Tiberius the Politician

by Barbara Levick

Tiberius has always been one of the most enigmatic of the Roman emperors. At the same time, his career is uniquely important for the understanding of the Empire's development on the foundations laid by Augustus. Barbara Levick offers a comprehensive and engaging portrait of the life and times of Tiberius, including an exploration of his ancestry and his education, an analysis of his provincial and foreign policy and an examination of his debauched final years and his posthumous reputation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Ancient History, Roman, Roman History, Politics

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Barbara M. Levick is a British historian, specializing in ancient history. She was educated at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and, since 1959, has been a Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford (now emeritus). She is a prolific writer and occasional broadcaster on Roman history.

Levick is best known to the general public for her biographies of Roman emperors.

Reviews

[Windsor]

A very good account of a very odd emperor. Levick tells readers a very mixed story of a very confusing figure. There is no other way to tell Tiberius' story, and Levick tells Tiberius' tyranny and deeds very well.

[Veronika]

you were better than tacitus

[Brock Tarlton]

Dry, dry, and my reading was very rushed.

[Jennifer]

I'm not going to give this one a star rating because that wouldn't be fair, since what I was looking for and what the book's goals are were so very different. I wanted a more narrative-style introduction to this time in the Roman Empire and it's a meticulously-researched and detailed discussion of a specific topic in Tiberius's reign. You can hardly hold "dryness" against a book that's very specialized and focused!

That said, it wasn't half as dry as you'd expect such a treatment to be, and the authorial voice has enough personality that it wasn't at all a tedious read. As a very narrow-range history I think it's quite a good read, but as an actual "I'm going to sit down on the bus and leaf through this" book it's not really a page-turner.

[Alberto]

Extremely boring. Drones on and on about minor or irrelevant details. Assumes extensive knowledge of the events and personalities of the period. Even worse, the prose is terrible. There's one paragraph that starts on the third line of page 54 and doesn't end until halfway through page 56. Not sure who the target audience is, but I found it unreadable.

[Liv]

Excellent survey, especially of legal aspects of Tiberius' reign - just the right amount of depth. Sometimes skirts over certain events as if the reader is already familiar with the historical tradition surrounding them, but a brilliant study book.

[Birgitta Hoffmann]

Interesting biography focusing on his achievements rather than a chronological treatment, but the better for it.