Tiberius

Although he had hesitated neither to seize the principate immediately nor to exercise it, and had already assumed a guard of soldiers, that is, the force and outward appearance of sovereignty, yet he refused it for a long time, at one time rebuking his urging friends with a most shameless farce as if they were ignorant of what a monster the empire was, at another keeping the entreating senate, which prostrated itself at his knees, in suspense by ambiguous answers and crafty hesitation, so that some lost their patience and one cried out in the confusion: ‘Let him either act or desist!’ and another openly reproached the rest that they were slow to perform what they had promised, but that he was slow to promise what he was already performing. At last, as if compelled, and complaining that a miserable and burdensome slavery was being imposed upon him, he accepted the sovereignty; yet not otherwise than to give hope that he would one day lay it down. His own words are: ‘Until I come to that time when it may seem fair to you to grant some rest to my old age.’

The cause of his hesitation was fear of the dangers threatening from every side, so that he often said he was ‘holding a wolf by the ears’. For a slave of Agrippa, Clemens by name, had collected no negligible force to avenge his master, and Lucius Scribonius Libo, a nobleman, was secretly plotting a revolution, and a double mutiny of the soldiers broke out in Illyricum and in Germany. Both armies demanded many extraordinary things, above all that they should be equaled in pay to the praetorians. The Germanic forces indeed even rejected a prince who had not been given by themselves, and with all their might urged Germanicus, who then commanded them, to take over the government, although he obstinately resisted. Fearing this development above all, Tiberius demanded for himself such parts of the state to guard as pleased the senate, since no single person could be sufficient for the whole unless in company with another or even with several. He also feigned illness, so that Germanicus might await a speedy succession or at least a partnership in the principate with a more tranquil mind. When the mutinies were settled, he also reduced Clemens to his power, having deceived him by a stratagem. As for Libo, lest any too harsh measure should be taken at the beginning of his reign, he did not accuse him in the senate until the second year, being content in the intervening time merely to be on his guard; for when Libo was sacrificing with him among the priests, Tiberius took care that a leaden knife should be substituted for the sacrificial dagger, and when Libo requested a private interview, Tiberius did not grant it except with his son Drusus present, and as they walked, he held Libo’s right hand as if leaning on him, until the conversation was finished.

But when he was freed from fear, he conducted himself in the beginning in an extremely civic manner, and little different from a private citizen. Of the many and greatest honors offered to him, he accepted only a few modest ones. When his birthday fell during the Plebeian Games, he barely allowed it to be honored by the addition of a single two-horse chariot. He forbade temples, flamines, and priests to be decreed for him, and even statues and busts to be set up without his permission; and he permitted them only on the condition that they should not be placed among the images of the gods, but among the ornaments of the buildings. He also vetoed the taking of an oath to observe his acts, and forbade the month of September to be called Tiberius, and October, Livius. He also refused the praenomen of Imperator, the cognomen of Father of his Country, and the civic crown at his vestibule; and he did not add even the name of Augustus, although hereditary, to any letters except those to kings and dynasts. Nor did he hold more than three consulships thereafter, one for a few days, a second for three months, and a third in his absence until the Ides of May.

He so averted flattery that he admitted none of the senators to his litter, whether for the sake of paying respects or on business; indeed, he so shrank from a man of consular rank who was making excuses to him and trying to entreat him by his knees, that he fell over backward; and also, if anything too flattering was said of him in conversation or in a continuous speech, he did not hesitate to interrupt and find fault with it, and change it immediately. When he was called ‘Lord’ by someone, he warned him not to address him by that title again, as it was an insult. To another who spoke of his ‘sacred occupations’, and again to another who said that he had entered the senate ‘by his authority’, he compelled them to change their words and to say ‘advisor’ instead of ‘author’, and ‘laborious’ instead of ‘sacred’.