' Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the troughs of Zolaism, Forward, forward, ay and backward, downward too into the abysm '
(Tennyson, Locksley Ball Sixty Years A/ter, 145-146).
Outside the gate of Thyatira, as an inscription (CIG, 3509) proves, there stood the shrine of a Chal- diEan sibyl, whose name, Sambethe, was doubtless familiar to the whole town, and of whose sooth- saying St. John may well have heard. E. Schiirer suggested (in Theol. Ahliandhmgcn, Carl von Weiz- sdcker zu seinem 70len Gebiirtstage gezuidmet, Freiburg i. B., 1892, p. 39f.) that this may have been the Jezebel denounced in the letter, but the theory has not found acceptance. That the writer of the Apocalypse may have seen some likeness between the two clever women, the sibyl and the ' prophetess,' each of whom had a large following in Thyatira, is not improbable ; but the Jezebel whom the Church did wrong to suffer (v. 2"), and who had been granted time to repent (v.-'), was clearly regarded by him as being not outside but inside the Christian community. Ak-hissar, as Thyatira is now called, is a large town of mud houses, almost hidden from view by the luxuriant vegetation of its gardens. The ruins are of no great importance.
Literature. —W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, London, 19U4 ; C. Wilson, in Murray's Ilandbook to Asia Minor, do., 1905, p. 84 f.
James Strahan. THYINE WOOD {^iXov BiXvov, the tree being ^ Svla. or Ova., rarely ri 9vov). — Thyine wood is men- tioned among the precious wares of the Apoca- lyptic Babylon, i.e. Rome (Rev 18'-). It was a hard, dark br,own, aromatic wood, exported from N. Africa and used for the making of costly furniture (Theophrastus, Hist. Plant, v. iii. 7; Diod. v. 46; Pliny, HN XIII. xxx. 16). It is commonly identi- fied witli the Thvia articulata. The Greek name (probably from eiui) refers to the fragrance of tlie wood, which was burned as a perfume (Hom. Od. V. 60). The Romans called it citrus — probably a mutilation of ccrfr«« — which must not be confounded with the citron. 'All thyine wood' refers, not to different species of the tree, but to the variety of objects made of this precious wood in the luxurious Imperial city. James Strahan.
TIBERIUS.— Tlie Emperor Tiberius belonged to the family of the Claudii Nerones, a branch of the patrician gens Claudia which separated from the original family about the middle of the 3rd cent. B.C. His father, Tiberius Claudius Nero, son of another Tiberius, appears in history in 54 B.C. as desirous to prosecute A. Gabinius for extortion. He made overtures in Asia for the hand of Cicero's daughter Tullia in 50, but her betrothal to Dola- bella had already taken place in Rome. In 48 he distinguished himself as qumstor and admiral of the fleet to Julius Coesar in the Alexandrian war. Later he was elected pontifex (46) and prmtur (42). Having taken up arms against Octavian (40), he had to flee to Sicily with his young wife Livia Drusilla and his scarcely two-year-old son, the future Emperor. Later he removed to Sparta, and on returning to Rome with M. Antonius in 39 he was included in the general amnesty. Soon afterwards Octavian made Livia's acquaintance and prevailed upon Nero to give her up to him (38), though at the time she was expecting the birth of her second son, Drusus, which took place in Octavian's house. Thus it came about that the Claudian house supplied so many of the early Emperors. For Tiberius, having been brought to Octavian's house at the age of four, may be said to have known no other father : his own died not later than 33. Octavian's passion for Livia did not imply the treatment of her sons as his own. Circumstances alone forced him to this decision.
Tiberius was born on I6th Nov. 42 (Suet. Tih. 5) in a house on the Palatine Hilt in Rome. He made successful appearances in the law-courts in his early youth, and was given two commissions, one connected with the corn supply and the other with the inspection of the barracoons of Italy. He was a tribunus inilitum (colonel) in the expedi- tion against the warlike Cantabri of N.W. Spain (25), and afterwards in the East placed the diadem on the head of Tigranes, king of Armenia (20). He also recovered from the Parthians the standards they had captured from Crassus in 53 (Hor. Od. IV. XV. 4-8). In 16 Augustus and Tiberius went to Gaul, and on 1st Aug. of the following year Tiberius and Drusus were victorious over the Rseti and Vindelici. In 15 Tiberius' son Drusus and nephew Germanicus were born. [Tiberius' wife was Agrippina, the daughter of the great general, Augustus' right-hand man, Agrippa, and grand- daughter of T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's corre- spondent. After the birth of the child Tiberius was compelled by Augustus to divorce his wife and to marry Julia (11), Augustus' own daughter by his wife Scribonia. Julia had been married in 25 to young Claudius Marcellus, who died in 23. She became the wife of Agrippa (t 12) in 21, and bore him two sons. Gains (20) and Lucius (17). In the latter year Augustus adopted these two grandsons of his as his own sons. Julia's profligacy, scarcely to be wondered at, led to her banishment in 2.] Tiberius' first consulship was passed in Rome in 13, and in the next year he succeeded Agrippa as governor of Pannonia, where he conducted cam- paigns in 11 and 10. In the following year Tiberius' brother Drusus, who had been co-operat- ing in Germany with his brother in Pannonia, met his death, and Tiberius brought the body to Rome, on which occasion he triumphed over the Dalmatians and Pannonians. In 8 he was victori- ous over the Sugambri and other German tribes, and celebrated his triumph in 7. In 6 he received for the first or (according to some) the second time the tribiinicia potestas for five years. This was one of the most important elements of the Imperial power. On receiving it he was sent on an import- ant mission to the East, but retired for some years to Rhodes, whence he did not return to Rome till