Tiberius

Tiberius ruled Rome from AD 14 to 37, was an exceptionally capable general and a reluctant emperor, and left a reputation blackened by the historians who wrote afterwards. Born in 42 BC into the Claudian family, he was a small child when Augustus forced his mother Livia's divorce and married her. He was a first-rate commander, campaigning in Armenia, Raetia, Pannonia, Germany and Illyricum for two decades, and he recovered the standards lost at Carrhae by negotiation in 20 BC. Augustus compelled him in 11 BC to divorce Vipsania Agrippina, whom he loved, and marry his own daughter Julia. He is reported to have seen Vipsania afterwards in the street and followed her weeping. In 6 BC he withdrew to Rhodes for eight years in what amounted to political exile. He was adopted only after Augustus's other heirs died, and took power in AD 14 at fifty-five, having spent his life being passed over. His early administration was careful — sound finances, provincial governors left in place for long terms, restraint in spending, and expansion abandoned in favour of secure frontiers. He retired to Capri in AD 26 and never returned to Rome. He left affairs to Sejanus, the praetorian prefect, who eliminated rivals through treason trials until Tiberius had him destroyed in AD 31; the purge that followed killed a great many. Suetonius and Tacitus record grotesque sexual depravity on Capri, written decades later under a hostile dynasty and impossible to verify. He died in AD 37 and the Senate refused him deification.

• Lived: 42 BCE – 37 CE
• Nationality: Italian
• Roles: ruler