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- [00:00]
Melvin Bragg
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
Alex von Tanzelman
This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.
- [00:19]
Unnamed Historian
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [00:25]
Alex von Tanzelman
Join me, Alex von Tanzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:39]
Unnamed Historian
BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts this is.
- [00:43]
Catherine Seale
In our time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoyed the program. Hello. When Tiberius was born in 42 BC, the there was little prospect of his ever becoming Emperor of Rome. Firstly, Rome was still a republic and there had not yet been any emperor, so that had to change. And secondly, when his stepfather Augustus became Emperor, there was no precedent for who should succeed him, if anyone. It somehow fell to Tiberius who developed this Roman imperial project. And by some accounts he did this well, while to others his reign was marked by cruelty and paranoia. With me to discuss the Emperor Tiberius are Matthew Nichols, Senior Tutor at St. John's College, University of Oxford, Shushma Malik, Assistant professor of Classics and Onassis, Classics Fellow at Newnham College at the University of Cambridge. Catherine Seale, professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow Kathryn Steele. How did Tiberius come to power? What do we need to understand about his family?
- [01:50]
Melvin Bragg
He comes from the heart of the republican elite, so his father, Tiberius Claudius Nero, was a republican aristocrat from a patrician family looking to have a political career. He's lined up in fact as a potential son in law of Cicero, though that doesn't happen. Tiberius mother Livia, also from a great republican family. Biologically, she's actually a cousin of her husband, but her father had been adopted by a man called Livius Drusus, hence the name Drusus within the imperial family, who was himself a reforming politician whose assassination sparks a major conflict between Rome and Italy. So these are people who were deeply embedded in republican political life and the expectation would be that their son would also have that kind of career. But of course, the civil war happens. It derails his father's hopes for political prominence and of course has a profound effect on his own life. And we should remember that at the time he's born 16th of November 42 BC news could only just have been coming to Rome of the defeat at Philippi of Brutus Cassius and in fact, the death by suicide of Livia's own father, who had fought with Brutus and Cassius and died after the battle.
- [03:01]
Catherine Seale
So it's battles and deaths from the beginning.
- [03:03]
Melvin Bragg
Yes, absolutely. And his early years are full of danger as his parents. His father tries to pursue an independent line in politics and is moving across the Mediterranean to avoid conflict, to look for men he can follow with and work with. We are told that the young Tiberius and Livia are almost burnt to death in a forest fire in Greece when they're on the run. But in the spring of 39, there is a treaty between the warring parties, temporary peace which allows Tiberius and Livia and their son to return to Rome. And it is at that point, we are told, that Livia catches the eye of the man we know as Octavian. He called himself Caesar. Who will become Augustus. Livia divorces her husband and marries Augustus, and that is the moment at which Tiberius becomes part of. Of Octavian's household. Sorry, she doesn't marry Augustus because he's not Augustus yet, but she marries the man who will become Augustus.
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Catherine Seale
Yes. It's a bit tricky, isn't it, these names? Octavian becomes Augustus. That'll do.
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Melvin Bragg
Yes.
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Catherine Seale
Yeah. And when Tiberius is about 15, Augustus became emperor. So he was brought up under the fatherhood of an emperor from quite early on.
- [04:18]
Melvin Bragg
Indeed, yes. Augustus becomes Augustus in 27, and that's really the moment at which sole rule seems to take a form.
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Catherine Seale
So he'll be copying that. Did Augustus like him? How did they get on?
- [04:31]
Melvin Bragg
Well, Augustus's rule has certain characteristics, some of which are deeply contradictory. Augustus says, I excelled everyone in influence, but I had no more power than the others who were my colleagues in each magistracy. That's how Augustus sums things up at the end of his life, in his inscribed account of his achievements. And that encapsulates that sense of the restoration of something. We are back to the Republic. We have the normal magistracies. The Senate has its role. Life has returned to what it should be. And at the same time, Augustus, through his exceptional personal qualities, has some exceptional position. Yet that rule is fundamentally based on military autocracy. So Augustus is in charge of the armies, either himself or through his family members.
- [05:20]
Catherine Seale
And he's there for 41 years. It's extraordinary.
- [05:23]
Melvin Bragg
It is. It's absolutely extraordinary. Nobody expected him to live that long. And that's one of the factors that then has a very profound effect on who will be the next emperor.
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Catherine Seale
Thank you, Matthew. Who are the other possible successors?
- [05:37]
Matthew Nichols
Augustus sees his own project as a dynastic one from the outset. He himself bases his own claim on being son of the deified Caesar. So clearly he wants to transmit power to successor. But as we've heard from Catherine, it's not really clear what that power is or how transmissible it is. He's not a king with a crown and he also doesn't have a son. He has a sister and he has a daughter. So although he wants to transmit his power down a bloodline, it's actually rather hard for him to do that. Also, we've just heard he's there for over 40 years and in that time family members rise and fall, people die, fall out of favour, come back into favour. So there's a number of different plans for the succession and they don't all work out. And throughout that Tiberius is really at best second choice until near the end he emerges and crosses the finishing line first. So there's a nephew called Marcellus who's going to be the heir, but he dies in 23. Then Augustus marries his daughter to his trusted right hand man and general and fixer, who's a character called Agrippa, a man of no great aristocratic birth himself, which is going to be important when we get to Sejanus. But he marries the Emperor's daughter and they have five children, three sons. So great quiver full of heirs, that's working very well. But Tiberius is on the margins feeling perhaps a bit excluded by this. When Agrippa dies, Augustus sees a chance to reunite two branches of the family and he takes Agrippa's widow, his daughter, and marries the daughter to his stepson Tiberius. But this is a disaster. Tiberius has to divorce a wife whom he loves, Vipsania, and marry a wife whom he very decidedly doesn't love, Julia. And that goes sour. And meanwhile Tiberius can see that Gaius and Lucius, the sons by Agrippa, are the chosen heirs and they're going to inherit and he perhaps feels rather resentful about that. So he goes off into exile, actually self imposed exile or the island of Rhodes. But then Gaius and Lucius die and Augustus has no choice but to bring Tiberius back, invest him in a share of imperial rule. He's effectively co emperor in the last year of Augustus's life. And when Augustus finally dies in 14, Tiberius at the age of, I think 55, finally takes over. But it'd been by no means assured that that would happen.
