18. A Slimy Emperor
Being a presentable youth in the presence of Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC – 37 AD) was not good. Not as well-known as notoriously debauched emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Heliogabalus, Tiberius was a slimy figure who matched and likely exceeded them in perversion. Unlike them, he just preferred to be a pervert in privacy and seclusion. Tiberius built himself a vast pleasure palace, the Villa Jovis (“Jupiter’s Villa”) secluded on the island of Capri. There, he wallowed in all kinds of perversions, but particularly pedophilia, with children of both sexes. Among other things, he had toddlers trained to dive under water while he was in a pool to “nibble” at him as he swam – he called them his “minnows”. He also had pleasure gardens stocked with teenaged and prepubescent boys and girls.
The kids were dressed in outfits from Greco-Roman myths and legends, or ran around naked. Tiberius had them frolic about, display themselves for his pleasure, and engage in sex on command with each other. As he aged, he grew increasingly impotent, and so was often reduced to watching perversions acted out for his pleasure. He even had anal experts on the imperial payroll. As ancient Roman historian Suetonius put it: “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 analists, copulated before him in triple unions to excite his flagging passions.” To top it off, he got blowjobs from babies: “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.”