14. Tiberius Took Pleasure from Seeing Others Suffering and was a Child Molester
Tiberius is considered to be one of the most dominant Roman generals and the one who conquered the lands of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and temporarily, parts of Germania. He was also the Roman emperor who laid the foundations for the northern frontier, while his 22-and-a-half-year reign is one of the longest in Roman history. What many people don’t know about him, however, is his extremely violent manic episodes and sex addiction. Pliny the Elder describes him as “the gloomiest of men,” while Tacitus portrays him as a man who clearly suffered from the burdens of his rule and was not shy in taking it out on others.
Last but not least, Suetonius recorded many stories about Tiberius, some of which spoke of his sexual perversity, including graphic depictions of child molestation and cruelty, as well as accounts of his paranoid episodes. Suetonius pinpointed Tiberius’s pleasure in seeing others in pain and described him as someone who did so many wicked deeds under the pretext of reforming public morals when in reality it was only to gratify his lust for seeing people suffer.