- [07:35]
Catherine Seale
Yes, it's an entertaining, complex mishmash, isn't it? Is it all done by accident? Do some of these people getting in his way die opportunely?
- [07:46]
Matthew Nichols
Well, we might think about the role that Livia played. And it is rumoured that Livia has to do with the deaths of Marcellus and even the death of Augustus himself to clear the way for her son Tiberius to come to power.
- [07:57]
Catherine Seale
Did Augustus tutor Tiberius in any way and he knew that he was headed for power? Did he say, look, this is how you do it?
- [08:05]
Matthew Nichols
To an extent, yes. Tiberius was always a prince in the imperial household. He was always groomed for high office. In fact, he was an extremely capable and successful general and statesman. But it wasn't clear at all that Tiberius would become the emperor or was likely to become the emperor until quite late on. But nevertheless, he was given titles, offices throughout the 20s and the tens. He had a very successful military career. He recovered, lost standards from the Parthians. He put a Roman puppet on the throne of Armenia. He campaigned on the Danube and in eastern central Europe and in Raesia and Pannonia and Germany. He was consul twice. So he was propelled right to the top of the tree. But then, at the height of his powers, in 6 BC, saddled with this unhappy marriage to Julia, seeing these youths being promoted ahead of him, he flounced off to Rhodes. And at that point it looked like maybe things were over for him. He came back later, but that was a twist I don't think he or anybody else foresaw at the time.
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Catherine Seale
Thank you, Shushma. So how did he finally succeed? How did Tiberius finally succeed Augustus?
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Unnamed Historian
So, as Matthew's been saying, there were this line of successes that were there for Augustus to have and slow those people died through various means, various circumstances. Tiberius was brought back from Rhodes in around 2 AD. So after the death of Gaius Augustus's adopted son and also grandson, at that point we see a little bit more of the sharing of powers that happens between Augustus and Tiberius as we lead into the tens A.D. augustus dies in September of 14 AD, and he dies in Nola. The story goes, according to Suetonius, that he has a very good death. He is old, of course, he's in his 70s and he has his wife by his side. He has an opportunity to fix his hair, make sure that he's going out with a dignified death. And part of that is to call Tiberius to have a discussion with Tiberius. Some of the sources say that they're there for a day talking about how to hand over the state, what Tiberius should do when he becomes emperor, essentially what actually becoming an emperor means. So it seems that he had a little bit of instruction anyway from Augustus and then goes on to succeed following his death.
- [10:21]
Catherine Seale
But he also had. He was in the University of Hard Knox, wasn't he? Because he had a lot of jobs before that.
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Unnamed Historian
Yes, absolutely. So he had a lot of different strings to his bow in terms of his career before he became an emperor. One of our sources, Cassius Dio, talks a lot about how he was interested in his education, he was interested in poetry, he was interested in oratory. Some of his speeches were even a little bit too flowery because he was so interested in how to construct literature. But also he was someone who had to take on particular political roles, had the military career as well.
- [10:56]
Catherine Seale
We'd be talking about as if this is a few men motivated by one very powerful woman at many stages along the way who just got on with it. But there was a Senate. What part did the Senate play?
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Unnamed Historian
Yeah, so the Senate are really interesting in the role of that transition, because if we think about it, it's the first time that a transition has happened. So Augustus takes power, he's handed after a civil war, but as Matthew was saying, he seems to have had his sights set on something dynastic from fairly early on. But this is the first time that actually happens. So for Tiberius to appear in the Senate and for the Senate to hand him over powers is quite a significant moment, really, in Roman constitutional history. And Tiberius, according to Tacitus, in any case, doesn't handle it very well. So he goes in and he says, I want to share power with the Senate. Which is, in theory, is a good thing to say. You should be thinking about these things, perhaps in more republican terms. But actually then he comes up with this idea that he wants to split perhaps the Empire into different parts and give the Senate control over some of those parts and take some himself. And then a senator named Asinius Gallus says to him, well, which one do you want to take? And Tiberius is a bit taken aback and says, well, it's not really for me to choose, especially seeing as I don't really want any of it. And Asinius Gallus then says, well, actually behind my story and my question is the fact that we can't split the Empire. This is yours. You need to take responsibility over it. And that's what's been established by Augustus. You need to step up into this role. And at that point, I think Tiberius probably realises that even though he can use the Senate and use the control the Senate has. He also has to embody the princeps in particular ways as well.
- [12:50]
Catherine Seale
Thank you, Catherine. Let's bring in Olivia, Augustus wife. She plays a big part in all this. What part does she play in Tiberius's rise to power?
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Melvin Bragg
Well, one story would be she's absolutely crucial and clearly his position within the household and his status as a possible heir is entirely due to the fact that he's Augustus's stepson. So to that extent, yes, but I do think we need to be careful. One of the great temptations for ancient writers about imperial historiography is what gets decided behind closed doors. As soon as you have an imperial household, you have the possibility that decisions are being taken in private and. Good heavens, that women might be involved in affairs of state. And so I think a lot of the stories that we find about Livy, we need to read with that critical view to think this is people speculating about decisions that have been made in private. And we must always remember Schustman's point about the Senate, that the actual process of transition of power takes place transparently, openly, by debate in the Senate and is confirmed by the Senate.
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Catherine Seale
But if you could give Listers an idea of how powerful she was and how she wielded it, we're taking evidence from three or four major odds at the time, some of whom were more reliable than others, obviously, as always. Yes.
- [14:11]
Melvin Bragg
So she had an important role in public religion. She was publicly acknowledged in various very honorific ways. So she had a public profile at Rome that made her very distinct and very prominent. And she was also known to be much consulted by Augustus. So in practical terms, clearly she had the potential to be very influential.
- [14:36]
Catherine Seale
Do you want to come in?
