The Twelve Caesars by Matthew Dennison

explanation that, first among equals, he had done no more than restore
an earlier status quo. He regarded the principate as Augustus’ creation, a construct already fully developed, his own role one of custodianship for his lifetime. This explains Tiberius’
numismatic programme, his policy (particularly at the Lugdunum mint) of reissuing Augustan coin types in order to assert the continuity at the regime’s heart; a commemorative issue
celebrating Augustus’ divinity is a lone innovation. 4 For this ‘greatest of generals, attended alike by fame and fortune’, spent his life in thrall to his domineering stepfather
who became his father by adoption, ‘veritably the second luminary and the second head of the state’, ‘the most eminent of all Roman citizens save one (and that because he wished
it so)’, in the syrupy account of Velleius Paterculus. 5 Denied any choice in the matter, Tiberius expended long years in Augustus’ service
and, afterwards, in safeguardingAugustus’ settlement. At his stepfather’s request he divorced a wife he loved to marry a sneering and snobbish harlot who
cuckolded him with strangers in full view of Rome’s night-time revellers; he adopted as his heir his nephew Germanicus in place of his own son. 4 He was a big man, strong, taller than average, well proportioned, with a handsome face in his youth, broad shoulders and hands capable of crushing a boy’s skull. But
he regarded the gift of empire, forced upon him by Augustus, who had the direction of so much of his life, as ‘a wretched and burdensome slavery’. While the primary sources admit
cynicism, nothing in his record suggests that Tiberius ever changed this view of the principate. Pliny the Elder described him as ‘ tristissimus hominum’ , the saddest or gloomiest
of men; 7 in Tacitus’ portrait he is ‘stern’, reserved, adept at concealment: ‘he had his words and looks under strict control, and occasionally would try to hide his
weakness... by a forced politeness.’ 8 To his contemporaries he appeared taciturn; even ascetic in the matter of self-fulfilment. His death inspired joy in place of lamentation, perhaps in his
own heart most of all.
    Above all Tiberius lacked charm. It was part of a larger, conscious detachment from those around him. Dio describes his ‘most peculiar nature’, his anger ‘if anyone gave
evidence of understanding him... he put many to death for no other offence than that of having comprehended him’. 9 The contrast with his predecessor is marked. Affable and wily, Augustus had
recast the government of Rome as a public celebration of civic-mindedness displayed in building and restoration programmes, large-scale spectacles and the heightened profile of his own family.
Tiberius,haughtily patrician, did not trouble to win hearts and minds. He slashed the budget for public games, reducing actors’ pay and capping the number of
gladiators, omitted to complete a single building project and, distancing himself from his troublesome relations, many of whom he executed, eventually concealed himself from sight. (This neglect of
grass-roots popularity was a failing later repeated by the equally aristocratic, equally austere Galba.) High birth and, when it suited him, a superstitious attachment to portents endowed Tiberius
with a sense of entitlement which did not require the endorsement of popular consensus. Although his career prior to the purple encompassed troughs as well as crests, ‘that strong and
unwavering confidence in his destiny, which he had conceived from his early years because of omens and predictions’ never left him. It is one of the many ironies of our story that Augustus,
embracing autocracy, courted popular support, while Tiberius, at heart faithful to the Republican oligarchy his ancestors had served through five centuries, baulked at currying favour,
‘headstrong and stubborn’ in his attitude towards the commons as his family had always been. ‘Let