Tiberius Was Even More Degenerate than Nero (And Should Have Been Arrested)
Notoriously debauched Roman emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Heliogabalus, are infamous for their public displays of deviancy. Emperor Tiberius (42 BC – 37 AD, reigned 14 – 37 AD), while not as out of control insane as the aforementioned trio, exceeded them in perversion. He just preferred to be a pervert in relative privacy and seclusion, rather than put it all out on public display. Rome’s other notoriously degenerate rulers, Caligula, Nero, and Heliogabalus, ascended the throne as teenagers or immature young men, and went crazy with the sudden power. By contrast, Tiberius came to the throne as a mature middle aged man – he was in his mid-fifties when he succeeded Augustus as emperor in 14 AD.
Given his age when he became emperor, Tiberius was not driven by youthful passions and the need to engage in ostentatious displays to shock and attract attention. Such behavior would have run against his personality, anyhow, since even as a young man, Tiberius was taciturn, withdrawn, and introverted. Instead, the new emperor built himself a vast pleasure palace compound, secluded in the island of Capri. There, he wallowed in all kinds of perversions of the kind that would have gotten him kicked off apps like Tinder. Most notably, Tiberius engaged in pedophilia. 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”.