- [14:38]
Matthew Nichols
It's also said, and you alluded to this earlier, that she might have employed dark arts to smooth the path to power of her own son. And there's a. A story in Dio that she may even have smeared poison on the figs in Augustus's garden. So he was afraid of taking poisoned food, but went and plucked figs that she had poisoned from the trees. I don't know if we know that's true, but it shows that, as Catherine says, people are looking at the. The women in the Imperial house with suspicion and thinking they're exercising influence here.
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Catherine Seale
As soon as he got power, he set about, so I understand it, taking charge of the Praetorian Guard. Why did he do that? Why was it so important and what were they?
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Matthew Nichols
You're right, he did that as soon as he took over immediately. On the deathbed scene, he issued the watchword to the guard. Only the Emperor can do that. So immediately they're under his personal command. He's accompanied by soldiers to Rome before the senatorial debate that Shushma was talking about. The Praetorian commander swears allegiance to him, so in a sense, it's a done deal. Militarily, he's already got the Praetorians on side, and that's very important. Who are they? They are the personal bodyguard force of the Roman Emperor. Historically, they'd been the bodyguard at the tent, the praetorium, of a Roman legionary commander on campaign. But when Augustus won the civil wars, he needed a personal protection force, and he established a regularized standing force of nine cohorts of between 500 and 1,000 soldiers. And these men owe deep personal loyalty to the Emperor and his family. They're paid three times as much as regular soldiers. They get special bonus handouts on the Emperor's birthday and imperial marriages and things like that. So they're completely loyal to the princeps. Under Augustus, they're handled quite subtly. Only three of those nine cohorts are in Rome, the city, and they're dispersed, so they're not gathered together in a body. They're not kind of parading around, throwing their weight around. But under Tiberius, they're coalesced into a single camp on the edge of the city. Maybe it's raised from nine to 12 cohorts as well. And Tiberius appoints a very powerful Praetorian prefect, a commander called Sejanus, who we'll meet later, who starts to treat this force as a single unified power in the land. And as we heard from Catherine, decisions happen opaquely in an imperial system, behind closed doors. There are women, there are freedmen, perhaps also there are Praetorians who are controlling access to the Emperor. If you control access to the Emperor, you can control what information he gets and what decisions he can take. So the Praetorians swiftly become very significant force.
- [16:54]
Catherine Seale
And they become significant under Tiberius, who uses them from then on.
- [16:58]
Matthew Nichols
Yes.
- [16:59]
Catherine Seale
And how does he use them?
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Matthew Nichols
Well, he particularly relies on his Praetorian Prefect, the commander Sejanus, who becomes a sort of unofficial partner in the Emperor's powers. But the Praetorians there, they're military muscle and they intimidate opponents, and they're a constant, looming presence in the city once they've been gathered into this one camp. And Sejanus appoints their centurions and their commanding officers, and clearly they owe a Lot of personal loyalty through their command structure to Sejanus and then onwards to.
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Catherine Seale
Tiberius in the early days, Shushma. He got praised Tiberius for various things he did. Let's take what he did with the treasury. What did he did there which deserved praise.
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Unnamed Historian
So Tiberius is known for having left the treasury in a very good state of health when he died. So Caligula inherited a treasury that was in a very good state, a public treasury. But one thing he's known to have done is be quite moderate, or one might say too moderate, perhaps with the way that he gave gifts or showed particular acts of benefit, beneficence.
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Catherine Seale
Why would you be thought to moderate?
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Unnamed Historian
Yeah, so it's interesting because, I mean, on the one hand you want to be good at spending, you want to be moderate at spending. On the other hand, it is part of the job of an emperor to make Rome beautiful, to throw entertainment and public spectacles, to keep people fed and entertained. Yes, exactly, that kind of thing. But he doesn't pay as much attention to that, according to our sources, as perhaps he should. And this is particularly also coming after the reign of Augustus, who is, according to the history book, supposed to have left Rome, this beautified city of marble and really done quite a lot with public building, public restorations. Tiberius is credited with doing restorations of building works, but he doesn't have any big building programs. He doesn't do any throw any really spectacular games. His sons do. His adopted son Germanicus and his son Drusus throw some games. But Tiberius is quite reticent to spend money in that sort of way. And on the one hand he does leave the treasury in a good state, as we've said. But on the other hand, as an emperor, you really should be paying more attention to those kinds of aspects of your role as well.
- [19:19]
Catherine Seale
As a man, I've read awkward, gloomy. Have you any characterization of him that takes me further than that?
- [19:28]
Unnamed Historian
Yeah, I think awkward and gloomy. I mean, it's hard also to get away from the I Claudius depiction of Tiberius to some extent, and that is very awkward and gloomy. So I completely understand that, that idea. I think also someone who perhaps has not necessarily a natural affinity with the idea of living his life out in public, particularly his family life out in public. You know, as we've already heard, with the idea of being in an imperial family, having all of these successors, being part of this big system, you also then are having to perform a sort of role that perhaps Tiberius wasn't hugely comfortable with, which doesn't necessarily mean he was always gloomy in private, but in public, perhaps that something that came about.
- [20:21]
Melvin Bragg
We have to remember also, though, that there are so many. There are different sources about Tiberius. And Velleius Paterculus, who wrote a contemporary history, served as an officer under Tiberius, and he's usually dismissed as this terrible flatterer because he's very, very pro Tiberius. But you do capture, I think, in his text a sense of enthusiasm of a man who was a soldier with Tiberius and really admired him as a military commander.
- [20:48]
Catherine Seale
You want to comment?
- [20:49]
Matthew Nichols
I think that's quite right. All the stories that should be told about generals get told about the young Tiberius who sleeps on the ground with his troops and he shares their hardtack and all their hardships. It is true that he later on had this reputation for frugality. Suetonius said he served leftovers at banquets and when people complained, well, it tastes the same. Half a wild boar is as good as a whole wild boar. So he does have a reputation for personal meanness, but that's one side of a character that's also full of hardihood and rigor. And a good Roman should be a little bit austere and disciplined.
- [21:17]
Alex von Tanzelman
This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.
