Tiberius

In Our Time: History

BBC

History

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman emperor Tiberius. When he was born in 42BC, there was little prospect of him ever becoming Emperor of Rome. Firstly, Rome was still a Republic and there had not yet been any Emperor so that had to change and, secondly, when his stepfather Augustus became Emperor there was no precedent for who should succeed him, if anyone. It somehow fell to Tiberius to develop this Roman imperial project and by some accounts he did this well, while to others his reign was marked by cruelty and paranoia inviting comparison with Nero.

With

Matthew Nicholls Senior Tutor at St. John’s College, University of Oxford

Shushma Malik Assistant Professor of Classics and Onassis Classics Fellow at Newnham College at the University of Cambridge

And

Catherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Edward Champlin, ‘Tiberius the Wise’ (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 57.4, 2008)

Alison E. Cooley, ‘From the Augustan Principate to the invention of the Age of Augustus’ (Journal of Roman Studies 109, 2019)

Alison E. Cooley, The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: text, translation, and commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Eleanor Cowan, ‘Tiberius and Augustus in Tiberian Sources’ (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 58.4, 2009)

Cassius Dio (trans. C. T. Mallan), Roman History: Books 57 and 58: The Reign of Tiberius (Oxford University Press, 2020)

Rebecca Edwards, ‘Tacitus, Tiberius and Capri’ (Latomus, 70.4, 2011)

A. Gibson (ed.), The Julio-Claudian Succession: Reality and Perception of the Augustan Model (Brill, 2012), especially ‘Tiberius and the invention of succession’ by C. Vout

Josephus (trans. E. Mary Smallwood and G. Williamson), The Jewish War (Penguin Classics, 1981)

Barbara Levick, Tiberius the Politician (Routledge, 1999)

E. O’Gorman, Tacitus’ History of Political Effective Speech: Truth to Power (Bloomsbury, 2019)

Velleius Paterculus (trans. J. C. Yardley and Anthony A. Barrett), Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius (Hackett Publishing, 2011)

R. Seager, Tiberius (2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)

David Shotter, Tiberius Caesar (Routledge, 2005)

Suetonius (trans. Robert Graves), The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics, 2007)

Tacitus (trans. Michael Grant), The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin Classics, 2003)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.0	This is in our time from BBC Radio 4,
0:07.4	and this is one of more than a thousand episodes
0:10.0	you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this
0:14.5	edition you can find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoy the program.
0:18.6	Hello when Tiberius was born in 42 BC those little prospect of his ever becoming Emperor of Rome.
0:25.0	Firstly Rome was still a republic and they'd not yet be any emperor so that had to
0:30.7	change and secondly when his stepfather Augustus became Emperor,
0:34.7	there was no precedent for who should succeed him if anyone. It somehow felt a
0:39.3	Tiberius to develop this Roman imperial project and by some accounts he did this well,
0:44.3	while to others his reign was marked by cruelty and paranoia.
0:48.4	We need to discuss the Emperor Tiberius are Matthew Nichols,
0:52.0	senior tutor at St John's College University of Oxford.
0:55.0	Shushma Malik, Assistant Professor of Classics and Arnass's Classic Fellow at Newnham College at the University of Cambridge,
1:03.0	Catherine Steele, Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow.
1:07.0	Catherine Steele, how did time berest come to power?
1:10.0	What do we need to understand about his family? He comes from the heart of the Republican elite. So his
1:16.1	father, Tiberius Claudioos Niero, was a Republican aristocrat from a patrician family looking to have a political career
1:25.0	he's lined up in fact as a potential son in law for Cicero though that doesn't happen
1:29.2	Tiberius his mother livia also from a great Republican family.
1:34.0	Biologically, she's actually a cousin of her husband, but her father had been adopted by a man
1:38.6	called Livius Drusus, hence the name Drusus within the Imperial Family, who was himself a reforming politician
	...

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