Quote of the Day (Suetonius, on the Death of Tiberius Caesar)

“Meanwhile, finding, upon looking over the acts of the senate, ‘that some person under prosecution had been discharged, without being brought to a hearing,’ for he had only written cursorily that they had been denounced by an informer; he [Emperor Tiberius Nero Caesar] complained in a great rage that he was treated with contempt, and resolved at all hazards to return to Capri; not daring to attempt anything until he found himself in a place of security. But being detained by storms, and the increasing violence of his disorder, he died shortly afterwards, at a villa formerly belonging to Lucullus, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and the twenty-third of his reign, upon the seventeenth of the calends of April [16th March], in the consulship of Cneius Acerronius Proculus and Caius Pontius Niger. Some think that a slow-consuming poison was given him by Caius. Others say that during the interval of the intermittent fever with which he happened to be seized, upon asking for food, it was denied him. Others report, that he was stifled by a pillow thrown upon him, when, on his recovering from a swoon, he called for his ring, which had been taken from him in the fit. Seneca writes, ‘That finding himself dying, he took his signet ring off his finger, and held it a while, as if he would deliver it to somebody; but put it again upon his finger, and lay for some time, with his left hand clenched, and without stirring; when suddenly summoning his attendants, and no one answering the call, he rose; but his strength failing him, he fell down at a short distance from his bed….’

“The people were so much elated at his death, that when they first heard the news, they ran up and down the city, some crying out, "Away with Tiberius to the Tiber;’ others exclaiming, ‘May the earth, the common mother of mankind, and the infernal gods, allow him no abode in death, but amongst the wicked.’ Others threatened his body with the hook and the Gemonian stairs, their indignation at his former cruelty being increased by a recent atrocity.”--Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, translated by Alexander Thomson, revised and corrected by T. Forester

Before I took an ancient history course in college, I had vainly hoped that this would be my chance to read classic authors such as Livy, Suetonius and Tacitus. No such luck. Our class made do with one of those anthologies containing ancient manuscript excerpts, extracts from laws, commentaries from modern historians on subjects broad (Roman economics) and arcane (fine or not-so-fine points of Roman law), and the like—but little with the juice of the human beings who lived through those times.

Of the ancient historians we did hear about, my professor did not think much of Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, better known as Suetonius (c.71-c.135). “A gossip,” he warned us. If we wanted to read any ancient historian, it should be Tacitus (ca. AD 56-117), who was a good deal more reliable, he said.

“Of course he’d say that,” noted a friend who, unlike myself, had received a pretty thorough grounding in the storied ancient Greeks and Romans at his New York prep school. “Anytime a historian is actually fun to read, they say he’s a gossip.”

It might be tempting to cede the field to my professor and to view Suetonius as the imperial Roman equivalent of the editor of the New York Post’s Page 6 section. But a funny thing happened when I compared the “gossip” with the “reliable historian” on Tiberius Caesar (pictured here, in a bust from the Louvre), who succeeded stepfather Augustus Caesar as emperor.

Both Tacitus and Suetonius agreed on the basic outlines of the reign and death of Tiberius. Both historians had only the most limited knowledge of a small sect then arising at the eastern end of the empire, but when one considers the transgressions of the ruler of the greatest power in the Mediterranean during the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, it is perfectly understandable why so many believed that this man crucified at age 33 represented a fundamental and necessary break from an empire and emperor characterized by corruption, caprice and cruelty.

It might even be argued that Suetonius provides a more substantial base on which to judge his account than Tacitus. There are no footnotes, to be sure (how did they ever do without them?), but there are enough details to help you decide whether a) Suetonius’ overall judgment was correct, and b) his anecdotes were too outlandish to be believed.

Let’s start with a subject always sure to excite readers: sex. (I’ve come to the conclusion, by the way, that high-school Latin classes would be hopelessly oversubsubscribed if students didn’t have to struggle with Julius Caesar’s Commentaries and instead were told there was this other book out there, but it was too dirty to read. Think how quickly they'd learn then Latin just to get to the “good parts”!)

How does Tacitus describe Tiberius’ retirement to Capri, in The Annals of Imperial Rome? “His former absorption in State affairs ended. Instead he spent the time in secret orgies, or idle malevolent thoughts.” Better than simply stating he gave himself over to sensuality, but it’s hard to know what to make of this charge.

In contrast, Suetonius makes unmistakably clear the nature of at least some of Tiberius’ practices (e.g., swimming sessions in which the emperor indulged in pederastic tendencies). We now know why some would regard the emperor as dissolute.

Or take the description of the emperor’s death. Tacitus offered a single explanation (i.e., he had been “smothered with a heap of bed-clothes and left alone.”). Suetonius, as seen above, suggests three possibilities on how the emperor met his end, none of them very happy.

As for how Tiberius ruled, the two authors agreed more closely on events, though they differed on what this meant about their subject. Both depicted the emperor as an occasionally able administrator. But both were at some pains to catalogue his cruelty as time went on.

For Suetonius, it seemed like a barely perceptible descent into paranoia and madness, as the largely largely unsociable Tiberius grew increasingly concerned with stamping out rebellions against his rule. In contrast, Tacitus saw no real evolution of character; the emperor was always engaged in “cunningly affecting virtuous qualities.” But with the disappearance of a couple of key individuals in his life, “fear vanished, and with it shame. Thereafter he expressed only his own personality—by unrestrained crime and infamy.”