- [21:29]
Unnamed Historian
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [21:36]
Alex von Tanzelman
Join me, Alex von Tanzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:49]
Catherine Seale
Can we talk about his determination to call himself the Principate? Where did that come from?
- [21:56]
Melvin Bragg
Well, Augustus thought that he was princeps. And princeps is a really useful word in Latin because it has no meaning in the republican constitution. It allows Augustus to capture his personal preeminence without saying anything that is offensive within republican tradition.
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Catherine Seale
Basically means I'm the first.
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Melvin Bragg
Yes. Princeps inter pares. First among equals.
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Catherine Seale
Yes.
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Melvin Bragg
I'm the leading person. So it's a really useful term that avoids any overt expressions of power, like Rex. You can never call yourself a king at Rome.
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Catherine Seale
And that was accepted.
- [22:29]
Melvin Bragg
It seems to have been accepted. After all, the transition of power from Augustus to Tiberius was peaceful, at least in Rome. There were mutinies on the frontiers, but in Rome it was peaceful. And Augustus had created a system in which lots of groups of people benefited. The Senate was quite happy. And one of the things that happened at the start of Tiberius reign that made them particularly happy was they no longer had to be elected. They could choose magistracies from within the Senate, which freed them from all this tedious business of canvassing. So they were quite happy. The people at Rome had been well treated by Augustus and of course, one of the issues then was Tiberius's reticence, as Trishma said about some of the expenditure that had come to be expected. But the other thing we mustn't forget is peace. Augustus brought peace to the Roman world after decades of the most debilitating and awful civil war, accompanied by grotesque political violence. And that policy of peace was one that Tiberius continued?
- [23:29]
Catherine Seale
Yes. How did he manage that?
- [23:32]
Melvin Bragg
He went along with what Augustus said in his last wishes, which is do not expand the bounds of empire. So the Roman Empire stayed now as a fixed territorial entity. And that allowed Tiberius to avoid military adventures on the frontiers internally. I suppose one of the things that. That we need to acknowledge about Tiberius in terms of his power, is the extent to which threats against the Emperor himself became treason. So the offensive treason of maestas existed in the Republic, but then it was threats to the maestos, to the majesty of the Roman res publica, that becomes threats against the Emperor. It had started under Augustus, but it's one of the things that seems to embed itself in the system under Tiberius. And, of course, it's one of the things that Tacitus highlights in his narrative as a way of demonstrating Tiberius's descent into tyranny.
- [24:38]
Catherine Seale
How would you assess the authorities we have for this period? There are three good ones. Can someone. Would you want to step in and tell us what we're talking about?
- [24:49]
Unnamed Historian
Sure, yeah. So we have, like you say, three or four main sources for this period. The first one is Tacitus, who I think is one of the ones that we tend to go to first, because he writes a lot about Tiberius, and about roughly half of what we have extant of Tacitus is about Tiberius, in fact. So there's a Tiberius pocket. Was Tacitus in Tiberius pocket? Very much not, no. There are various lines of argument about this, but actually one of them goes back to what Catherine was saying about the treason trials, which is that Tacitus lived in a time where actually he was a senator during Domitian's treason trials. So the idea that Tiberius really embedded this into the way that emperors deal with the idea of treason and how senators are implicated in that is people who both tell on other people, other senators, in terms of treason, but also suffer from those trials as well, and their families suffer. That is one of the ways that perhaps we can understand Tacitus interest in, on the one hand, understanding where that comes from, but also his way of thinking about the characterisation of Tiberius. What is it about Tiberius that caused this principate to be quite so problematic, toxic even in terms of one of the earlier emperors that then he is seeing played out under a later dynasty.
- [26:19]
Catherine Seale
Can you give us another writer at the time?
- [26:23]
Matthew Nichols
Well, not, not of the time, but another major source is Suetonius, who's writing also 80, 90 years later, and he's a biographer.
- [26:29]
Catherine Seale
Where did his material come from?
- [26:31]
Matthew Nichols
He is more interested in documentary sources, actually, because he's a biography. He quotes letters and things like that, but he's also interested in character, in anecdote, in scandal. So it's rather racy and gossipy compared to Tacitus's more magisterial prose history.
- [26:47]
Catherine Seale
And there's a third, isn't there?
- [26:48]
Melvin Bragg
There's Cassius Dio, who's even later, but whose account of Tiberius survives. And there's Velleus Paterclus, who I mentioned, who is a more or less contemporary source, but tends to be dismissed because he's very flattering. And we shouldn't forget inscribed sources. We have relatively recently, the so called Senatus Consultum on the elder Gnaeus Piso, which relates in fact treason and to the alleged assassination of Tiberius adoptive son Germanicus. And that's a wonderful inscription that shows in real time how Tiberius attempted to work with the Senate and how the Senate attempted to work with Tiberius early in his reign.
- [27:30]
Catherine Seale
So there was no quarrel between the two bodies, the Emperor and the Senate?
- [27:35]
Melvin Bragg
No, the Senate welcomed Tiberius accession. Individual members of the Senate may have had different views, but throughout his reign harmony was maintained.
- [27:45]
Matthew Nichols
Yes, I think we can see change over time. The accession debate that Shrishma talked about is a piece of delicate choreography where both the Emperor and the Senate dance around each other saying, no, after you, no, after you.
- [27:56]
Melvin Bragg
And arguably tread on each other's toes.
- [27:58]
Matthew Nichols
Yes, they do. And it descends into a kind of grim farce. At one point, one of the Senators goes to apologize to Tiberius and falls at his knees and accidentally trips him up to the pavement and the guards swoop in and nearly beat the poor man to death. So the whole thing becomes rather farcical and grim. But throughout at least the first bit of his reign, Tiberius is taking ostensible pains to be courteous to the Senate. He's trying to foster in them a sense of their own dignity to live up to. These great patrician traditions that you heard at the start are in Tiberius's own family tree of independent minded servants of the state. And he keeps getting very frustrated with them that they won't be independent. And they, they. HE MUTTERS as he leaves the Senate. These men are ready to be slaves, he says. So yes, there is mutual courtesy and an effort for mutual understanding, but I think both parties, as the rain goes, find it frustrating.
- [28:43]
Catherine Seale
Isn't it odd that they, they should be so ready to kowtow to him?
- [28:49]
Matthew Nichols
Well, they know where the praetorian camp is after A.D. 23. They know the violence done to people who resisted Augustus. Not many of them, but people did find themselves exiled or executed. They also have enjoyed the benefits of peace and many of them are there because of promotions by Augustus's family. After the civil war, the ranks of the Senate were depleted and Augustus restocked it. So a lot of them are actually relatively new men who owe their position to the imperial regime.
- [29:14]
Melvin Bragg
But also there isn't a good model. Tiberius Clumsiness doesn't let the Senate find a role, you could argue, unlike the way that the Senate under later emperors, who are slightly more tactful and adept at using it, do seem to find a role that doesn't have these moments of friction.
- [29:32]
Catherine Seale
Yes, something happened in AD 23, which is an important factor.
- [29:39]
Unnamed Historian
Yeah, AD 23 is a difficult year for a few different reasons, but one of the main ones is that it's the year that Tiberius son dies, Drusus. And again, this is important not only because of a sense of any sort of dynastic succession, but also because it's pinpointed as the time that Sejanus, whom Matthew's already mentioned, really starts to get going in his character.
- [30:04]
Catherine Seale
Can you say a little bit more about Sejanus?
- [30:05]
Melvin Bragg
Sure.
- [30:05]
Unnamed Historian
So Sejanus is the leader of the Praetorian Guard and he is someone who at this stage has mainly been in the background of Tacitus account. He has been mentioned, but this is the point where he is going to really come into his own. So he's painted as a sort of character who is wanting to accumulate far more power than he should because of his family, because he doesn't come from necessarily a particularly noble family, and also because he has a lot of ambition. And his idea is that he wants to sort of integrate himself into the imperial family through marriages, through friendships, all sorts of ways that in Rome you create connections. And when he decides that he's going to take up with Drusus wife Livilla. That is really a big part of the story of how Drusus ends up dying. So there are different versions, actually, different versions told by Tacitus. On the one hand, Drusus may have died just through illness. That's one, one version. The other version is that he is killed by Sejanus and Livilla in a plot. And one of the rumours that Tacitus says that is going around still in his time, so still, you know, in the late first century, early second century ce, is that actually Sejanus told Tiberius that Drusus was in a plot to kill him, that Drusus wanted to kill his father in order to succeed and he was going to do it with a drink at dinner. So the first drink that Drusus offers to Tiberius, Tiberius should refuse. And Tiberius does do this. But then he adds a instead of just refusing it, he gives it back to Drusus. Now, of course, the implication is that Sejanus has poisoned the drink and Tiberius decides he's going to give it back to his own son and thereby actually knowingly causes the death of his own son. And Tacitus is quite careful about this. He says, well, this is a rumour, you shouldn't believe it. But he does spend quite a long time talking about it.
- [32:16]
Catherine Seale
What do you think?
- [32:18]
Unnamed Historian
I think there are lots of rumours of poisoning in the imperial family and I tend to take most of them with a little bit of a grain of salt fault.
- [32:26]
Matthew Nichols
Talk a bit more about Sejanus. He was the partner in Tiberius's labors. Socius Laborum is, is what Tiberius calls him, and that's a rather ambiguous non title. But emperors have always had advisors. Well, there's only been one previous emperor, but he had an advisor and a Lieutenant Agrippa. And later emperors do it too. With praetorian commanders or freedmen, you need someone close to you who's not a threat to you, someone who can do your dirty work and advise you, who's not a member of the Senate, who's not a member of your family, not. Not a rival. But Sejanus oversteps those bounds, as you heard, by hoping for marriage into the imperial family. You've heard about the poisoning. What does he want to get out of it? It's not entirely clear, but maybe he hopes that Drusus being out of the way. And Drusus hated Sejanus, he saw him for what he was and actually hit him in the face in an argument. So he's an enemy to Sejanus. When Drusus is out of the way, maybe Sejanus can get Drusus children into power and be their regent. Maybe he can marry into the imperial family and somehow himself take a greater share in power. So he's a very ambitious, manipulative, dangerous individual.
- [33:25]
Catherine Seale
It sounds to me as if the imperial family is spending more time sorting itself out than sorting the empire out. Is that true?
- [33:33]
Melvin Bragg
If we believe Tacitus, yes. And these are, these are good stories and they capture something which Tacitus thinks is true, this descent into corruption that marks the latter part of Tiberius reign. And it is true that we see that being a member of the imperial household starts being really dangerous, at least overtly really dangerous. It has never been a healthy thing. But Tiberius takes direct action against Agrippina, the widow of Germanicus, against Agrippina and Germanicus eldest son. He's exiled, so he, not just mortality, is taking a hand in reducing his options for who might be emperor after him, out of concern for the security of his own position.
- [34:15]
Catherine Seale
Are these goings on at the top affecting the public, affecting those who keep people in power?
- [34:23]
Melvin Bragg
Probably not. And one of the interesting things about the latter part of Tiberius's reign is of course he's not really in Rome. He makes a decision to leave Rome effectively in the latter part of the 20s. It's often described as a retreat to Capri and he certainly spent a lot of time there, though he was around in the Bay of Naples area and once or twice comes back towards Rome. So it's not a complete exile. But that seems to reflect the fact that he had established a system, or at least Augustus had established a system which he had inherited and embedded, which ran very effectively. And Tiberius absence from Rome really underlines the fact that the Emperor didn't need to be in Rome in order for things to run effectively. He had trusted lieutenants, he could operate through trusted lieutenants. And the prestige and power of the emperor, backed up by his control of the armed forces, was such that he could be secure of his position even if he wasn't at Rome itself.
