TIBERIUS
TIBERIUS
A.D. 2. The death of Lucius on 20tli Au;,'. A.D. 2 ami of Gains on 21st. Feb. A.D. 4 forced .Xu^justus at last to adopt Tiberius. l''irst Tiberius was compelled to adopt as his son Oerinanieus, son of Drusus, and then Auj;ustus adopted both as his own sons. At the same time the imperiiitn pro- consiilnre and tribunicia potcstas were conferred on Tiberius, the latter either for live or for ten years. In this year he defeated the Clieni.-ici, and for some years afterwards was enyaj^ed in almost continuous warfare, particularly in the country to the N. E. and the E. of the Adriatic. He triumphed in A.D. 9, but returned then to Pannonia and after- wards to the Khine. In A.D. 12 he was in sole command there, and in A.D. 13 be triumphed for victories in I'annonia and had his prucunsularc inipcriiim and trihimicin potcstas renewed without limit of time. On 19th Aug. A.D. 14, the day of the death of Augustus, he succeeded to the Emjiire.
Tiberius had shown himself a most capable general and had led for the most part a very strenuous life. For some years he had been colleague in the Empire, but the tyrannical manner in which Augustus had treated liim, joined to his obvious unwillingness to adopt him, must have embittered one who was fully conscious of the splendid services he had rendered to the Empire. The period of Tiberius' sole rule makes melancholy reading, not entirely due to the gloom and sus- picion cast over him by the genius of Tacitus. Tiberius seems to have been by nature fonder of retirement and study than of anything else, and despite his military achievements proved a bad ruler. In his reign began the encouragement of informers (delatores), who made life dangerous for all with birth, position, or wealth. Tiberius' naturally melancholy and morose disposition had developed into suspicion.
Few political events of importance took place during the reign. During the rule of Augustus, the popular elective assembly had gradually ceased to have any real voice in the elections, and at the very beginning of Tiberius' reign its electoral powers were transferred to the Senate. In A.D. 17 Cappadocia and Commagene were annexed. The chief literary events of the reign were the publica- tion in A.D. 14 of the Astronomica of Manilius, ' the one Latin poet who excels even Ovid in verbal point and smartness' (A. E. Housman, M. Manilii Astronomicon, i. [London, 1903] p. xxi), the death of Ovid and of Livy in 17, the publication of the history of Velleius Paterculus in 30, and in this reign and the next the publication of Pha;drus' Fables. The reign was ciistinguished by military operations. At the very beginning of it there were serious mutinies of the troops in Pannonia and Germany, and Germanicus, the adopted son of the Emperor, proved so brilliant a general as to arouse the Emperor's jealousy. In A.D. 15 the troops were exposed to terrible risks in the cam- paign against the German general Arminius (modern Hermann). In the next year Germanicus advanced to tlie Elbe and returned by sea to the Rhine. The project of the Elbe frontier was, how- ever, abandoned .and Germanicus was recalled. He triumphed on 26th May 17, and was then sent to the East. About the s.arae time a rising took place in Africa under a native, Tacfarinas, which was not subdued for many years. A serious disagree- ment between Germanicus and Piso, the governor of Syria, was followed by the death of the former on 10th October 19. Piso, under strong and perh.-ips justifiable suspicion of complicity in the death of Germanicus, was compelled by liis own troops to leave Syria, and, being next year charged with this crime and with treason, conuuitted suicide. The year 21 saw the rising of Julius Florus and Julius Sacrouir in Gaul. Their defeat was celebrated by
the erection of the still-existing arch at Arausio (Orange). In tlie same year Arminius was assas- sinated.
In the year 21 the moroseness of Tiberius took a serious turn, an<l he retired to Camimuia. It was a new thing for the Emperor to leave Komo except for military or administrative purposes, and, though techuically it meant no loosening of his hold on the helm of State, practically it was bound to have that ellect. In 22 tlie tribunicia potestas was conferred on his son Drusus, who, however, died in the following year. His death is attriliuted by Taci- tus to L. /Elius Seianus, prefect of tixe pnetorian guard, a man of inordinate ambition, who aimed at the purple. In 26 Tiberius finally left Rome, and from this date the oflice of prmfectus urbi (governor of Rome) became a permanent institu- tion of the Emiiire. The Emperor sett led at Capreae (Capri), the island ofV the Cam]ianian coast, where he lived for the rest of his days. There Seianus was accustomed to consort with him. The Senate was servile to both : Agrippina(+ 33), the widow of Germanicus, and her son Mcro were exiled ; another son, Drusus, was imprisoned (and executed in 33). The way was thus paved for Seianus' promotion to the impcrium procons^ilare in 31. But his ambi- tion had overleajit itself. At last his Imperial master's jealousy was aroused against him, and he, his family, and his adlierents were put to death. Tiberius himself died on 16th March 37.