Tiberius the Tyrant

by John Charles Tarver

By insisting on an impartial administration of justice, Tiberius made enemies among those who were interested in the contrary practice, and there is no doubt that many a senator relieved his feelings by recording instances of such tyranny in his private diary. It is all a question of point of view; our point of view does not allow us to stigmatize a man as a tyrant who steadily worked for the purity of the law courts.

The next recorded transaction in the Senate was of a different nature; the excessive weight of a road and aqueduct had caused a subsidence of the foundations of a Senator’s house, and he had applied to the Senate for compensation; the officials of the Treasury resisted the claim, but Tiberius ordered the value of the house to be paid to the owner. Then follows the inevitable comment: “For he was fond of distributing money in honourable ways, a virtue which he long retained, when he was abandoning all others.” Even this remark is, however, not sufficiently damaging for Tacitus, and he carefully provides that his next statement should be calculated to appeal to a well-known weakness. Propertius Celer asked to be allowed to retire from the Senatorial Order on account of insufficiency of means. Tiberius, on ascertaining that his poverty was inherited, bestowed on him a million sestertii (about £8,500). So far so good; no senator could object to this, but something follows: “When others attempted to get the same relief he ordered them to prove their case to the Senate, harsh even in those things which he did in due form, through his excessive love of strict procedure. For this reason the rest preferred silence and poverty to confession and gratuities.” We shall have to record later on a particularly impudent attempt on the part of an indigent Senator to extort money for the relief of his necessities, and shall find that Tiberius had good reason for insisting that men who claimed the assistance of the Senate should give a full account of their means and of the causes of their poverty; but it is easy to see that the severity of Tiberius would not be popular with the Senate, and that a prejudice could be created against him by giving an example of his strictness in this matter early in his reign. Paterculus, more just than Tacitus, praises Tiberius for the discrimination with which he assisted impoverished Senators.

In the same year there were heavy floods in the Tiber; the lower regions of the city were inundated, many buildings fell, many lives were lost. Asinius Gallus, the second husband of Vipsania, moved that the Sibylline books should be consulted. We are not surprised to hear that Tiberius rejected the motion “on religious no less than practical grounds.” It is an interesting illustration of the curious development of the Italian intellect that these same men who could seriously propose in their solemn assembly to consult the Roman Mother Shipton in a case of this kind should form a bold engineering scheme for dealing with the difficulty. It was suggested, after a committee had reported, that the tributaries which brought the floods into the Tiber should be diverted. The scheme was abandoned, as deputations from the inhabitants of the valleys through which these rivers flowed pointed out that they would suffer serious loss if it were carried out. There were also religious obstacles; these rivers were worshipped, and Tiber himself might object to the proposed diminution of his glorious stream.

We then have a fragment of administration dismissed by Tacitus in a couple of lines without comment. The provinces of Achaia and Macedonia begged to be relieved of the expense of the Senatorial Government and transferred to the Imperial provinces; both of these provinces had suffered in consequence of the Pannonian war. The Imperial administration was less expensive than that of the Senate, not necessarily because the Senatorial Government was corrupt, but because the honours paid to the Senatorial viceroys and their trains were expensive; there was the difference between maintaining a court and paying an official. Adverse comment was in this case impossible, because when Tacitus was writing, the process of removing the distinction between Senatorial and Imperial provinces was in progress. Trajan would hardly have approved of a reactionary comment, such as Tacitus might have been tempted to make. These provinces were restored to the Senate by Claudius.

This notice is followed by a statement and comment in the best Tacitean style: “Drusus (the son of Tiberius) presided at the gladiatorial shows which he had offered in the names of himself and his brother Germanicus, although too easily pleased with cheap bloodshed, a thing which was full of danger to the commonalty, and which his father is said to have reproved. Different reasons were assigned for the Emperor’s own absence from the shows; some said that he disliked a crowd, others alleged his dismal nature and his fear of comparisons, for Augustus had taken part in these events with affability. I should be unwilling to believe that an opportunity was deliberately given to his son of demonstrating his cruelty and exciting unpopularity, though that was also said.”

The connection of thought is not quite obvious, for if the gladiatorial shows were popular, and they certainly were popular, how could Drusus incur unpopularity by presiding? There is unhappily no evidence that the populace of Rome ever objected to bloodshed in the arena, and the president at these shows would be more likely to make himself disliked by checking than by permitting or encouraging the slaughter. Nor again is it easy to see the force of the phrase, “although too easily pleased with cheap bloodshed,” unless there is a reference implied to the pleasure which Drusus was said to have taken in the executions of the mutineers in Pannonia, an inexpensive pleasure compared with that afforded by the fights of trained gladiators; the word “although” suggests that Drusus could get his bloodshed more cheaply than by giving gladiatorial shows.

Again, if Drusus was wrong in patronizing these shows, how could Tiberius also be wrong in refusing to be present? As a matter of fact, one of the many points in the character of Tiberius which commands our respect is his aversion to the disgusting spectacles of all kinds in which the Roman people delighted. But considerations of this kind did not weigh with Tacitus; he was not interested in being consistent; he found in the memoirs adverse interpretations of the conduct of Tiberius, and he impartially repeated them, though they were in contradiction with his previous condemnation of Drusus.

A riot in the theatre was the next event of importance. We shall have on a later occasion to discuss the position of the theatres at some length. It is enough to record that on the present occasion opinions were given in the Senate to the effect that the Prætors should be allowed to flog actors. A tribune interposed his veto according to an old constitutional practice, and was roundly abused by Asinius Gallus for doing so. “Tiberius preserved silence, for he conceded to the Senate such phantoms of liberty.” However, the veto of the tribune was allowed, “because the sainted Augustus had once declared that actors were exempt from the rods, and it was a matter of conscience with Tiberius not to infringe his utterances.” The further proceedings in the Senate on this occasion throw a curious light on the manners of the time. It was decreed that Senators should not enter the houses of the pantomimists, that the Equestrians should not attend them when they went out, that they should not give performances except in the theatre, and that the Prætors should have power to punish the extravagance of the spectators with banishment.

Then the Spaniards were allowed to build a temple to Augustus at Tarragona, thus setting an example to all the provinces. The people of Tarragona had not hitherto been fortunate in their worship of Augustus; they had set up an altar to him in his lifetime, and soon afterwards announced to him radiantly that a palm had grown from it. “It is easy to see that you do not often sacrifice,” the old man had remarked.

Petitions were presented against the tax of one per cent. on auctions. Tiberius declared in an edict that the military chest depended on that source of income, and added that the burden of the army was too great for the State unless the soldiers served for twenty years; thus the reduction to sixteen years demanded by the mutineers was set aside.