagitium exprobrarant, crura fregisse.
[Synopsis, after Robert Graves' translation]: Some of the things he did are hard to
believe. He had little boys trained as minnows to chase him when he went swimming and to
get between his legs and nibble him. He also had babies not weaned from their mother
breast suck at his chest and groin. There was a painting left to him, with the provision
that if he did not like it he could have 10,000 gold pieces, and Tiberius kept the
picture. It showed Atalanta sucking off Meleager. One in a frenzy, while sacrificing he
was attracted to the acolyte and could not wait to hurry the acolyte and his brother out
of the temple and assault them. When they protested, he had their legs broken.
XLV. How grossly he was in the habit of abusing women even of high birth is very
clearly shown by the death of a certain Mallonia. When she was brought to his bed and
refused most vigorously to submit to his lust, he turned her over to the informers, and
even when she was on trial he did not cease to call out and ask her "whether she was
sorry"; so that finally she left the court and went home, where she stabbed herself,
openly upbraiding the ugly old man for his obscenity. Hence a stigma put upon him at the
next plays in an Atellan farce was received with great applause and became current, that
"the old goat was licking the does."
XLVI. In money matters he was frugal and close, never allowing the companions of his
foreign tours and campaigns a salary, but merely their keep. Only once did he treat them
liberally, and then through the generosity of his stepfather, when he formed three classes
according to each man's rank and gave to the first six hundred thousand sesterces, to the
second four hundred thousand, and to the third, which he called one, not of his friends,
but of his Greeks, two hundred thousand.
XLVII. While emperor he constructed no magnificent public works, for the only ones
which he undertook, the temple of Augustus and the restoration of Pompey's theatre, he
left unfinished after so many years. He gave no public shows at all, and very seldom
attended those given by others, for fear that some request would be made of him,
especially after he was forced to buy the freedom of a comic actor named Actius. Having
relieved the neediness of a few senators, he avoided the necessity of further aid by
declaring that he would help no others unless they proved to the Senate that there were
legitimate causes for their condition. Therefore diffidence and a sense of shame kept many
from applying, among them Hortalus, grandson of Quintus Hortensius the orator, who though
of very limited means had begotten four children with the encouragement of Augustus.
XLVIII. He showed generosity to the public in but two instances, once when he offered
to lend a hundred million sesterces without interest for a period of three years, and
again when he made good the losses of some owners of blocks of houses on the Caelian
Mount, which had burned down. The former was forced upon him by the clamour of the people
for help in a time of great financial stress, after he had failed to relieve the situation
by a decree of the Senate, providing that the moneylenders should invest two-thirds of
their property in land, and that the debtors should at once pay the same proportion of
their indebtedness; and the latter also was to relieve a condition of great hardship. Yet
he made so much of his liberality in the latter case, that he had the name of the Caelian
changed to the Augustan Mount. After he had doubled the legacies provided for in the will
of Augustus, he never gave largess to the soldiers, with the exception of a thousand
denarii to each of the praetorians, for not taking sides with Sejanus, and some presents
to the legions in Syria, because they alone had consecrated no image of Sejanus among
their standards. He also very rarely allowed veteran soldiers their discharge, having an
eye to their death from years, and a saving of money through their death. He did not
relieve the provinces either by any act of liberality, except Asia, when some cities were
destroyed by an earthquake.
XLIX. Presently, as time went on, he even resorted to plunder. All the world knows that
he drove Gnaeus Lentulus Augur, a man of great wealth, to take his own life through fear
and mental anxiety, and to make the emperor his sole heir; that Lepida, too, a woman of
very high birth, was condemned to banishment to gratity Quirinius, an opulent and
childless ex-consul, who had divorced her, and twenty years later accused her of having
attempted to poison him many years before; that besides this the leading men of the
Spanish and Gallic provinces, as well as of Syria and Greece, had their property
confiscated on trivial and shameless charges, some being accused of nothing more serious
than having a part of their property in ready money ; that many states and individuals
were deprived of immunities of long standing, and of the right of working mines and
collecting revenues; that Vonones, king of the Parthians, who on being dethroned by his
subjects had taken refuge at Antioch with a vast treasure, in the belief that he was
putting himself under the protection of the Roman people, was treacherously despoiled and
put to death.
