Tiberius: One of the Great Sexual Deviants of History
It would be tough to compile a list such as this without touching on the deeds and misdeeds of one or two Romans. The list, of course, is long, and when you have a cast of characters that include the infamous Caligula, then there are plenty to chose from. Caligula, however, was a product of his environment, and although his father, Gaius Germanicus, exposed him to the military life, it was his grandfather, the Emperor Tiberius, who gifted him with his sense of sexual deviancy and entitlement.
Tiberius was the second emperor of Rome, successor to the great Caesar Augustus and predecessor to Caligula. His merits as an emperor have been frequently debated, and the jury is still out, but in his pleasure palace on the island of Capri, his antics were legendary. Roman historian Suetonius had this to say about a weekend at Tiberius’ villa:
‘On retiring to Capreae he made himself a private sporting-house, where sexual extravagances were practiced for his secret pleasure. Bevies of girls and young men, whom he had collected from all over the Empire as adepts in unusual practices, and known as spintriae, would copulate before him in groups of three, to excite his waning passions. A number of small rooms were furnished with the most indecent pictures and statuary obtainable, also certain erotic manuals from Elephantis in Egypt; the inmates of the establishment would know from these exactly what was expected of them.’
Even into his seventies, Tiberius had one overriding obsession, and that was sex. The Romans in general were extremely sexually liberated. There was very little that was off the menu at a Roman orgy, but even the freethinking citizens of Rome balked at the stories that filtered back from Capri. Bestiality, homosexuality, incest pedophilia, voyeurism and sadism were all in a day’s pleasure for Tiberius. The story is told that during a sacrificial ceremony he found himself attracted to two brothers, both acolytes, who he ordered into his bedroom. When they refused some particularly revolting request, their legs were broken.
A great many other such discerning prospects as this ended up broken at the bottom of the cliffs below Tiberius’ Villa, proving that rebuffing the Emperor’s lecherous advances could be deadly. In the matter of political Machiavellianism, well that is another story, and Tiberius was no less slippery, treacherous and cruel. The Emperor Tiberius was indeed a world class sexually deviant creep.