- [35:25]
Matthew Nichols
He does have a system of lieutenants, but he says himself, or is said to have said early in his reign, that being emperor is like holding a wolf by the ears. Right. It's horribly dangerous, but you can never let go. And he's trying to balance all these factions out against each other, which he can do to an extent from exile or from self exile in Capri. He does have trusted lieutenants, but he can't only Trust them up to a point. And some of them seem to want to, to run their own show.
- [35:46]
Catherine Seale
What are the sources that you've been talking about make of this?
- [35:49]
Melvin Bragg
Tacitus in particular thinks it is a symbol of his moral decline. And of course part of that is all the terrible rumors that circulate about what Tiberius was actually up to on Capri.
- [36:03]
Catherine Seale
What happened in Capri that starting with you, Matthew. What happened in Capri that has become dark and notorious?
- [36:11]
Matthew Nichols
Well, it's partly dark and notorious because Tiberius goes there for seclusion and for retreat. But as we heard earlier in the program, once the Emperor is invisible, anything could be happening behind those closed doors. So I think a lot of what we have really is rumour and gossip that Tiberius does nothing to allay by being absent from Rome. Capri is a nice island in the Bay of Naples. Rich Romans have been going on summer retreats to the Bay of Naples for a very long time. Tiberius initially goes to Campania in the summer and stays longer and longer and moves in the end to a series of palaces, some of which you can still visit on the island of Capri. And the sources that we have go into ludicrous and lure detail about what he was doing there with all sorts of companions, getting up to all sorts of wicked activities with them.
- [36:51]
Catherine Seale
Are you going to be graphic about this? Are you, are you, are you gliding over them?
- [36:55]
Matthew Nichols
I, I don't know how graphic I can be on Radio 4, but they're really terrible. I mean, you know, children and violence and violation of the worst possible sort. Whether we really believe these or not, I don't know. I think it's interesting that they can be said of an emperor and an emperor. Personal character and depravity are thought to be important. Here's a story that maybe is acceptable. A fisherman climbed up the rocks with a prize mullet he caught, thinking this fish is worthy of the Emperor. And when he arrives, Tiberius is so horrified that someone has violated his security and kind of interrupted his island idydyl that he has the poor fisherman's face scoured with this scaly mullet. And the fisherman amid this torture says, well thank goodness I didn't give you the crab I also caught. At which point poor Tiberius takes the crab and also punishes the fisherman with that and he flings him off the cliffs. So violence, horrible, squalid outbursts of personal passion. It's really anything you can say bad about individual is said about Tiberius and retreat on Capri.
- [37:49]
Catherine Seale
Well, who was saying all these bad things about him at the time.
- [37:51]
Matthew Nichols
Well, at the time, I imagine the rumor mill in Rome was going over time. We heard from Shushman, from Catherine, that Tacitus thrives on rumour. Suetonius, the biographer, loves these lurid anecdotes and populates quite a lot of his biography of Tiberius with them. How true they are, what currency they had, what validity they had, it's hard to tell.
- [38:08]
Melvin Bragg
We do know that Agrippina the Younger wrote memoirs. She was the daughter of the Agrippina, who was so badly treated by Tiberius and later was the mother of Nero. One fancies that her account of Tiberius wasn't particularly favourable. And she was a contemporary witness with, you know, allegedly good access to what might have been going on, because she came out of the imperial household. So one would be interested to know what were in her memoirs.
- [38:31]
Unnamed Historian
Tacitus as well, talks about Agrippina's memoirs, so there are bits in his account where he says, and I got this from Agrippina and what she said about her mother. And there are other sources that he talks about as well, like Pliny, who was the uncle of Tacitus, Friend the younger Pliny, who perhaps we know a little bit better, but the Pliny who died after the eruption of Vesuvius. So he does have. Tacitus does seem to be using some contemporary histories to inform his history, which of course does not mean that he's only using those. And there isn't a lot of rumour and other things mixed in there as well, but he does give us some sense of a source tradition.
- [39:09]
Catherine Seale
Catherine, meanwhile, the empire seems to have tracked on, doesn't it?
- [39:12]
Melvin Bragg
Yes, it does.
- [39:13]
Catherine Seale
These goings on and going on at Capri, meanwhile, this vast, complicated and very successful empire is ticking along.
- [39:20]
Melvin Bragg
It is indeed. And when Tiberius eventually dies and his great nephew, who we know as Caligula, but we should probably call him Gaius, became Emperor in turn. He inherited an extraordinarily favourable situation. The treasury was full to bursting, as Sushimara was saying, owing to Tiberius moderation throughout his reign, the empire was at peace, the armies were in fine fettle, everything was set fair. And of course, Gaius arguably doesn't quite take advantage of the benefits he inherited. But that's perhaps another story. It's very easy to look at it and think, he's the second emperor, we've got a system, everybody knows what they're going to be doing and that's why it's all working out so well. But actually, I think there's a lot of Tiberius in the way that the Principate emerges because Augustus was such an overwhelming individual whose own personal achievements were so extraordinary that it was very difficult, it was impossible to work out exactly what we had in the reign of Augustus. Was it a new form of political life? Was it an extraordinary individual who was going to become a God? How did it work? And it's up to Tiberius, as someone who's very much immortal, to take all the possibilities and to turn them into a system of empire that is going to last for so many years, centuries.
- [40:48]
Catherine Seale
We're coming to the end now. Would you say Shushmain was the legacy that he left Tiberius?
- [40:55]
Unnamed Historian
I think one of the interesting things about Tiberius, which I think has come across in this program as well, is that there are lots of different ways to talk about him. He could be an archetypal tyrant and he certainly was for a period in history. History, there are texts from the 16th 17th century that frame him as the tyrant of the Julio Claudian period. But at the same time, and literally at that same time in the 16th 17th century, we also had texts that were arguing for a much more favourable interpretation on the basis of his early career, on the basis of the military activity that he did, of the stability that he bought, the peace that he bought, the financial security that he bought. So he is one of those emperors that is a little bit difficult to place. On the one hand he wasn't deified, but on the other hand he is held up as an emperor who you should follow. So when we get the next dynasty of emperors, Vespasian is going to hold Tiberius up as one of the examples of where he gets his authority. Augustus, Tiberius and Claudius are the ones who are mentioned in a law that we have from that period. So he is someone who has a mixed legacy, but in the modern day also, I think people deal with him differently also in popular culture. So I. Claudius is a really good example of that, in that he is portrayed by Robert Graves, on the one hand, as being someone who later in his life is an awful character who really does perform all of the horrific acts that we were talking about on Capri and has a lot of vices in his character, inherent in his character. They're embedded there. He keeps control of them for a while, but then they're all let loose later on. But on the other hand, he's not an out and out tyrannical figure in the mode of someone like Caligula or someone like Nero. So he's a really good emperor, I think, to look at from a reception standpoint, because there are quite a Lot of mixed opinions about him out there.
