Tiberius

Tiberius Claudius Nero was born in 42 BC and became the stepson of Augustus when his mother Livia married him. He was one of Rome's finest generals and campaigned for years in Germania and Illyricum, but Augustus adopted him as heir only after the deaths of his preferred successors. Tiberius succeeded in AD 14 at the age of fifty-five and took up power reluctantly, or so he made it appear.

Tacitus and Suetonius, both writing about a century later and both hostile, describe a reign that darkened over time. Treason trials multiplied, and after the death of his son Drusus in AD 23 the emperor relied more and more on Sejanus. Tacitus says Tiberius chose Capri for its isolation: a small island in a harborless sea, with few places to land. There, Tacitus writes, he had twelve villas; the remains of the largest, the Villa Jovis, still crown the island's eastern heights. Suetonius fills his account of the Capri years with lurid stories of cruelty and vice, which many modern historians treat as hostile gossip. Tiberius died at Misenum in March AD 37.