L. He first showed his hatred of his kindred in the case of his brother Drusus,
producing a letter of his, in which Drusus discussed with him the question of compelling
Augustus to restore the Republic; and then he turned against the rest. So far from showing
any courtesy or kindness to his wife Julia, after her banishment, which is the least that
one might expect, although her father's order had merely confined her to one town, he
would not allow her even to leave her house or enjoy the society of mankind. Nay more, he
even deprived her of the allowance granted her by her father and of her yearly income,
under colour of observance of the common law, since Augustus had made no provision for
these in his will. Vexed at his mother Livia, alleging that she claimed an equal share in
the rule, he shunned frequent meetings with her and long and confidential conversations,
to avoid the appearance of being guided by her advice; though in point of fact he was wont
every now and then to need and to follow it. He was greatly offended too by a decree of
the Senate, providing that "son of Livia," as well as "son of
Augustus" should be written in his honorary inscriptions. For this reason he would
not suffer her to be named "Parent of her Country," nor to receive any
conspicuous public honour. More than that, he often warned her not to meddle with affairs
of importance and unbecoming a woman, especially after he learned that at a fire near the
temple of Vesta she had been present in person, and urged the people and soldiers to
greater efforts, as had been her way while her husband was alive.
LI. Afterwards he reached the point of open enmity, and the reason, they say, was this.
On her urging him again and again to appoint among the jurors a man who had been made a
citizen, he declared that he would do it only on condition that she would allow an entry
to be made in the official list that it was forced upon him by his mother. Then Livia, in
a rage, drew from a secret place and read some old letters written to her by Augustus with
regard to the austerity and stubbornness of Tiberius' disposition. He in turn was so put
out that these had been preserved so long and were thrown up at him in such a spiteful
spirit, that some think that this was the very strongest of the reasons for his
retirement. At all events, during all the three years that she lived after he left Rome he
saw her but once, and then only one day, for a very few hours; and when shortly after that
she fell ill, he took no trouble to visit her. When she died, and after a delay of several
days, during which he held out hope of his coming, had at last been buried because the
condition of the corpse made it necessary, he forbade her deification, alleging that he
was acting according to her own instructions. He further disregarded the provisions of her
will, and within a short time caused the downfall of all her friends and intimates, even
of those to whom she had on her deathbed entrusted the care of her obsequies, actually
condemning one of them, and that a man of equestrian rank, to the treadmill.
LII. He had a father's affection neither for his own son Drusus nor his adopted son
Germanicus, being exasperated at the former's vices; and, in fact, Drusus led a somewhat
loose and dissolute life. Therefore, even when he died, Tiberius was not greatly affected,
but almost immediately after the funeral returned to his usual routine, forbidding a
longer period of mourning. Nay, more, when a deputation from Ilium offered him somewhat
belated condolences, he replied with a smile, as if the memory of his bereavement had
faded from his mind, that they, too, had his sympathy for the loss of their eminent
fellow-citizen Hector. As to Germanicus, he was so far from appreciating him, that he made
light of his illustrious deeds as unimportant, and railed at his brilliant victories as
ruinous to his country. He even made complaint in the Senate when Germanicus, on the
occasion of a sudden and terrible famine, went to Alexandria without consulting him. It is
even believed that he caused his death at the hands of Gnaeus Piso, governor of Syria, and
some think that when Piso was tried on that charge, he would have produced his
instructions, had not Tiberius caused them to be taken from him when Piso privately showed
them, and the man himself to be put to death. Because of this the words, "Give us
back Germanicus," were posted in many places, and shouted at night all over the city.
And Tiberius afterwards strengthened this suspicion by cruelly abusing the wife and
children of Germanicus as well.
LIII. When his daughter-in-law Agrippina was somewhat outspoken in her complaints after
her husband's death, he took her by the hand and quoted a Greek verse, meaning "Do
you think a wrong is done you, dear daughter, if you are not empress?" After that he
never deigned to hold any conversation with her. Indeed, after she showed fear of tasting
an apple which he handed her at dinner, he even ceased to invite her to his table,
alleging that he had been charged with an attempt to poison her; but as a matter of fact,
the whole affair had been prearranged, that he should offer her the fruit to test her, and
that she should refuse it as containing certain death. At last, falsely charging her with
a desire to take refuge, now at the statue of Augustus and now with the armies, he exiled
her to Pandataria, and when she loaded him with reproaches, he had her beaten by a
centurion until one of her eyes was destroyed. Again, when she resolved to die of
starvation, he had her mouth pried open and food crammed into it. Worst of all, when she
persisted in her resolution and so perished, he assailed her memory with the basest
slanders, persuading the Senate to add her birthday to the days of ill omen, and actually
taking credit to himself for not having had her strangled and her body cast out on the
Stairs of Mourning. He even allowed a decree to be passed in recognition of this
remarkable clemency, in which thanks were offered him and a golden gift was consecrated to
Jupiter of the Capitol.