- [43:02]
Catherine Seale
Thank you all very much, Shushama Malik, Katharine Steele and Matthew Nicholls. And to our studio engineer, Duncan Hannant. Next week, Sunflowers and Starry Nights, the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. Thank you for listening.
- [43:16]
Melvin Bragg
And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few.
- [43:19]
Alex von Tanzelman
Minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.
- [43:23]
Catherine Seale
What did you not have time to say you wanted to say, starting with you, Catherine?
- [43:27]
Melvin Bragg
I think there is always more to be said about the moment of transition from Augustus to Tiberius. I think it is an absolutely fascinating moment of vulnerability and of formal processes meeting completely uncharted water and the improvisatory nature as nobody quite knows what the end point is that they're all trying to get to. I mean, I think the absolute priority, and we shouldn't forget this when we think about these moments, was avoiding civil war. Enough men still remembered how catastrophic civil war was. So at all costs, there had to be a transition of power that was clear and straightforward and unambiguous and demonstrably had public support. So that, I think, is a priority at that. That Senate meeting, and I do, would.
- [44:21]
Catherine Seale
Have been in the Civil War anyway.
- [44:22]
Melvin Bragg
Well, I mean, it's what, 40 years? So men will have remembered. Men will have had fathers who were killed. It's not. It's not gone yet in terms of collective memory and the description in Tacitus. And when it comes to talking about the Senate, Tacitus's sources are good. As Matthew said, it's a don't. And one of the reasons it goes wrong is that nobody quite knows what the dance is or what the music is playing. And you can expand this analogy, but nobody quite knows how to do it. So everybody is feeling their way. And I think one of the things then that it's interesting to think about is how far it actually comes up against a genuine distaste in Tiberius for the whole system, that at some level, he still clings to republican principles and is made deeply uneasy by the compromises which he's been forced into. And of course, we shouldn't forget that at the time of that meeting at which he becomes emperor, he either has been told or has given the order for the assassination of Augustus's last surviving grandson, Agrippa Posthumus, because how can Postumus still be allowed to live if there's going to be a peaceful and uncontested transfer of power? But that's a very stark introduction to some of the realities of imperial power. And again, one wonders how far if you want to start kind of trying to find the real Tiberius, which of course we can't really do, how far that was an issue that was colouring how he approached this crucial debate.
- [45:47]
Matthew Nichols
In the deathbed discussions that Shushma talked about, Augustus is said to have raised the names of other people who might take over as emperor. Lucius Arruntius and Manius Lepidus and Asinius.
- [45:56]
Melvin Bragg
Gallus, none of whom of course, were members of the imperial household.
- [45:59]
Matthew Nichols
Indeed not. So was there an idea that people outside the imperial household somehow could take power? What would that look like? Did Tiberius hear those names and remember them as a threat to himself? It's another little avenue into what might have been and it gets shut down quite quickly.
- [46:13]
Melvin Bragg
But of course that avenue does sort of open up when Caligula is assassinated, because although Claudius becomes Emperor, there is much more debate, we are told, about possible forms of government before the decision is made. No, we've got to continue with this system that has been created. And so. So you know that many years earlier, what is it, 25 years earlier, more of a live memory of what the Republic had been or the possibility of recreating it, and more of a sense that there might be options other than doing Augustus 2.
- [46:47]
Matthew Nichols
And when Claudius does become Emperor, in the end, it's not the Senate this time who transmitted power, but it's the Praetorian Guard who whisked Claudius away from behind a curtain where he's hiding and spirit on the way to the Praetorian camp. And as Robert Graves tells us, make.
- [46:58]
Melvin Bragg
Him emperor, because the Praetorians know that an emperor is jolly good.
- [47:01]
Matthew Nichols
Yes, he brings handouts and bonuses and he's in your pocket.
- [47:05]
Catherine Seale
We haven't really talked about the effect of the Atresian trials, Matthew.
- [47:10]
Matthew Nichols
They were extremely damaging to Tiberius reputation. They, in the end contributed. Well, we heard a little bit earlier about this charge of maestas, the diminished majesty of the Roman people, which had existed well before Tiberius reign, before Augustus even. But that had become a shorthand for tacking on to criminal charges the idea that you'd somehow undermine the emperor, his family or the state. And those things are increasingly conflated. So the charge of treason is very damaging to the accused and it becomes a way of persecuting members of the senatorial aristocracy in Tiberius Rome, partly because a class of informers arises under this atmosphere of paranoid tyranny, with Sejanus cutting a sway through his enemies and Tiberius cutting a sway through his enemies. People start to realize that if you denounce someone for treason and they're convicted, you get to keep a portion of their assets. So it becomes a sort of lucrative trade. So there's this class of hated informers, De la Torres, who are out there denouncing people. Treason trials happen before the Senate, or they can happen before the Senate, and that is a nasty, febrile atmosphere of mutual incrimination. So it's not just the Emperor persecuting hapless senators, they're also falling in on each other and tearing themselves apart with ancient rivalries or new eminence. So it becomes a period of real fear, especially when Sejanus is cut loose after Drusus dies, after Tiberius goes into exile, after Livia dies in 29, we think. I think there are 19 treason trials that happen under Sejanus, and he's also floating around in the background of the early ones as well. So it's seen as an instrument of persecution. That said, it's not something Tiberius invents and he's not the last person to use them either.
