tiberius Summary and Overview

(in full, Tiberius Claudius Nero), the second Roman emperor, successor of Augustus, who began to reign A.D. 14 and reigned until A.D. 37. He was the son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia, and hence a stepson of Augustus. He was born at Rome on the 18th of November, B.C. 45. He became emperor in his fifty-fifth year, after having distinguished himself as a commander in various wars, and having evinced talents of a high order as an orator and an administrator of civil affairs. He even gained the reputation of possessing the sterner virtues of the Roman character, and was regarded as entirely worthy of the imperial honors to which his birth and supposed personal merits at length opened the way. Yet, on being raised to the supreme power, he suddenly became, or showed himself to be a very different man. His subsequent life was one of inactivity, sloth and self-indulgence. He was despotic in his government, cruel and vindictive in his disposition. He died A.D. 37, at the age of 78, after a reign of twenty-three years. Our Saviour was put to death in the reign of Tiberius.

TIBERIUS CLAU'DIUS NERO (full title), Luke 3:1, was the step-son and successor of Augustus, Luke 2:1, and, though with some apparent virtues, was one of the most infamous tyrants that ever scourged the empire of Rome. All the events of Christ's manhood took place during this reign. He began well, but quickly "degenerated into a gloomy despot." Madness was probably the excuse for his cruelties. He began his reign a.d. 14, reigned during the eventful period of the succeeding twenty-three years, and was finally murdered by suffocation.

Tiberias Claudius Nero, Augustus' step-son and successor as emperor. Reigned A.D. 14 to 37. Son of Tiberias Claudius Nero and Livia. Born at Rome, Nov. 16, 45 B.C. Fifty-five years old at his accession, having already shown ability as a commander, an orator, and an administrator. Horace celebrates his and his brother Drasus' exploits (Odes, 4:4,14). Henceforth slothful, self-indulgent, cruel, and despotic. Died at 78 after a 23 years' reign. