Podcast: Subject to Change (LS 39 · TOP 2% what is this?)
Episode: Tiberius - a good emperor, a broken man
Pub date: 2025-01-15

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In this episode Professor Ed Watts and I look at the brilliant career and sad life of the Emperor Tiberius. We try to understand how this most capable and intelligent man came to be seen by history as one of the most monstrous of the Roman emperors.

In researching for the podcast I came across a really stirring defence of Tiberius in the shape of a monograph by Norman Douglas. On looking into who Norman Douglas was I discovered that he was a great literary figure of the first half of the 20th century. He was also an open paedophile and quite possibly child rapist. In short some of the crimes Tiberius himself was accused of. Here is an article about the man by Rachel Hope Cleves which I found interesting and unsettling in equal measure.

Regardless, I think Ed makes a good case for considering Tiberius to have been a good emperor but broken by age, family tragedy and an impossibly demanding stepfather.

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