- [48:50]
Unnamed Historian
Yeah. One of the things that struck me, building on what Catherine was saying, is that actually, during this period, Junior dies. Junia is the wife of Cassius, as in one of the assassins of Julius Caesar, and the sister of Brutus. And it's mentioned in the annals. It happens in the 20s. And Tacitus makes the point that Tiberius allows a funeral to happen because she's from this extraordinary family. She has this amazing ancestor as one of the Unii. But conspicuously absent in the funeral, where all of the ancestors are paraded, are, of course, Brutus and Cassius, and they are conspicuously absent. They are noticed as not being there. And again, that sort of reinforces that idea of the legacy of the old republic and how that's dying and how that's dying out, with figures like Junior now reaching their end.
- [49:43]
Matthew Nichols
And among.
- [49:44]
Melvin Bragg
Sorry, I was just going to come to think of it, Junia was a cousin of Tiberius, wasn't she? Because of the connection through Servilia.
- [49:50]
Matthew Nichols
Anyway, sorry, not at all. And among the various treason trials that we talked about, there was a historian called Cremutius Cordus, who was forced to suicide in AD 25. And the charge against him was partly that in his history he'd praised Brutus and Cassius as the last of the Romans. That is the kind of last people to carry that flag of republican virtue. And that was seen as an implicit criticism of the Principate. And Tacitus, of course, as a historian, cares very much about historical being censored.
- [50:12]
Unnamed Historian
And the really interesting thing about that as well is it brings us back to those treason trials because at this point Tacitus again makes the claim that Tiberius and Augustus made treason as much about what you say as what you do. So now saying things is also a problem becoming a problem in Rome. And Comutius Claudius makes exactly that point. He's said to make that point by Tacitus during the trial. That a poet like Catullus was able to say awful things about Julius Caesar and not face the kind of trials or reprimands that Comitius Cordius is now facing.
- [50:52]
Matthew Nichols
If we're thinking about trials, something that we didn't talk about very much was the trial of Piso after the death of Germanicus. We mentioned it. That's a really interesting episode quite early in the reign where the cracks start to show. Germanicus is the prince and possible rival of Tiberius nephew who goes over to command in the east and then gets poisoned under murky circumstances. And there's a suggestion that Tiberius has sent a friend of his, a friend of Tiberius is called Piso over as a kind of minder to keep an eye on this potential rival. And then that Piso maybe has poisoned Germanicus. And there's a trial of Piso in the Senate and there's supposedly a document of secret orders that Tiberius had given to Piso and it disappears. And Piso, the next day the doors are flung open. Peter's killed himself. And then Livia wades in and gets clemency for the widow. But it's another interesting case. You were talking about the documentary evidence. We have Tacitus account. And then we found this big bronze tablet that details the senatorial response to the trial. So we can now check the one against the other. And it's a really interesting moment.
- [51:48]
Catherine Seale
Is there anything more to say about Sejanus?
- [51:50]
Matthew Nichols
Matthew Sejanus was an interesting example of a type that I think we see again later on in imperial history. History. So the. The evil advisor, the power behind the throne. And we have to be careful not to see him falling into a sort of early version of a stereotype or forming a stereotype that later advisors are seen through. But he does seem to. To have extraordinary ambitions and to cut a sway through enemies of the imperial family or of Tiberius who are also enemies of himself. The family of Agrippina and her progeny. But whether he's doing that on his own account to maneuver himself into power or whether he's really doing what Tiberius wanted in to do and then when he's Done it. Tiberius cuts him loose. Maybe that's another. Another side of the story.
- [52:31]
Catherine Seale
Finally, Ichibu. Just for fun, what do you think of Robert Graves treatment of Tiberius?
- [52:36]
Matthew Nichols
I love I Claudius and Claudius the God. And they're books that really bring to life that difficult period. Graves certainly has a particular thesis and attitude. He's quite hostile to Livia, but I think it's a wonderful evocation of an era.
- [52:48]
Melvin Bragg
Catherine, I would agree with that. It's. It's the most extraordinary and wonderful read and I think Tiberius is one of the highlights. I mean, I, I can't be alone in finding I Claudius brilliant and Claudius the God a bit tedious in parts. And one of the reasons that I, Claudius is so brilliant is that Graves evokes that atmosphere of utter paranoia and terror that he wants us to believe Tiberius imposed on Rome.
- [53:12]
Unnamed Historian
Yes, I would agree. I'm not sure you get to be an ancient historian and not like I Claudius and Claudius the gods. But no, they are, they're wonderful books.
- [53:22]
Catherine Seale
Well, thank you all very much.
- [53:24]
Melvin Bragg
Does anybody want tea or coffee?
- [53:27]
Catherine Seale
I love a bit of tea. Anybody having any or not?
- [53:29]
Matthew Nichols
Well, coffee would be lovely if we do coffee.
- [53:32]
Unnamed Historian
Tea, coffee, tea.
- [53:33]
Melvin Bragg
Coffee is one tea. Herbal tea, Very good.
- [53:35]
Catherine Seale
Tea, please.
- [53:36]
Melvin Bragg
Some Sort of Tea In Our Time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson. If anyone is an artist in their.
- [53:43]
Catherine Seale
Soul, it's Joni Mitchell.
- [53:44]
Unnamed Historian
There are some artists that change music forever.
- [53:48]
Matthew Nichols
The mastery of the guitar, the mastery of voice, the mastery of language that shape the musical landscape for everyone who comes after. When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century.
- [54:03]
Unnamed Historian
Legend is a music biography podcast from BBC Radio 4 that explores the extraordinary.
- [54:09]
Matthew Nichols
Lives of musical pioneers.
- [54:11]
Melvin Bragg
I think people would like me to.
- [54:12]
Catherine Seale
Just be introverted and bleed for them forever.
- [54:14]
Unnamed Historian
Let's legend the Joni Mitchell story with me, Jessica Hoop. Listen now on BBC Sounds.
- [54:23]
Alex von Tanzelman
This is History's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.
- [54:36]
Unnamed Historian
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [54:43]
Alex von Tanzelman
Join me, Alex von Tanzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.