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Tiberius
The Private Life of a Roman Emperor
Two thousand years ago, a new emperor came to the throne of Rome. His name was Tiberius Claudius Nero, and the riddle of his character has shocked and puzzled the world ever since.
He used the public funds to gratify his taste for debauchery and vice, but refused ot give gladiatorial contests because he was to stingy to pay for the show.
He delighted in cruel punishments and invented ingenious new forms of torture - yet his reign was one of prosperity and peace.
He loved to talk with poets and philosophers - but his palace was staffed with spintriae, professional entertainers trained to perform every conceivable act of sexual perversion before an audience.
Calculating and licentious, intelligent and cruel, Tiberius spent the last fourteen years of his life surrounded by hired bodyguards in his pleasure palace on Capri - one of the most hated men the world has ever known. Yet he enriched the Roman treasury by more than two billion sesterces, and the historian Mommsen has called him "the ablest of all the sovereigns the Empire ever had."
(back cover text)
Two thousand years ago, a new emperor came to the throne of Rome. His name was Tiberius Claudius Nero, and the riddle of his character has shocked and puzzled the world ever since.
He used the public funds to gratify his taste for debauchery and vice, but refused ot give gladiatorial contests because he was to stingy to pay for the show.
He delighted in cruel punishments and invented ingenious new forms of torture - yet his reign was one of prosperity and peace.
He loved to talk with poets and philosophers - but his palace was staffed with spintriae, professional entertainers trained to perform every conceivable act of sexual perversion before an audience.
Calculating and licentious, intelligent and cruel, Tiberius spent the last fourteen years of his life surrounded by hired bodyguards in his pleasure palace on Capri - one of the most hated men the world has ever known. Yet he enriched the Roman treasury by more than two billion sesterces, and the historian Mommsen has called him "the ablest of all the sovereigns the Empire ever had."
(back cover text)
143 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 19, 2021
كتاب عن سيرة حياة الامبراطور تيبريوس كلوديوس نيرو
الكتاب يروى باختصار شديد حياة الامبراطور واختفاء المظاهر الاخيرة للجمهورية والظهور العلنى لحكم الجيش او الحرس البريتورى الذى كان هو الحاكم الحقيقى للدولة
الكتاب يروى باختصار شديد حياة الامبراطور واختفاء المظاهر الاخيرة للجمهورية والظهور العلنى لحكم الجيش او الحرس البريتورى الذى كان هو الحاكم الحقيقى للدولة
June 17, 2019
سرد رائع، مع ملاحظة ان العادات المذكورة بالكتاب كانت شائعة بين الرومان في ذلك الوقت وليست مقصورة فقط على حقبة تيبيريوس.
لكن لا اعتقد ان جميع التفاصيل بالكتاب حقيقية، بعضها يبدو درامي اكثر من اللازم!
لكن لا اعتقد ان جميع التفاصيل بالكتاب حقيقية، بعضها يبدو درامي اكثر من اللازم!
January 30, 2009
Alas, sometimes these pulp quickies disappoint.
The red ink was so persuasive...'The life of tiberius claudius nero, pervert, murderer, tyrant - and absolute ruler of 100,000,000 lives'
he ruled like a miser but lived in vice, the cover intoned....women, boys even infants served his unnatural lust, it promised... his persecution of the jews resulted in the death of christ, it trumpeted... he was hated by nearly every human being alive!!!!!!!!!! (whew)
I guess after all that it was bound to fail, what unfolds is a rote and feeble precis of the already well known facts of Tiberius' life relayed in a style as plodding and unimaginative as Tiberius himself. It seems that Mason (actually sci-fi writer Fredrick Pohl, clearly needing private school tuition for his kids or supporting some drug habit or another) didn't get the memo and actually took this writing assignment to be a serious exercise in amateur academia. No one is the winner. The serious books about Tiberius had already been written and Pohl, the not-a-tiberius-expert, isn't the guy to bring any fresh insight or context that might otherwise justify the rehash. We were promised lurid details of an all-powerful madman on a cruel sexual rampage and instead we get sketches of empire.
In the last few chapters, as Tiberius retreats into his pleasure/terrordrome on Capri, it cant help but heat up a little but even then Pohl seems content to observe the action with a telescope from the mainland. His heart clearly isn't in it. You get the impression that he wants to recuperate Tiberius' reputation, not wallow in it. As the prophet says 'what a maroon'.
Where are the sounds, the smells, the unsettling sensations? Not here.
The red ink was so persuasive...'The life of tiberius claudius nero, pervert, murderer, tyrant - and absolute ruler of 100,000,000 lives'
he ruled like a miser but lived in vice, the cover intoned....women, boys even infants served his unnatural lust, it promised... his persecution of the jews resulted in the death of christ, it trumpeted... he was hated by nearly every human being alive!!!!!!!!!! (whew)
I guess after all that it was bound to fail, what unfolds is a rote and feeble precis of the already well known facts of Tiberius' life relayed in a style as plodding and unimaginative as Tiberius himself. It seems that Mason (actually sci-fi writer Fredrick Pohl, clearly needing private school tuition for his kids or supporting some drug habit or another) didn't get the memo and actually took this writing assignment to be a serious exercise in amateur academia. No one is the winner. The serious books about Tiberius had already been written and Pohl, the not-a-tiberius-expert, isn't the guy to bring any fresh insight or context that might otherwise justify the rehash. We were promised lurid details of an all-powerful madman on a cruel sexual rampage and instead we get sketches of empire.
In the last few chapters, as Tiberius retreats into his pleasure/terrordrome on Capri, it cant help but heat up a little but even then Pohl seems content to observe the action with a telescope from the mainland. His heart clearly isn't in it. You get the impression that he wants to recuperate Tiberius' reputation, not wallow in it. As the prophet says 'what a maroon'.
Where are the sounds, the smells, the unsettling sensations? Not here.
July 10, 2010
This is the most original story among versions of the private life story of Tiberius Claudius Nero, an emperor in the era where the Jesus Christ once live. His greedy, his private sexual life, and the riddle of his character had shocked and puzzled the world ever since.
May 10, 2016
سرد جيد لمرحلة مجهولة لنا من تاريخ امبراطورية اعتبرها انا اهم امراطورية فى التاريخ ...كم ان من مميزات الكتاب الطريقة السهلة والمتسلسه لعرض الوقائع ..لايمكن ان نعتبر هذا الكتاب مرجع ولكنه ضرورى لمن يحتاج ان يعرف عن نللك المرحلة
February 28, 2021
قرأت كثير عن الملوك السفاحين، لكن لم أقرأ عن سفاح مثل تيبيريوس، بالرغم من ذكائه في الحكم واستقرار ورخاء الإمبراطورية الرومانية في عهده، إلا أنه كان شخصية دموية حفرت اسمها في التاريخ في قائمة أشرس الملوك.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews