Tiberius Was History’s Most Perverted Ruler
Some notoriously depraved Roman emperors, such as Caligula, Nero, and Elagabalus, are known because of their ostentatiously bizarre behavior and public displays of sexual deviancy. The Roman emperor Tiberius (42 BC – 37 AD), was not as out of control insane as the aforementioned trio, but he matched and probably exceeded them in sexual perversion. Tiberius just preferred to be a pervert in the privacy and seclusion of his isolated palace, rather than put it all out on public display. He was the dirtiest old man to have ever ruled Rome, and just might be history’s most perverted ruler, ever.
Caligula, Nero, and Elagabalus became emperors as teenagers or immature young men, then went crazy with the sudden power. By contrast, Tiberius ascended the throne as a mature middle-aged man nearing old age – he was in his mid-50s when he became emperor in 14 AD. So he had no youthful desire for ostentatious displays to shock and attract attention. Such behavior would have run against his personality, anyhow: even as a young man, Tiberius was a withdrawn and taciturn introvert.
What Tiberius did instead was to build himself a huge pleasure palace, secluded in the island of Capri. There, he wallowed in all kinds of deviant sexual behavior, most notably extreme pedophilia with children of both sexes. Among other things, Tiberius had toddlers trained to dive underwater while he was in a pool to “nibble” at him as he swam – he called them his “minnows”.
Tiberius also had pleasure gardens stocked with teenaged and prepubescent boys and girls, dressed in outfits from Greco-Roman myths and legends, or running around naked. He had them frolic, display themselves for his pleasure, and engage in sex on command with each other – as he aged, Tiberius grew increasingly impotent, so he was often reduced to being a spectator in the perversions acted out for his pleasure.
The walls of Tiberius’ palaces and villas were covered with erotic or explicitly pornographic paintings and murals of all kinds of sexual activity, from the normal to the shockingly depraved. The artwork served as a menu, and when Tiberius wanted to cut to the chase, he would simply point to a particular painting to communicate what he wanted done.
Tiberius even had anal experts on the imperial payroll: “On retiring to Capri he devised a pleasance for his secret orgies: teams of wantons of both sexes, selected as experts in deviant intercourse and dubbed analysts, copulated before him in triple unions to excite his flagging passions.” To top it off, he had suckling babes suck on his penis: “Unweaned babies he would put to his organ as though to the breast, being by both nature and age rather fond of this form of satisfaction.”