The historian Lindsay Powell revisits the ancient sources and comes to a different conclusion about Tiberius Caesar, revealing a 2,000-year-old story of slander against Rome’s second emperor.
Something strange happens in the mind of a historian while doing research about long dead people. Printed words evoke feelings, photographs morph into flesh, and unfamiliar names take on personalities. The more information one assimilates the stronger and more nuanced those impressions become.
In this alchemical process, the deceased seemingly come back to life. It is a special kind of magic that captures the past. Sharing that enchantment with readers is what writers of history live to do.
That process of discovery can upend preconceived notions. History, it turns out, is not fixed and immutable. As news editor of Ancient History and Ancient Warfare magazines I see a constant stream of findings from archaeology or scholarly research that challenges long-accepted interpretations of the past. While most confirm or augment what we know, some discoveries do, indeed, ‘rewrite history’.
My subjects are the Caesars of Ancient Rome. They were famous, celebrities even, in their own day, but some of them have since fallen into obscurity. I have had the good fortune to be able to research and then tell the extraordinary life stories of Caesar Augustus, Marcus Agrippa, Nero Claudius Drusus and Germanicus in a series of biographies published by Pen & Sword Books.
One man had been a constant figure throughout: Tiberius (42BC–AD37). A few years ago, I decided it was his turn to receive the full treatment.
He was born Ti. Claudius Nero and would become emperor Ti. Caesar Divi Augusti filius Divi Iuli nepos Augustus. Telling his story presented me with a conundrum. At the outset, I was aware that his historical reputation for capable generalship and sensible civic leadership was marred by allegations of cruelty, unmerited treason trials and sexual depravity.
Some historians have described him as a ‘tyrant’ or a ‘monster’. When I pitched the idea for a new book to my publisher, the working title was Tiberius: The Soldier Who Became Reluctant Emperor of Rome. The adjective I chose embodied the assessment of several modern biographers about Rome’s second emperor.
As a writer, I have found that the core of what makes studying the lives of the Caesars so compelling is a profound question. For Tiberius – who was the best general of his day bar none, and Augustus’ adopted son and successor – the question was this: was he really as terrible an emperor as he is made out to be and, if not, how and why has that narrative become his legend?
Like all good detective work, the first step is a thorough investigation of the known facts. The origin of the English word ‘history’ is istoria, the Greek for ‘inquiry’. I conducted extensive research using ancient documentary sources, comparing them to epigraphy, coins, statuary and findings from archaeology, as well as insights from architecture, engineering, geography, military studies and medical science, ancient and modern.
Facts by themselves are interesting but not particularly meaningful without context. To organise the facts, I compiled an exhaustive chronology. To me, the job of a historian is to research, analyse and interpret events and the people who took part in them.
Building the timeline revealed anomalies and contradictions and highlighted where the evidence was completely missing. With ancient documents this can be quite literal: there can be holes – lacunae – in the extant pages! Some texts are known only from their titles and nothing else survives. Particularly frustrating to me is the knowledge that Tiberius wrote an autobiography: it is entirely lost.
I followed the leads wherever they took me. The ‘ABC’ principles of the forensic scientist applied: ‘assume nothing; believe nobody; check everything’. Throughout, I followed the dictum of investigative journalists, which is to ‘work from the facts outwards, never a thesis inwards’, letting the known details speak for themselves. As Edward Gibbon did, I examined the evidence ‘with impartiality’, but not with ‘indifference’. The goal was to gain substance and to filter out noise.
There are several written sources for the life and legacy of Tiberius. ‘Some of them are true’ (borrowing the famous tagline of my friend WF Strong of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), but which ones? Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio provide the most substantial documentation about Tiberius to survive from Antiquity. The only one of them to have known Tiberius personally was Paterculus; all the others lived long after him and relied on written accounts of others.
Additionally, I found stories in the texts of Strabo, Philo, Valerius Maximus, Seneca the Younger, Josephus, Pliny the Elder, and the Emperor Julian. Surprising to me was to find writings of the Christian historians Tertullian, Jerome, and Orosius, who offered an unexpectedly positive perspective on the life of Rome’s second emperor.
Yet even where ancient texts do survive, they are not without problems. Indeed, they are often the root cause of the problems for those, like me, who rely on them. Then, as now, historians and writers tell stories. We have agendas and reasons for writing. The motivation of each teller can subtly change the story.
Some consciously or subconsciously manipulate the narrative, while others are completely unreliable, taking liberties with facts, preferring to lean into vituperation rather than veracity as their storyline requires. The writings of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio are largely hostile to Tiberius, while Paterculus is congenial, meaning their accounts cannot be taken at face value as balanced and unbiased.
Case in point, among the many lurid tales recounted by Suetonius, the Roman biographer of the Caesars, is this anecdote:
.jpg)
A few days after he [Tiberius] reached Capreae and was by himself, a fisherman appeared unexpectedly and offered him a huge mullet; whereupon in his alarm that the man had clambered up to him from the back of the island over rough and pathless rocks, he had the poor fellow’s face scrubbed with the fish. And because in the midst of his torture the man thanked his stars that he had not given the emperor an enormous crab that he had caught, Tiberius had his face torn with the crab also. (Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 60.1).
This grotesque story is probably completely made up (a similar story is told in Midrash Rabbah: Leviticus of Emperor Hadrian and a farmer of figs in Judea).
