Cruelty

Question 1

What does Suetonius say about his grimness

Answer 1

“some aspects of his criminal obscenity are almost too vile to discuss, much less believe”

Question 2

little boys

Answer 2

trained little boys to swim having him and nibble and lick between his legs

Question 3

babies

Answer 3

Babies not yet weaned from their mothers breast suck at his groin instead

Question 4

what had he become according to Suetonius

Answer 4

“Such a filthy old man he had become!”

Question 5

his horrific rape story

Answer 5

while sacrificing he took an erotic fancy to the attendant carrying the incense casket, could hardly wait before the ceremony was over before raping him and his brother the pipe player.
When they protested at his crime he had their legs broken

Question 6

women

Answer 6

• used to play nasty tricks on women
  Summoned Mallonia to his bed, she showed such repugnance that he set informers on her tracks. During her trial he repeatedly shouted “are you sorry?” She committed suicide

Question 7

positioning of cruelty

Answer 7

his sexual perversions
cruelty to family
uncaring to his sons
cruelty to Agrippina
Cruelty to her sons
Cruelty to Senate
section that this had been apparent in his boyhood and earlier on in his reign (now seems believable)
people could be executed for all these reasons
his lust for seeing people suffer
soon he broke out in every sort of cruelty
no day passed without an execution
every crime became a capitol one
50-61

Question 8

Senators

Answer 8

Tiberius had asked the senate to chose 20 of their most prominent members. Of these barely two or three survived. All the rest he killed, one way or another

Question 9

He got angry that someone new things about his studies

Answer 9

At dinner he used to pose questions arising from his daily study.
A grammaticus had been finding out what books he was reading from the imperial servant, he came prepared with all the answers. Hearing of this Tinerius dismissed him from his company and later forced him to commit suicide.

Question 10

his cruelty had been perceptible in his earlier behaviour

Answer 10

Signs of his dour and savage character could be distinguished even in boyhood. His rhetorician teacher “mud, kneeded with blood”

Question 11

what set a precedent for far fetched accusations

Answer 11

a man was accused of decapitating an image of Augustus with a plan to substitute another head.
A conflict of evidence so Tiberius had the witnesses examined under torture. The offender sentenced to death
(set a precedent for far fetched accusations)

Question 12

what could people be executed for

Answer 12

people could be executed for beating a slave
For changing their clothes in front of a statue of Augustus
For carrying a coin bearing Augustus’s image into a brothel
For criticising anything Augustus had ever said or done
A man was executed for letting an honour be voted him by his town council on the same day honours had once been voted Augustus.

Question 13

why did he really reform public morals

Answer 13

Pretext of reforming public morals, reality to gratify his lust for seeing people suffer

Question 14

satires

Answer 14

Many satires were written about the evils of the days, gloomy fears about the future.
Tiberius dismissed them as the work of bilious malcontents who were impatient with his reforms
(doesn’t listen to the people

Question 15

When he had just arrived in Caprae

Answer 15

A few days after he came to Capreae a fisherman intruded on his solitude presenting him with an enormous fish. Tiberius was so terrified that he had managed to limb the cliff he ordered his guards to rub the fisherman’s face with it. Skinning it raw, he shouted that he was glad he didn’t bring the crab, which Tiberius had it sent for and used in the same way.

Question 16

Other than the fisherman story, what other ridiculous things did he have people punished for

Answer 16

a praetorian guard once stole a peacock from his garden and was sentenced to death.
Tiberius litter was held up by a bramble, the centurion whose task it had been to choose the right path flogged till he nearly died.

Question 17

his cruelty after the death of sejanus

Answer 17

Sejanus out of the way his savage rise increased. Sejanus had not, therefore, been inciting him to commit them, merely providing the opportunity.

Question 18

Why did Tiberius kill Sejanus

Answer 18

• in Tiberius’ autobiography, he asserted Sejanus had been killed for persecuting Nero and Drusus
  Nero died when Sejanus was already suspicious and Drusus when he had fallen from power.

Question 19

What does Suetonius say about his barbarities

Answer 19

A detailed list of his barbarities would take a long time to compile so I will SKETCH out the chief categories

Question 20

executions

Answer 20

no day (however holy) passed without an execution, even the beginning of the new year

Question 21

accusations

Answer 21

Many men accused with their children, some by their children, their relatives forbidden to go into mourning

Question 22

informers

Answer 22

An informers word was always believed

Informers and sometimes witnesses were voted special rewards

Question 23

treatment of crimes

Answer 23

Every crime became a capitol one, even the utterance of a few careless words.

Question 24

a poet and a historian

Answer 24

Poet who wrote a tragedy presenting Agamemnon in bad light and a historian who had called Brutus and Cassisus “the last of the Romans” —> bothe executed, their works destroyed though one had been publicly read before Augustus and accorded general praise.

Question 25

if they tried to escape trial by death

Answer 25

Some accused to avoid the humiliation of a trial severed an artery. Tiberius’ men bandaged up their wounds and hurried them half dead to prison
Some drank poison in full we view of the senate

Question 26

bodies of the executed

Answer 26

The bodies of all executed people were flung on the a Gemonian Stairs and dragged to the Tiber with hooks, as many as 20 a day, including women and children.

Question 27

virgins

Answer 27

Tradition forbade the arrange ling of virgins, so little girls were first violated. (Suetonius probably generalising from the death of Sejanus’ young daughter in AD 31

Question 28

his belief in the sentence of death

Answer 28

Upset to punish with life those who wished to die, considered death a comparatively light affliction.
A prisoner begged to die “no we are not yet friends again”

Question 29

easily influenced

Answer 29

A man who attended the banquet recorded in his memoirs that a loud mouthed dwarf asked why Paconius was still alive after being charged with maiestas a few days later Tiberius asked the senate to make a quick decision about Paconius’ execution.

Question 30

After he found out about Drusus’ death

Answer 30

Redoubled his cruelties

Question 31

a witness of the Drusus trial

Answer 31

Mistook a man, arrived from his own friendly invitation, for a witness, out him to torture. Executed him to avoid publicising the scandal.

Question 32

his torture methods

Answer 32

(embedded in the narrative)
“They still show the place where” he Used to watch his victims being thrown into the sea after long and exquisite tortures. Marines below sacked them till they were completely dead.
Trick the men into drinking huge draughts of wine and tying a cord tightly round their genitals, cutting into the flesh and prevented them from urinating.

Question 33

His cruelties would have been more if

Answer 33

Thrasyllus convinced him that he still had many years of life in hand (so less people died)