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him to retire to the island of Rhodes, only returning to Rome in ad 2.
When Augustus’ two young grandsons died on trips abroad, first Lucius
in ad 2 and then Gaius in ad 4, disappointed and anguished over the
severe damage to the Julian line, in ad 4 Augustus adopted Tiberius as his
son. In a desperate attempt to inject some Julian blood into the succession,
that same year Augustus took a series of actions that would fuel
palace intrigues for years to come. He adopted Agrippa’s one surviving
son by Julia, the unstable Agrippa Postumus, later (in ad 7) exiled by
Augustus to a desert island. Augustus also ordered Tiberius to adopt his
nephew Germanicus, the son of Tiberius’ own dead brother, the well-liked
Drusus. Germanicus’ mother was Antonia, daughter of the triumvir Mark
Antony and Augustus’ sister Octavia, and thus of Julian lineage. Augustus
reinforced this bond by having Germanicus marry Agrippina, a daughter
of Julia and Agrippa. Tiberius’ natural son, Drusus the Younger, by his
first wife, was relegated to a lesser role since he was only a Claudian. In the
final decade of Augustus’ life, Tiberius served as his closest advisor and
imperial understudy, and gradually acquired more power as Augustus’
health declined. With Augustus’ death in ad 14, Tiberius succeeded him
as Caesar automatically and without trouble.
Tiberius was a dour old soldier respected by the legions for his military
experience, and although he was already 56 years old at the time of his
elevation, he nevertheless reigned for twenty-three years until his death in
ad 37. The historian Tacitus offers an extremely negative assessment of
Tiberius throughout his reign, criticizing the emperor’s vicious disposition,
marked by “resentment, deception, and secret sensuality,” while suggesting
Tiberius was dominated by his mother, Livia, and decrying “the
ancient, ingrained arrogance of the Claudian family” (Annales 1.4). Tacitus
blames Tiberius for two brutal murders upon assuming the throne in ad
14: the execution of Agrippa Postumus, Augustus’ one remaining grandson,
and the callous starvation of the exiled Julia, Augustus’ daughter and
Tiberius’ ex-wife (Annales 1.5–6, 52–3). Soon after his succession, Tiberius
sent his two principal heirs out to the frontiers to quell legionary mutinies.
His natural son, Drusus the Younger, was sent to Pannonia (Hungary),
and the popular Germanicus, his adopted son, was sent to the
Rhineland. After Germanicus engaged in three military campaigns in Germany
beyond the Rhine from ad 14 to 16, Tiberius sent him to the Near
East on a series of difficult missions, which Germanicus discharged with
great success. But in Antioch in ad 19, Germanicus came down with a
mysterious illness, and before he died he accused the governor of Syria,
Cnaeus Calpurnius Piso, appointed by Tiberius, of poisoning him.
40 THE ROBE (1953)