Nevertheless, if not accepting it as a historical event, some modern historians interpret the cruel episode to be symbolic, a metaphor, of Tiberius’s physical isolation as the emperor living on the rocky island alone and separated from civilised Roman society.
The known facts tell a different story. He was already 68 years old when he chose Capri for his forever home. Tiberius was not alone there: several friends and family members (including his nephew Caius, better known as Caligula) lived with him on the island, where he indulged his passion for astrology, conversation, performance art, reading and growing cucumis.
Indeed, the archaeology of his palatial home, Villa Jovis, with its spectacular views of the gulf and of Vesuvius, points to a staff of several hundred people working to make as comfortable as possible the lives of the emperor, his guests and adjutants. Neither was he isolated: galleys of the Roman navy at Misenum continually brought him reports from his legates and letters from the Senate, and took back his rescripts and speeches.
A fun fact I discovered was the Romans were obsessed with the red or barbed mullet (Mullus barbatus, from mulleus, ‘red’), particularly the largest specimens of the species. Indeed, Tiberius complained bitterly that three mullets had been sold in Rome for 30,000 sesterces (over 33 years’ pay for a legionary soldier); in response, he proposed that “the prices in the market should be regulated each year at the discretion of the Senate” (Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 34.1).
Another story relates that:
At Capreae they still point out the scene of his executions, from which he used to order that those who had been condemned after long and exquisite tortures be cast headlong into the sea before his eyes, while a band of marines waited below for the bodies and broke their bones with boathooks and oars, to prevent any breath of life from remaining in them. (Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 62.2).
The clue is in the source: unnamed persons (perhaps a tour guide operating on the island) who told Suetonius the story when was researching his Lives of the Caesars – more than eight decades after Tiberius died, which was plenty of time for tall tales like this one to propagate. Incidentally, Tiberius himself did not die at Capri but across the gulf at Misenum.
Over 2,000 years, Tiberius has accumulated a considerable Nachleben. This is a German word that historians use to describe the cultural afterlife of a real, historical person and the transmutation of facts about them into myth. Through polemic, poetry, opera, theatre, painting, novels, and more recently radio, film and TV, Tiberius has been reimagined and reinvented. Indeed, explaining his Nachleben became a key part – two chapters – of my new book.
The result is that Tiberius’ story in death has obscured his truth in life – they have become one and the same. Separating the two is crucial to any attempt at telling his story. A fair and balanced assessment of his life and achievements hinges on a critical examination and understanding of the source material, combined with insights from other disciplines, in their historical context.
The Tiberius who emerged from my deep-dive research was far more interesting than the parody portrayed in many history books, documentaries and dramas. Of course he was flawed (he was a human being), but much of what passes today as Tiberius’ story is exaggerated or simply untrue.
My inquiries led me to completely revise the way I understood him and to reach a quite different assessment from the one shared by many of my peers, ancient and modern. This is how researching and writing history is supposed to work. As renowned classicist and military historian Barry Strauss observes:
“We succeed as historians precisely when we approach the evidence with an open mind. We ought to hope the evidence surprises us. I’d go so far as to say that unless we change our opinions during the research process we haven’t done our jobs as historians.”
In my book I tell the shocking true story of a man who secured the Roman Empire through war and politics yet was slandered after his death by history. Reluctance to rule, which was my initial thesis, was replaced by a new insight: mastery. It was clear to me that I needed new title for my book. My commissioning editor agreed. The book is now Tiberius: Masterly Commander and Masterful Emperor of Rome.
I hope I have succeeded at my job as a historian and that, after studying my new biography, readers will share my fresh assessment of Tiberius Caesar.
Tiberius: From Masterly Commander to Masterful Emperor of Rome by Lindsay Powell was published on 5 June, 2025.
Lindsay Powell is a historian and writer. Author of 14 non-fiction books, he is also the news editor of Ancient History and Ancient Warfare magazines.
Find out more about this book.
Other features he has written for Historia include:
Eat, drink, and be merry the Pompeian way
Historia exhibition review: Legion: life in the Roman army
On the trail of an emperor, a rebel, and a lion
And there’s a Historia Q&A with Lindsay Powell as well.
For more about Roman history, see:
Why the Roman Empire grew so big and The dark legacy of Rome by Harry Sidebottom
Agricola’s victories in Britain and Domitian, an unlikely emperor by Simon Turney
How (not) to become a Roman Emperor, Sex in Ancient Rome, and Gladiator sweat and leech hair dye; how to survive in Ancient Rome by LJ Trafford
Anthony Riches asks Did Roman Soldiers Suffer PTSD?
Images:
- The Great Cameo of France, showing Tiberius (centre), with (L–R) Germanicus, Agrippina the Elder and Livia, cAD50–54: Bibliothèque nationale de France (public domain)
- Tiberius as Jupiter, cAD50: Vatican Museums via Egisto Sani for Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
- Gold coin of Tiberius, AD14–37: Münzkabinett der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin (public domain)
- Head of Tiberius, AD14–37: Getty Museum (public domain)
- Villa Jovis on Capri: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Red or barbed mullet, Pompeii, mid-1st century AD: Carlo Raso for Flickr (public domain)
- Villa Jovis on Capri: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Cameo of Tiberius: Wikimedia (public domain)
