Tiberius and his Island of Depravity

Summary

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Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode: Tiberius and his Island of Depravity
Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Alexander Meddings
Date: March 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this riveting episode, Dr. Kate Lister and historian Alexander Meddings plunge into the scandal-ridden reputation of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, focusing on his notorious years on Capri, the so-called “island of depravity.” Amid warnings about the disturbing nature of some content—child abuse, sexual assault, murder, and ritual sacrifice—the hosts debate how much of Tiberius’s lurid legend is provable truth versus sensational ancient gossip.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tiberius—The Man Behind the Rumors

• Early Life & Background
  • Born in 42 BC to aristocratic parents on the losing side of civil wars ([05:30]).
  • Adopted into the imperial family when his mother, Livia, marries Augustus ([06:18]).
  • Not initially groomed for power due to Augustus’s other heirs ([07:38]).
• Marriage & Family Politics
  • Forced to divorce his beloved first wife Vipsania and marry his stepsister Julia for political reasons ([08:15]).
  • Tiberius is depicted as austere, a talented military leader, but also a misogynist—even by Roman standards ([10:05]).
• Personality Sketch
  • “You wouldn’t really want to go and have a pint with him. You wouldn’t mind serving under him. So he’s a great soldier...”
    — Alexander Meddings ([11:19])
  • Enjoys literature, fluent in Greek, superstitious, and a capable administrator ([11:19]).

2. Unwilling Emperor

• Path to Rule
  • After deaths of Augustus’s heirs (possibly natural, possibly foul play), Tiberius reluctantly becomes the only viable successor ([15:11], [16:36]).
  • Not a populist like other emperors; “boring sensibleness” is his political style ([15:43]).
  • On Augustus’s death, Tiberius carefully negotiates power with the Senate and is described as a reluctant autocrat ([18:27], [19:18]).
• Reluctance & Republican Leanings
  • “He describes ruling the Empire as like holding a wolf by the ears.”
    — Alexander Meddings ([23:39])
  • Tended to share or defer power to the Senate and was never fully comfortable in his role ([19:18], [23:39]).

3. The Move to Capri—Retreat or Escape?

• Reasons for Withdrawal

  • After personal losses (death of his son Drusus, nephew Germanicus) and betrayed by ally Sejanus, Tiberius decamps to Capri around age 60 ([24:54]).
    • “He just goes to Capri so he can, if we believe the sources, drink himself to death, have lots of debauched sex, and just kind of get away from all of the responsibility.”
      — Meddings ([26:05])
  • Leaves Sejanus administering Rome, leading to suspicion and political purges ([27:55]).

• Public & Political Perceptions

  • Roman senators and public deeply suspicious of an emperor living “off-stage” on an island ([27:09]).
  • Capri becomes fertile ground for rumors of excess and wickedness—a template for “Epstein’s island” comparisons ([27:38], [45:42]).

4. Myth Versus Reality—What Was Tiberius Really Doing?

• Accounts of Depravity

  • Tales from Suetonius (the “ancient Daily Mail columnist” per Meddings) detail Tiberius’s alleged sexual sadism, child abuse, voyeuristic orgies, and even abuse of babies ([34:01], [35:08]).
  • Notably, Suetonius claims Tiberius had a collection of “tight bums” (children forced into sexual acts), a “sex library” to instruct exploited participants, and other horrors ([33:47]).
    • “There are the tight bums. There’s allegedly a sex library that he has as well...”
      — Meddings ([34:01])
  • Alexander muses: “...the stuff with kids...seems so specific. You could go one way or another...” ([37:11], [38:15]).

• Assessing the Sources

  • Ancient reports mostly posthumous, combining Suetonius’s sensationalism with Tacitus’s grimmer, though less lurid, critiques ([34:04]).
  • Many rumors likely colored by political axe-grinding and the ancient tradition of posthumously vilifying unpopular rulers ([36:35], [40:42]).
    • “It’s so hard to say, isn’t it? I mean, we’ll never know...at this point, we just don’t have the weight of evidence, the specificity of it.”
      — Meddings ([37:11])

• The Island as Taboo Space

  • Kate: “It’s all feeling horribly modern—it’s an island with powerful men on it where awful things happen” ([27:29]).
  • Meddings: “Romans have a particular mistrust of islands...This is definitely the case in Capri.” ([46:50])

5. Paranoia, Humour, and Dark Tales

• Growing Isolation and Paranoia

  • Tiberius becomes increasingly paranoid—stories of over-the-top punishments, like rubbing a fisherman’s face with a mullet or lobster ([30:05]).

• Rumors and Ridicule

  • Nicknamed “Biberius Chaldius Mero” (a play on “drunken Tiberius, hot, and wine”)—illustrating Roman humor and public perception ([30:44]).
  • “Take what you can get with ancient Roman humour.”
    — Meddings ([30:44])

6. Legacy and Final Years

• Death

  • Dies around age 77, possibly from illness (“catching a chill”), though rumors abound of murder by Caligula or the Praetorian prefect ([43:31]).
  • His retreat, ambiguous death, and lack of clear heir fed further gossip ([43:56]).

• Historical Reputation

  • Meddings notes: “It’s his debauchery and his later years on Capri that have colored our interpretation...In terms of a character assessment, I find him quite human. He’s a man of many, many contradictions” ([44:20]).
  • Possible modern parallels: “Somewhere between a Jon Snow—I don’t want it type figure, part Churchill, but...if the rumors are true, then he’s essentially Epstein...” ([45:34], [45:40]).
  • “I don’t know if we’re any closer to knowing the truth about this being either fabulous or awful human being.”
    — Kate Lister ([47:38])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the limits of evidence:

  “We’ll never be able to reconstruct the person behind the stories that have been told of them.”
  — Alexander Meddings ([37:11])

• On the legacy of rumors:

  “Just because you can’t conceive of it happening, unfortunately doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.”
  — Kate Lister ([36:12])

• On islands and depravity:

  “It’s all feeling horribly modern. It’s an island with powerful men on it where awful things happen.”
  — Kate Lister ([27:29])

• On Tiberius’s contradictions:

  “A republican, forced into a position of autocracy, a lover of Greek culture, but also austerely Roman. And...He’s kind of very much a product of Roman culture, a reluctant leader...”
  — Alexander Meddings ([44:20])

• Modern parallels:

  “The parallels of Epstein island are really intriguing, especially when you consider the company he’s keeping.”
  — Alexander Meddings ([45:44])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |---------------------------|--------------| | Trigger Warning & Intro | 01:09 | | Tiberius’s Childhood | 05:30 | | Political Marriages | 08:15 | | Personality & Military | 11:19 | | Rise to Power | 16:01 | | Senate & Reluctance | 18:27 | | Move to Capri | 24:54 | | Early Rumors & Public Suspicion | 27:09 | | Stories of Sadism & Sex | 33:47 | | Source Critique & Likelihood | 37:11 | | Final Years and Death | 41:20 | | Discussion of Legacy | 44:20 |

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced, often unsettling exploration of Tiberius: from promising military man and reluctant emperor to the center of some of antiquity’s darkest rumors. Dr. Kate Lister and Alexander Meddings highlight the challenge of separating sensationalism from fact, drawing parallels to both ancient and contemporary scandals, and ultimately leave listeners with more questions than answers about the true nature of this enigmatic emperor’s rule on Capri.

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Guest Info:
Find more about Alexander Meddings and his work at alexandermeddings.com
He regularly conducts tours throughout Rome and Italy—though promises to go easy on the "salacious stories" for school groups! ([48:14])

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Note: This summary omits sponsor messages, advertisements, and non-content sections for clarity and focus.

Transcript

[Kate Lester]

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to history hit where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries plus new releases every week covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.

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[Alexander Meddings]

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[Kate Lester]

Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lester. Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. Right now everybody, I want our serious faces on because this is quite a serious face. Fair dues warning, this episode is going to be discussing child abuse, sexual assault, murder, ritual sacrifice. It's just, it's a, it's a dark one, okay? It's gonna like imagine the worst things you can think of. And that's what we're going to be talking about. So if you don't want to listen to this today, just breeze on by and we'll catch you next time. For the rest of you, let's crack. Is there anything better than feeling the sun on your face, the fresh sea air and the sound of the ocean? I've been to the Bay of Naples a bit for work recently and the ruins of Pompeii are above us on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. This time though, it's time to relax and look out across the turquoise sea. Who wouldn't want to come here for a bit of rest and relaxation? People have been doing it since, well, since the Roman times and probably before. And some of those Romans weren't even meant to be on holiday. Some of them were supposed to be governing the Roman Empire. Yeah. Tiberius, we're looking at you. From where I'm sitting on the coast of the Bay of Naples, I can see the island of Capri. And this, this is the island where the Emperor Tiberius, a hugely powerful man, spent most of his time. But what was he up to over there on that island? Well, if the rumors are to be believed, nothing good and everything bad. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister, on this podcast, we have met the scandalous, the shameful and the downright bad Byron. Today, I'm sorry to say that we might be descending to an even lower level of depravity as we go back to the times of the Roman Empire to talk about the Emperor Tiberius and what he did on his own island of depravity. The rather fabulous Alexander Meddings is back with us once again to explore just how much truth there is to the very sordid rumors that swirl around this emperor. Well, all right, everybody, I think that's enough warning. If you're still here, shall we do it? All right, let's do it. Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Alexander Meddings. How are you doing? Hello.

[Alexander Meddings]

I am great, Kate, thank you. How are you doing?

[Kate Lester]

I'm doing fabulous. How's Italy? I've always got such weather envy whenever I talk to you. Is it fabulous and sunny and gorgeous at the moment?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's a lovely day today. It is a lovely day. Although we've just had monsoon season, like all through January and February. It's just been hammering it down and it looks like we've finally come out of that. But that was grim and unexpected in equal measure.

[Kate Lester]

It's not been too great here, actually. But, you know, we're getting sidetracked already. I can't ask you, but I have to ask you about nasty things that did happen in Italy because we are here to talk about Tiberius.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, yeah. He's an odd emperor, isn't he? He doesn't really have the same reputation, I guess, as the likes of Caligula or Nero, but he does go down as a proper wrongan, which may or may not be misguided. I guess we'll tease it out today.

[Kate Lester]

Okay. Because if you stopped like your average person on the street and said, name me five shithead emperors, I don't know if Tiberius had come into it for most people. Like you said, you'd go, Caligula, you'd

[Alexander Meddings]

go, maybe Commodus from Gladiator or King Phoenix.

[Kate Lester]

Yes, or Elagabalus. Maybe you'd go for that one. I don't know. Tiberius, he is fun, isn't he? So right. So there'll be people listening to this who are just going, well, I've never even heard of him. So let's give us a bit of background, give me dates, give me his origin story. Where did he come from? Tiberius, The Emperor, sure.

[Alexander Meddings]

So Tiberius Claudius Nero, or Tiberius Claudius Nero as his name is, he's born in 42 BC, so the dying days of the Roman Republic, two years after the assassination of Julius Caesar. And he's born to proper blue blooded aristocratic parents. His father is also called Tiberius Claudius Nero, which is thoroughly unhelpful for us modern historians trying to work out who's who. And his mother, Livia Drusilla, they find themselves on the wrong side of the civil war. So they back the wrong horse, they back Pompey against Caesar and then Anthony against Octavian, and they spend the first part of Tiberius's life, the first few years on the run in exile.

[Kate Lester]

Oh, they really did back the wrong horse there then.

[Alexander Meddings]

Okay, yeah, no, they totally screwed it. And Tiberius from a young age is surrounded by danger. So we're told that once in Greece he and his mother are caught up in a forest fire and her hair is singed and nearly burnt to death. And then eventually she's allowed to return to Rome, she's allowed to return from this exile and she catches the eye of the young Octavian who will later go on to be Rome's first emperor, Augustus. And he falls madly in love or lust with her, forces her to divorce Tiberius Claudius Nero marries her and then kind of adopts Tiberius into the family, although Tiberius still kind of remains under the authority of his father, but he's also been adopted into the imperial family, or what will soon become the imperial family it is. Yeah, but he's not groomed for power from a young age or he's definitely not groomed to be the emperor one day or the prince because Augustus has grandkids, he has a daughter called Julia who has five kids with a guy called Marcus Agrippa. Who is she the one that ends

[Kate Lester]

up on the island?

[Alexander Meddings]

She does. She's one of the many who end up on an island through all of her sexual escapades. Or so this is sources say.

[Kate Lester]

So many islands.

[Alexander Meddings]

Poor Julia. I have a lot of time for Julia. I mean she's Augustus's daughter. She's made to marry a guy called Marcus Agrippa, who is her father's contemporary, exactly the same age and he's a plebian of all things. So not only is he an older man, but he's a commoner, which can't have been good for blue blooded Julians. Agrippa dies quite suddenly over in the Balkans and Tiberius, who as a young man has been happily married to a lovely woman called Vipsania and they've had A child together called Drusus. He is forced to divorce Vipsania and marry Julia.

[Kate Lester]

There's a lot of forcing to divorce in this family.

[Alexander Meddings]

There really is. And he's done really dirty here. Poor Tiberius. Because it's kind of one of those. It's one of those unspoken familial agreements and arrangements that you will offer your father pietas or piety. You'll be kind of, you know, good and loyal towards him, but in exchange, you don't expect that he's going to force you divorce your wife and marry his daughter, who's also your stepsister, who you don't get on with. You've been raised in the same family. You know, it's.

[Kate Lester]

Why? Why is this happening? Because I was going to just ask you then, did he have a happy childhood? But it doesn't sound like it would have been very happy. Was his. Was his first marriage happy when he was made to divorce?

[Alexander Meddings]

It does seem so. It does seem so. And we're told later on, after he's been forced to divorce Vipsania and marry Julia, that he one day sees Vipsenia walking through the Forum, I think it is, and he can't hold back his tears. He's so upset to see her because he can't be with her anymore. And then Augustus arranges it that he'll just never see her again, so she's kind of just conveniently shipped off.

[Kate Lester]

Why does that happen? Why does his stepdad so object to him marrying this last. That he seemed to be quite pleased with?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's all about bloodlines. It's about uniting two strong bloodlines. The Claudian bloodline, of which Tiberius is. Is apart, and the Julian bloodline, which is that of the dominant family at the time, and the family that will go on to essentially produce the first emperor, Augustus.

[Kate Lester]

Right. Okay. Okay. A happy second marriage.

[Alexander Meddings]

No, not even slightly. No. They're chalk and cheese. I mean, Tiberius is a very conservative, austere military figure. He's also a raving misogynist, and they all kind of are, but he in particular.

[Kate Lester]

I was going to say he wasn't, but particularly bad, even for the standards of the day.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. He seems to have hated the fact that his mother had any influence or sway. And he really didn't like Julia's kind of liberation, let's say, because Julia sees herself as a bit of a big deal. She is the daughter of Rome's first emperor. She likes to make a big song and dance about that. And Tiberius thinks that, frankly, she belongs behind closed doors, back in the domus.

[Kate Lester]

Wow. Okay.

[Alexander Meddings]

Making togas and all of that so they don't get on.

[Kate Lester]

We have a weird childhood, this sounds like. With his mother being forced to marry somebody else. And then he's gonna grow up in this kind of, like, mashed together family. But he is. Which he is part of, but he's also kind of not a part of. Then he gets married. It's quite happy. But then that all gets wrecked by his stepdad. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, okay. I can see where the anger comes from. Do we get any.

[Alexander Meddings]

It's not great.

[Kate Lester]

It's not great, is it? Do we get any sense of, like, what he was like as a person? You were saying there that he's quite austere and he's a misogynist. Like, if you're gonna go and have a pint with him, what would he be like?

[Alexander Meddings]

You wouldn't really want to go and have a pint with him. You wouldn't mind serving under him. So he's a great soldier, and he's. He kind of likes to partake in the hardships of his men. So we're told that while he's away on his many campaigns and he has. He celebrates many victories and kind of outstanding achievements while he's away on campaign in Germany or in Parthia or in Armenia, it's said that he will sleep on the ground next to his soldiers and he'll kind of shun a tent. He doesn't need a tent. That's all too woke. He also will kind of, you know, sit and have his meals on the ground with the soldiers. He kind of acts like one of them. On the other hand, he's a big disciplinarian. But on the other hand, he's also very cultured. His Greek is fluent. He's a literate man. As in, he really enjoys literature. He enjoys mythology. He's big into astrology. Just a bit odd at the time, but he's big into his superstitions. He's clever, a good military strategist, good military soldier, and a very able administrator, as we find out as he gets older.

[Kate Lester]

Okay, okay. All right. Yeah, I'm getting a type here. Did the soldiers like him? Did they appreciate all of this? I'm gonna rough it with you, lads.

[Alexander Meddings]

And it seems so. I mean, our sources are lacking, really, when it comes to representing their opinions, but the sources speak very highly of him and his kind of behavior among the soldiers from early on in his reign. So they're probably preserving something of the common attitude of the soldiers.

[Kate Lester]

And he's good at soldiering. That's something he's good at.

[Alexander Meddings]

Oh, he's brilliant. You can definitely say. At least. On two occasions, Tiberius saved the burgeoning Roman Empire.

[Kate Lester]

Wow.

[Alexander Meddings]

Okay, so the first is when there's a revolt over in Pannonia, which is kind of modern day Central Europe, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic area. There is a revolt there in 6 AD which he managed to put down in 9 AD, he managed to stem the tide of Germans who, having just defeated a commander called Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, could have spilled south past the Rhine and down onto the Italian peninsula. And Tiberius manages to shore that up. And he has many other victories prior, as does his brother Drusus. But then Drusus dies just a few years after Tiberius is forced to divorce Vipsanius. So he suffers two big personal losses. And then he fucks off to Rhodes. He's done in his mid-30s. He goes, actually, I don't want to be around anymore. And he kind of just retires and goes and just attends philosophy lectures and dresses up as a Greek.

[Kate Lester]

I understand that. I do understand. I think everybody gets to about their mid-30s and sort of looks around and goes, actually, this is all shit. I just want to go and live in a little house in a forest and 10 chickens. Everybody has that. That's what he's done.

[Alexander Meddings]

I think I'm at that stage now.

[Kate Lester]

Are you at that stage? A long time ago. Everybody I know has that moment of just like, actually, this is bollocks. I'm just gonna go and live by the seaside.

[Alexander Meddings]

Just looking at Bali. That's what they want to do.

[Kate Lester]

But the thing is, how do you go from that? How do you go from. Right, no, fuck this, I'm off to Rhodes to go and do a philosophy degree or whatever it was that he

[Alexander Meddings]

decided he was going to go to, basically, essentially, yeah.

[Kate Lester]

How do you go from that to like, well, hang on, now you're the Emperor? Because it doesn't sound like that's something he was pursuing.

[Alexander Meddings]

No. And it was never really a given that he would become emperor because Augustus has got these two grandsons through his daughter Livia and her marriage to Marcus Agrippa called Gaius and Lucius. And it's expected that they will go on to continue Augustus's legacy and to become his heir. The thing is that they both die probably of the plague. But our sources all suggest it's the machinations of Livia, Tiberius mother and Augustus wife. Always blame the woman for poisoning, basically

[Kate Lester]

always yeah, stick him on an island. Another one,

[Alexander Meddings]

cunning Livia, actually manages to escape an island. To her credit, she must be one of the only junior Claudian women. Yeah.

[Kate Lester]

Oh, well, okay, nice. So the two heirs, they have either died of natural causes or very unnatural causes. We're not absolutely sure. But does that mean that it would definitely have been Tiberius? Was there anyone else in the frame?

[Alexander Meddings]

At this point, it's pretty much gonna be Tiberius. And also he's very capable as well.

[Kate Lester]

He sounds like he's quite capable. He sounds like. I know that, like we're living in a world where it's like you want politicians to be like, you know, celebrities and like exciting and the drug, but you don't really. That's shit is what you want is just from your politicians. You want boring sensibleness, that's what you want. And he sound like that's him.

[Alexander Meddings]

Spot on. Yeah. He's not a populist, so he's not remotely in the cast of Augustus, who likes to dig deep into the imperial treasury and sponsor lots of games. Or Caligula or Nero. He's an austere, quite reluctant ruler who has a lot of pedigree, a lot of experience. He comes across as quite bitter, but I think part of that is the fact that he didn't become a ruler by merit, but it was because he was forced into the position by being the adopted son of an emperor. I think he would have quite liked it if he could have actually got there by his own credentials.

[Kate Lester]

Okay, so how does he get there? Obviously people have to die, but I'm just like, what was the sort of series of events? And do we have anything from the time to gauge his reaction to that?

[Alexander Meddings]

Sure. So you have the death of Lucius and Gaius. So Augustus expected heirs and then Tiberius is eventually recalled from Rhodes. He spent about eight years there. He'd actually asked to come back earlier, but Augustus, throwing a salt, says, no, you're going to bloody well stay there. But eventually he's recalled, he's made Augustus's partner, let's say he's given the consulship, so he's made his equal. And from this point on it's very clear that he's going to be the heir. And then after this you get those two episodes I mentioned a moment ago where he essentially saves Rome twice, firstly from a revolt and then from marauding German tribes.

[Kate Lester]

Must have been quite popular then.

[Alexander Meddings]

I think so. I think so.

[Kate Lester]

Early Duffy is quite popular.

[Alexander Meddings]

All of his sources give him a really good write up, at least at the beginning. And Many give him a pretty good write up at the end as well, which is why he's such a weird figure. Because usually with Roman history and emperors you get this pattern, right. We've seen it already with the episodes on Caligula, of Nero, of just decline. They start with promise and potential and then they decline with Tiberius. That's kind of the canon. But then there's also an idea that actually he was pretty efficient throughout.

[Kate Lester]

Interesting. Okay. All right. So Augustus dies.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. He drops dead in 14 AD. Tiberius is by his bedside. Apparently they spend a good day while Augustus is in ill health, kind of discussing how they're going to manage the handover of power. Augustus dies in 14 and then essentially Tiberius immediately secures the loyalty of the Praetorian Guard of the military.

[Kate Lester]

Yes. I've learned from you that that is essential. You've got to have them on side.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yep. Fundamental. Yeah. Because they're the ones who are propping up your power. They're the only military force allowed in Rome as well. Augustus doesn't die in Rome. He dies, I think in a place called Nola, which is outside. His body is brought into Rome. Tiberius accompanies it, he goes to the Senate and then what happens is really obscured in the sources. But it seems like there's a big kind of backwards and forwards between him and the senators about him taking power and what that's gonna look like. Tiberius is kind of trying not to be the executive and the princeps. He's trying not to be the sole ruler. Like a naked autocrat. That's a horrible image. But

[Kate Lester]

so is he trying to like reduce his own role? Is that what he's doing? He's like, look, I'll be the emperor but I don't really want to be the emperor.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, precisely.

[Kate Lester]

We do a job share.

[Alexander Meddings]

Oh really? Essentially, yeah. Because he is a republican through and through and it's one of his many contradictions. He's a died in the wool republican who's forced into a position of autocracy. So he still reveres the Senate. He will still apparently make way in the streets for consuls, which he shouldn't be doing. Sometimes there'll be a vote and he'll go over onto the side with fewer supporters. He'll go onto the losing side and no one else will follow him. Can you imagine if that happened in BMQs today or if it happened in politics today? It would be really bad.

[Kate Lester]

I'll be back with Alexander after this short break.

[Alexander Meddings]

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[Kate Lester]

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[Alexander Meddings]

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[Kate Lester]

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[Alexander Meddings]

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[Kate Lester]

This is not the person I was expecting you to describe. I quite like. Yeah, he sounds like quite a nice.

[Alexander Meddings]

He's all right. I mean, all of the kind of raving misogyny aside and ill discipline aside, he's all right. I also have a little bit of sympathy for him too, because clearly there were lots of issues of misunderstanding throughout. That's kind of a key theme throughout his life. There's an amazing episode on Rhodes, which always makes me laugh, where apparently one day he informed his attendants he wished to go for a stroll into town and to go and visit someone who was sick. And his attendants completely misunderstand this. And they round up everyone on roads who's sick and they gather them in a public portico and they kind of arrange them according to their affliction. So it's like lying there, like coughing and whatever. And then Tiberius turns up absolutely devastated, like, what have you all done? It's like, we got all of the sick for you, sire. And he goes around just apologizing to all of them, going, I'm so sorry about this, please go back to your beds.

[Kate Lester]

That's bonkers. But he sounds quite nice. He sounds like if he was around today, he'd be a trade unionist. He sounds like that.

[Alexander Meddings]

Very conservative trade unionist. Yeah, he's an odd one. He's an odd one. And there are lots of misunderstandings too, with the Senate, because trying to force power onto him that he's really reluctant to take. Describing him as nice. I'm not so sure. And especially as time goes on, you get all of these stories about sadism and sexual debauchery. But again, how much of this is true and how much of this is just a typical portrait of a tyrant? Really hard to say.

[Kate Lester]

Ah, well, see, this is the thing. But Early Dawes. He seems that he's doing a reasonable job of emperoring. And if you were living underneath his regime, you might think that it's okay. And when I say nice, I just mean comparatively. I just mean, like, compared to the other ones. So, like, you know, they're all awful. But I just wasn't expecting you to present this guy who, you know, apologized to the sick or even cared about the sick, quite frankly.

[Alexander Meddings]

That's curious, isn't it?

[Kate Lester]

Or cared about his soldiers. That's not the Roman emperors that we know. But it doesn't last. Cause we do start to get these awful stories about him. So he doesn't seem that he's excelled. No, no. He was a good emperor, but he doesn't seem to have enjoyed it. He doesn't want to be doing it. Almost.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, he's very reluctant. He describes ruling the Empire as like holding a wolf by the ears. So he's acutely aware that at any point it can turn around and just bite your head off. But he does it. He does it with a few people to help him as well. So he defers a lot of matters to the Senate because he thinks that they are the kind of natural. The natural wielders of power and executives of government. He has his own kind of successor lined up. Who is Germanicus? His nephew. So his brother's son. But Germanicus goes and dies over in Syria in the year 19, which kind of puts an end to those plans. Germanicus is also Caligula's father.

[Kate Lester]

Ah, yes.

[Alexander Meddings]

And then his own son Drusus then dies as well, which is far from ideal in the year 23. And then he has this figure called Sejanus, who is the Praetorian Prefect. He's the head of his Praetorian Guard, who essentially rules the Empire in Tiberius's stead. When Tiberius just kind of fucks off to Capri, this time, he retires.

[Kate Lester]

Well, let's talk about him fucking off to Capri, because that's a weird move for an emperor to do, isn't it?

[Alexander Meddings]

Yes and no. I think at this time, it's really difficult to kind of ascertain what's expected of an emperor, because it's still very early days and we're not entirely sure what the role entails. From very early on, Tiberius spoke about retirement, which is, again, something I can totally. It's very zeitgeist. I can totally empathize with him here, even, because before becoming Emperor, he just bangs on incessantly about one day being able to Retire and going to Capri, in a sense, is basically that it's after he's lost so many people along the way, including his wife and his brother and his son, who, it later turns out, was probably murdered by Sejanus, his Praetorian prefect. He's just had enough and he retires on a pretty nice but very unfashionable Greek island. I say Greek because it's kind of Greek in culture.

[Kate Lester]

When you say he retires, like, what does that mean? I'm not emperoring anymore. But you are the emperor. You are the emperor. Like, you have to. Emperor. You can't not. It doesn't have a retirement plan. It's not what's happening.

[Alexander Meddings]

I guess it is what he decides it to be. He kind of leaves Sejanus in Rome to effectively govern independently from about the year 26 onwards. Tiberius at this point, is in his 60s. And, yeah, he just goes to Capri, so he can, if we believe the sources, drink himself to death, have lots of debauched sex, and just kind of get away from all of the responsibility of ruling an empire.

[Kate Lester]

He's delegating.

[Alexander Meddings]

He's delegating. And he's also very laissez faire. He kind of just leaves governors in position. He doesn't really like to get involved unless there's this particular disaster he has to attend to. Again, I have a bit of sympathy there. I mean, it's not easy to rule an empire without digital communications.

[Kate Lester]

I would absolutely retire. I would have fucked off a long time ago and gone. I think you guys can take it from here. Thank you very much. I'll be off. But how did that go down in Rome? Like you and me saying, I totally get what you're doing there. Were the people in Rome also saying, absolutely no problem. You go off to Capri, we're fine without you?

[Alexander Meddings]

No, they're not happy at all. Or at least the sources that we have, which are often senatorial and not happy, they're very suspicious for its start. And they kind of think if you are hiding away on a big, craggy, rocky island out to sea off the Bay of Naples, you've got to be up to some dodgy stuff, right? There's no way the imps can be hiding from Rofinois.

[Kate Lester]

Oh, it's all feeling horribly modern. It's an island with powerful men on it where awful things happen. Oh, no. Okay.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. Epstein's island rears its head. Yes, indeed. Indeed.

[Kate Lester]

It is. It is. Okay, I want to be very careful before drawing parallels, but yeah, that is definitely. Oh, right, okay. So he's off to Capri. And I can understand why people at the time would be like, well, hang on a minute. Aren't you supposed to be the Emperor?

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. And it's far from ideal also that while he's away, Sejanus goes in very, very hard on what we call Maestas trials, treason trials. So essentially he puts quite a few people to death, including Germanicus remaining families. So Agona, Germanicus kids, apart from Caligula. There's a bit of blood being spilled in Rome in Tiberius absence, but not as much as we would think. If you read the sources, you would think that blood is literally flowing through the streets under Tiberius. But about 50 or so people are accused. Treason. About half of them are acquitted. It's. It's pretty tame in comparison to modern.

[Kate Lester]

But they're being accused and condemned under some prick that's not actually the Emperor. The Emperor's fucked off to cap. So, like, I still. I can still understand that. Even if it was a small number, you'd be like, excuse me.

[Alexander Meddings]

Exactly. It's a dereliction of duty on the part of the Emperor. And essentially you're letting someone without any credentials, really, from a relatively lowborn family rule in the Empress.

[Kate Lester]

Imagine that. Imagine somebody with zero credentials and no experience being elevated to a position that high in the government and allowed to do whatever they want.

[Alexander Meddings]

Perish for thought. Imagine that. Oh, no. God.

[Kate Lester]

Right, okay. People are angry then. Does Tiberius know they're angry? Does he care that they're angry?

[Alexander Meddings]

That also seems to suggest he gets very paranoid as time goes by. So he retreats to Capri when He's in his 60s. And he does seem, if we follow these kind of character portraits of him, to be a kind of angry, paranoid old man. There's another very funny story which I don't think is true because it reads too much like a kind of parable. But there's a story of a fisherman on Capri who manages to scale the kind of craggy rock face to get up to Tiberius's palace, Villajorvis at the top. And he brings the Emperor Mullet, brings him a large fish which he wants to give the Emperor as a gift. And Tiberius sees this guy and he's totally startled. How the hell did you evade my security detail? And he has the fisherman's face scrubbed with that fish.

[Kate Lester]

What?

[Alexander Meddings]

As kind of anger about how did you get here? And then the fisherman cries out halfway through, well, at least I didn't bring the lobster that I was going to give you instead. And then Tiberius goes, right, fetch the lobster, come and get the lobster. And then the Praetorians have this guy's face mangled with a lobster instead.

[Kate Lester]

That didn't happen. What even the logistics of that, right,

[Alexander Meddings]

scaling a cliff face with a mullet

[Kate Lester]

or trying to like scrub someone's face with a mullet, I don't know, I don't know. But these are the kind of stories that are circulating about him at the time, is that he will attack you with a crustacean.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. That falls into, I guess what you call the kind of sadism category of all of the bad stuff he's doing. You've got kind of sadism, you've got lots of drinking going on. Which is again, it's quite funny because his name is Tiberius Claudius Nero. That's how they would have called him, but they come up with a nickname for him which is Biberius Chaldius Mero. Biberius comes from the word bibere, to drink. Caldius means hot, it's an adjective. And mero means unmixed wine, which is, it's funny by Roman standards. They're like calling him like a drinker. I mean, take what you can get with ancient Roman humour. But apparently he's a big drinker. He never did when he was a young man in the army of retreats into the bottle a little bit. He has drinking companions who again, if we believe the sources, apparently he would fill them full of wine and then tie ligatures around their penises to stop them from pissing and then kind of derive great satisfaction from, you know, the suffering they exhibited and all of that kind of thing.

[Kate Lester]

I'll be back with Alexander after this short break.

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[Alexander Meddings]

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[Kate Lester]

It gets dark. It gets really dark. And I'll have given everyone a fair dues warning before the show, but we'll just give it another one. Now, is that. This is. The stuff that he's accused of is horrific, isn't it? So, I mean, you know, putting bows around people's penises when they've passed out

[Alexander Meddings]

is barely touches the sides when it comes to.

[Kate Lester]

Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about some of the things that he was accused of doing on this island. We've got this paranoid drunk man doing what?

[Alexander Meddings]

So he has groups of young boys and girls called his tight bums, who he gets to perform threesomes in front of him to kind of excite his flagging libido in old age.

[Kate Lester]

What sources is this like? Who's saying this?

[Alexander Meddings]

So, primarily we've got Suetonius, who is a biographer. He's kind of like a. I like to think of him as kind of ancient Daily Mail columnist, writing about 90 years after the events he describes in this case. And then you also have Tacitus, who is more like an economist journalist, who is good on the history, good on the economics, good on the foreign policy stuff. He also goes in quite hard on some of this rumour, but he's less explicit, he's less colourful in his portraits. It's really Suetonius who starts off by saying, I couldn't possibly name all of the debauchery going on on this. I'll go on. Then he goes into a lot of detail about what's going on. So there are the tight bums. There's allegedly a sex library that he has as well. So when he's getting these people to perform in front of him, if they don't know a particular position or a move, Tiberius encourages them to consult a library. So he'll come, pull out a book and he'll show them what he wants to see.

[Kate Lester]

Okay.

[Alexander Meddings]

It's a bit odd, so you get a sense that he's a bit of a kind of scophile. There's a lot of voyeurism going on.

[Kate Lester]

Yeah, okay. I mean, it's really bleak, it's really nasty. It's like the worst things that you can think of doing. There's mass child abuse, there's stories about abusing babies, there's murder, obviously.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. It's the baby stuff, that's the most disturbing. That's the stuff that really sticks with you. I remember reading this at university and thinking like, this cannot be. This cannot be true. This has gotta be just invective against tyrants. The stuff with kids. And then you look to more recent history and you think, God, I mean, maybe there's a nugget of truth to it.

[Kate Lester]

That's the really scary thing with this stuff, isn't it? Is because if you're a person with a decent moral compass who you just try and live your life and do nice things and you know right from wrong, you hear stuff like this and you're like, look, that's so extreme. That can't possibly have been true. It can't possibly have been true. But really what we're all kind of saying is that we couldn't conceive of it because thankfully we can't. But that doesn't mean that these things didn't happen. And that's a really scary lesson that you do have to learn in life is just because you can't conceive of it happening, unfortunately, doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

[Alexander Meddings]

Exactly. I mean, we can look at more modern figures and we can try and apply a lens of psychoanalysis, right? So I guess you can look at things like sociopathy or narcissism. You can't diagnose figures from antiquity. And we don't have the weight of evidence, we only have the stories. But it's about, as you say, being able to conceive of it being true. And when you see parallels, maybe that becomes easier.

[Kate Lester]

Do you think that there is truth to this? Because one of the other things that I've learned from you about all the Roman emperors is that once they've gone, the smear campaign begins. And there is a lot of stuff about a lot of the emperors that it's. There's very few of them that once they're actually dead and gone, everyone's going, well, they did a fabulous job. What a nice person that was. Is they all like. The stuff about Caligula came out after he'd gone. I mean, you know, there's stuff at the time, but it's the same with Nero. It's like you're constantly trying to pick it apart of like, did this actually happen? So I guess what I'm saying. What's your take on this? Do you think that there is truth to this?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's so hard to say, isn't it? I mean, we'll never know. And I Know, this sounds like I'm trying to get out of it, but we will never be able to reconstruct the person behind the stories that have been told of them. At this point, we just don't have the weight of evidence, the specificity of it. So, kind of the stories of these kids who he calls his little fish and he trains them to swim between his thighs as he's going for his morning swim and kind of nibble at his genitalia or whatever, it seems so specific. You could go one way or another. It could be coming from a source within the palace on Capri saying, look, this is what's happening, or it could be the fetid imagination of Suetonius, who's just trying to imagine the most tyrannical behavior possible. I think I probably fall more into the latter camp on this. It is quite a common theme or a topos in ancient literature, which is that the more solitary you are, the more vicious you become, and the more vicious you are, the more you retreat into solitude. So. But him putting himself on an island away from the watching eyes of the Capitol doesn't help any of this. And it feeds these rumours.

[Kate Lester]

No. How many sources are there? Because I suppose that would be a sort of a type of evidence in and of itself. It's like, is there a wide range of sources? Are lots of people saying this? Is it coming from just one place?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's coming from two sources, really. It's coming, well, three if you count a guy called Cassius Dio is writing significantly later. All of it's probably based on a lost source, which we no longer have. There's an excellent academic who sadly recently passed away, called Edward Champlin, who's tried to make the argument, and I think quite convincingly, that the lost source is completely misinterpreting what's going on on the island as a kind of performance. Like, there's a lot of theater going on and there's lots of this kind of spectacle. I guess this kind of feeds into why we see Tiberius as a voyeur, but essentially he's trying to recreate all of these scenes from mythology. And essentially you've got sources that are just completely misunderstanding this. But, sorry, to return to your question, you have those sources and then you have some contemporary sources which are a lot more praising of the emperor. There's a guy called Velius Paterculus, there's another called Seneca the Elder, but they are. Well, Velius serves under Tiberius, so a lot of people think that that makes him not particularly reliable.

[Kate Lester]

I Suppose we have Caligula as well, his nephew that lived with him on this island. Did he ever say anything about his time on Capri with his. Is it his uncle?

[Alexander Meddings]

His great uncle? Yeah, his great uncle. I mean, the sense we get from Caligula is he's trying to dissimulate, so he's doing whatever he can to survive. He's watching all of this debauchery play out and he's looking like he enjoys it because he doesn't want to attract any unwanted attention or look like he's standing up to Tiberius. But then other sources say that Caligula goes in really hard as well. But then, I mean, Suetonius tells us in his biography on Caligula that Caligula exceeded Tiberius debauchery by dressing up, wearing a wig and going dancing late at night. And that doesn't seem as bad. That's not even close as pedophilia.

[Kate Lester]

That's not even in the same bowl. That's okay. Wow.

[Alexander Meddings]

Again, it suggests confused sources based on another source that maybe didn't quite understand what was going on. Or possibly this captures absolutely what was going on. And again, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about you and I not being able to conceive of this kind of stuff.

[Kate Lester]

Yeah, because we can't conceive it doesn't mean it didn't. I suppose all that we can say with any certainty is that there were rumors. Maybe not even rumors, outright accusations, but after the fact, I think.

[Alexander Meddings]

After the fact, Yeah. I mean, you would have probably had rumours swirling around Rome while Tiberius is in Capri in his 60s as an old man. Everyone's probably thinking, what's he doing over there? Oh, he's just.

[Kate Lester]

Yeah. What's he doing?

[Alexander Meddings]

I mean, there was lots of wordplay as well. They called. They called him an old goat, kind of.

[Kate Lester]

Yeah.

[Alexander Meddings]

Kind of abusing various does. The does are the women he's abusing over on Capri. And that's a play on words on the name of the island. Capri. Capra means goat in Italian Today. There are rumours swirling for sure, but I think most of this tradition really settles in the. In the generation or two afterwards.

[Kate Lester]

How long is he doing all of this on Capri for before he eventually pops his clogs?

[Alexander Meddings]

About 10 years, more or less. 10 years?

[Kate Lester]

10 years.

[Alexander Meddings]

I mean, he dies as long.

[Kate Lester]

That's a long time, innit?

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, he's very old when he dies.

[Kate Lester]

What's he die of? Nastily?

[Alexander Meddings]

Not really. So he kind of makes a couple of plans to return to Rome, but never follows through with them. So he leaves Capri a couple of times. The last occasion he leaves, he gets to about the fifth mile on the Appian Way and he kind of looks in his bag and he finds that his pet snake, who he always carries around with him, has died and been eaten by ants. And he sees this as a bad side sign. He sees this as a sign that if he returns to Rome, he too will be devoured by the army or some shit like that, I don't know. And so he turns back, he goes to Misenum, which is a town kind of on the. On the coast facing out to Capri, which is out to sea. And then he falls sick, he falls ill, but he doesn't let it show. So it's not like there are any signs in his speech or slurring speech or any kind of physical weakness. Must be lovely for his subjects, right? As opposed to modern, modern comparisons. He even goes to the games, we're told, at a place called Cersei, and he throws javelins, a couple of boars in the arena as a 77 year old man, which is who's ill, which is mightily impressive. But then he comes to Cropper when he takes what in Italian today they call colpodaria. So he catches a chill, he catches a draft of air hair, while he's not feeling very well. And apparently this really does for him. Italians still today believe that if you go out with wet hair and a breeze goes on you, then you're going to get really sick and maybe get a flu and die or something. So essentially this happens. He catches a chill, he retires to his villa in Misenum, thoroughly intending to wait for a storm to pass and then go back to Capri. The storm never passes, his condition worsens and then he dies. And exactly how he dies we're not sure because our sources at this point, they peel off from one another. Some suggest that Caligula and Macro, who is the head of the Praetorian Guard, now that Sejanus has been executed by Tiberius, some suggest that those two have him suffocated. Some suggest that they gradually have him poisoned. The most likely story from a source near the time, Seneca the Elder, is that he essentially just gets out of bed one day looking for attendance, falls over and just dies by his bedside. Quite normal.

[Kate Lester]

Quite normal, I suppose. So what's his legacy then? To sort of try and round this off? Because it's so, you know, I feel a bit bad now about saying he Sounds quite nice. Cause he doesn't now. He sounds horrendous. He sounds like an absolute monster. But I'm just trying to, like, piece this together because this is a very complex legacy that we've been left. So what do you think his legacy is?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's really tricky, isn't it? Now you ask a great question. And I find he's a very difficult emperor to talk to, not least because he rules for so long and he clearly had lots of potential, and he clearly was very, very good, at least at the beginning. Whether or not we believe all of this sadism, sexual perversion stuff that clouds the later part of his reign, that's essentially what we're left with. So I think it's his debauchery and it's his later years on Capri that have colored our interpretation of his reign. But in terms of a character assessment, I find him quite human. He's a man of many, many contradictions. Republican, forced into a position of autocracy, a lover of Greek culture, but also austerely Roman. And. And he's kind of very much a product of Roman culture, a reluctant leader who's forced into a position of power when he doesn't really want it. I was thinking, just when prepping for this, of modern comparisons, and he's somewhere between kind of a Jon Snow, Game of Thrones, I don't want it type figure. Part of him is a bit kind of Churchill. He's kind of typical conservative military figure, good administrator, but had lots of defects and did lots of terrible things elsewhere.

[Kate Lester]

Unless all of the rumors were true. And then he's a completely different character.

[Alexander Meddings]

Then he's essentially Epstein, isn't he?

[Kate Lester]

Then he's. Yeah, then he's awful.

[Alexander Meddings]

And the parallels of Epstein island are really intriguing, especially when you consider the kind of company he's keeping. I mean, we also know, and this is an aspect we don't talk about with him, but he likes to surround himself with the leading intellectuals of the day and engage in lots of debate. It's very kind of, you know, Chomsky, Epstein, there's loads of this. He likes to surround himself with people of influence, possibly to make himself feel superior. We also know that he likes to quiz people, but over really pedantic details, just to elevate himself. So there's an insecurity. It's very familiar through a different cultural lens.

[Kate Lester]

It is, isn't it? And the inclusion of an island, I think, is something that we can see parallels with as well, is this idea of, like, what happens There, what happened there, who was there and this like that, we don't know. So there's this great missing chunk of information. And I'm not saying that these things didn't happen because quite clearly they did. But you can see how, like the rumors and the concept of an island takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? Of like what was happening there.

[Alexander Meddings]

You're quite right. The ancients, the Romans, have a particular mistrust of islands, the island of Britain included. And they see them as kind of strange places where lots of kind of bizarre, unique ethnographies and cultures will grow up. And this is definitely the case in Capri too. They're doing Tiberius a disservice in many ways too, because this was a really fashionable part of the empire. A lot of the Roman elite love to go and holiday in Campania and they like to go and take its waters, the thermal waters. Perhaps Tiberius is taking this for his own conditions. We're told that in old age he's got like lots of eruptions on his face and it's entirely plausible he's going there simply just to a bit of a spa, beauty treatment type thing. But it's all of this mistrust about islands that you mentioned that feeds into the story we tell about him.

[Kate Lester]

Alexander, you have been fascinating. I don't know if we're any closer to knowing the truth about this being either fabulous or awful human being.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, alas, that's the problem.

[Kate Lester]

He did such a good job of explaining it.

[Alexander Meddings]

Thank you.

[Kate Lester]

And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Alexander Meddings]

The best place would probably be my personal website, which is alexandermeddings.com and I do lots of tours throughout Rome and Italy. Actually, I'm going to Capri on Monday with a group of us high schoolers. So I'll be going easy on some of those more salacious stories, I think.

[Kate Lester]

Yes, turn it right.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, I think so. In terms of the job security, try not to get fired.

[Kate Lester]

Well, thank you so much for dropping by.

[Alexander Meddings]

Thank you very much for having me.

[Kate Lester]

Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Alexander for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along whatever it is you get. Your podcasts. In case you missed it, we have been exploring the golden age of Hollywood all this month. All glitz, glamour, murder and sexual symbols. And if you would like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us@betwixtory hit.com this podcast was edited by Hannah Feodorov and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets the History of Sex Scandal in Society, A podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

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[Kate Lester]

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