Tiberius Tiberius Claudius Nero 42

TIBERIUS [TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO] (42 B.C.–A.D. 37), Roman emperor, was born on Nov. 16, 42 B.C. His father, who bore the same name, was an officer of Julius Caesar, who, after a stormy career, returned to Rome when the general amnesty was proclaimed in 39 B.C. Livia, the mother of Tiberius, was also of the Claudian family ; her husband ceded her to Octavian in 38 shortly before Drusus, Tiberius's brother, was born. Livia had no children by Augustus, and therefore devoted all her re markable gifts to the advancement of her sons. Tiberius passed through the list of state offices in the usual princely fashion, begin ning with the quaestorship at the age of eighteen, and attaining the consulate for the first time at twenty-nine.

But from

22 to 6 B.C. and again from A.D. 4 to io by far the greater part of Tiberius's time was spent in the camp. His first service was as legionary tribune in one of the desperate wars in the Spanish peninsula. In 20 B.C. Augustus sent Tiberius with an army to seat Tigranes of Armenia on the throne as a Roman vassal. This he did without opposition. He spent the following year as governor of Transalpine Gaul. In the next year (15) he was despatched to aid his brother Drusus in subjugating the Raeti and Vindelici in the mountains at the source of the Rhine and Danube. Drusus attacked from the eastern side, while Tiberius operated from the upper waters of the Rhine, and the mountaineers were subdued, which ensured the safety of com munications between northern Italy and Gaul. In 12 B.C. Agrippa, the great general of the emperor Augustus, died at the age of fifty-one, leaving Julia, the emperor's only child, a widow. Agrip pina, who was the daughter of Agrippa by an earlier marriage, was wife of Tiberius, and had borne him a son, Drusus. Livia, with great difficulty, prevailed upon Augustus to replace Agrippa by Tiberius, who was compelled to exchange Agrippina for Julia, with bitter grief on his part. During the year of mourning for Agrippa, which delayed his new marriage, Tiberius was occupied with a victorious campaign against the Pannonians, followed by success ful expeditions in the three succeeding summers. For this he

received the triumphal insignia, now first separated from the triumph itself. Drusus died in 9 B.C., and Tiberius became the first soldier of the empire.

In the campaign of the year after Drusus's death Tiberius traversed all Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe, and met with slight opposition. He was rewarded with the full triumph, the military title of "imperator," and his second consulship. In 7 B.C. there was another but insignificant campaign in Germany. Next year Augustus bestowed on his stepson the tribunician authority for five years.

Tiberius at this time suddenly begged permission to retire to Rhodes and devote himself to study. He seems to have declined absolutely at the time to state his reasons for this course, but he obstinately adhered to it. The departure from Italy was as secret as it could be made. Years afterwards, when Tiberius broke silence about his motives, he declared that he had retired in order to allow the young princes, Gaius and Lucius, sons of Agrippa and Julia, a free course.

At Rhodes Tiberius lived simply, passing his time mainly in the company of Greek professors, with whom he associated on pretty equal terms. After five years' absence from Rome, he begged for leave to return ; but the boon was angrily refused, and Livia with difficulty got her son made nominally a legate of Augustus, so as in some degree to veil his disgrace. The next two years were spent in solitude and gloom. Then, on the inter cession of Gaius, Augustus allowed Tiberius to come back to Rome, but on the express understanding that he was to hold aloof from public functions. He had scarcely returned before death removed (A.D. 2) Lucius, the younger of the two princes, and a year and a half later Gaius also died. The emperor was thus left with only one male descendant, Agrippa Postumus, youngest son of Julia, and still a boy. Four months after Gaius's death Augustus adopted Agrippa and at the same time Tiberius. The emperor now indicated clearly his expectation that Tiberius would be his principal successor.