LIV. By Germanicus he had three grandsons: Nero, Drusus, and Gaius, and by Drusus one,
called Tiberius. Bereft of his own children, he recommended Nero and Drusus, the elder
sons of Germanicus, to the Senate, and celebrated the day when each of them came to his
majority by giving largess to the commons. But as soon as he learned that at the beginning
of the year vows were being put up for their safety also, he referred the matter to the
Senate, saying that such honours ought to be conferred only on those of tried character
and mature years. By revealing his true teelings towards them from that time on, he
exposed them to accusations from all quarters, and after resorting to various tricks to
rouse them to rail at him, and seeing to it that they were betrayed when they did so, he
brought most bitter charges against them both in writing; and when they had in consequence
been pronounced public enemies, he starved them to death, Nero on the island of Pontia and
Drusus in a lower room of the Palace. It is thought that Nero was forced to take his own
life, since an executioner, who pretended that he came by authority of the Senate, showed
him the noose and hooks, but that Drusus was so tortured by hunger that he tried to eat
the stuffing of his mattress; while the remains of both were so scattered that it was with
difficulty that they could ever be collected.
LV. In addition to his old friends and intimates, he had asked for twenty of the
leading men of the State as advisers on public affairs. Of all these he spared hardly two
or three; the others he destroyed on one pretext or another, including Aelius Sejanus,
whose downfall involved the death of many others. This man he had advanced to the highest
power, not so much from regard for him, as that he might through his services and wiles
destroy the children of Germanicus and secure the succession for his own grandson, the
child of his son Drusus.
LVI. He was not a whit milder towards his Greek companions, in whose society he took
special pleasure. When one Xeno was holding forth in somewhat farfetched phrases, he asked
him what dialect that was which was so affected, and on Xeno's replying that it was Doric,
he banished him to Cinaria, believing that he was being taunted with his old-time exile,
inasmuch as the Rhodians spoke Doric. He had the habit, too, of putting questions at
dinner suggested by his daily reading, and learning that the grammarian Seleucus inquired
of the imperial attendants what authors Tiberius was reading and so came primed, he at
first banished the offender from his society, and later even forced him to commit suicide.
LVII. His cruel and cold-blooded character was not completely hidden even in his
boyhood. His teacher of rhetoric, Theodorus of Gadara, seems first to have had the insight
to detect it, and to have characterized it very aptly, since in taking him to task he
would now and then call him "mud kneaded with blood." But it grew still more
noticeable after he became emperor, even at the beginning, when he was still courting
popularity by a show of moderation. When a funeral was passing by and a jester called
aloud to the corpse to let Augustus know that the legacies which he had left to the people
were not yet being paid, Tiberius had the man haled before him, ordered that he be given
his due and put to death, and bade him go tell the truth to his father. Shortly
afterwards, when a Roman knight called Pompeius stoutly opposed some action in the Senate,
Tiberius threatened him with imprisonment, declaring that from a Pompeius he would make of
him a Pompeian, punning cruelly on the man's name and the fate of the old party
LVIII. It was at about this time that a praetor asked him whether he should have the
courts convened to consider cases of lese-majesty; to which he replied that the laws must
be enforced, and he did enforce them most rigorously. One man had removed the head from a
statue of Augustus, to substitute that of another; the case was tried in the Senate, and
since the evidence was conflicting, the witnesses were examined by torture. After the
defendant had been condemned, this kind of accusation gradually went so far that even such
acts as these were regarded as capital crimes: to beat a slave near a statue of Augustus,
or to change one's clothes there; to carry a ring or coin stamped with his image into a
privy or a brothel, or to criticize any word or act of his. Finally, a man was put to
death merely for allowing an honour to be voted him in his native town on the same day
that honours had previously been voted to Augustus.
LIX. He did so many other cruel and savage deeds under the guise of strictness and
improvement of the public morals, but in reality rather to gratify his natural instincts,
that some resorted to verses to express their detestation of the present ills and a
warning against those to come:
"Cruel and merciless man, shall I briefly say all I would utter? Hang me if even
your dam for you affection can feel."
"You are no knight. Why so? The hundred thousands are lacking; If you ask the
whole tale, you were an exile at Rhodes."
"You, O Caesar, have altered the golden ages of Saturn; For while you are alive,
iron they ever will be."
"Nothing for wine cares this fellow, since now 'tis for blood he is thirsting;
This he as greedily quaffs as before wine without water."
"Look, son of Rome, upon Sulla, for himself not for you blest and happy, Marius
too, if you will, but after capturing Rome; Hands of an Antonius see, rousing the strife
of the people, Hands stained with blood not once, dripping again and again; Then say: Rome
is no more! He ever has reigned with great bloodshed Whoso made himself king, coming from
banishment home."
These at first he wished to be taken as the work of those who were impatient of his
reforms, voicing not so much their real feelings as their anger and vexation; and he used
to say from time to time: "Let them hate me, provided they respect my conduct."
Later he himself proved them only too true and unerring.
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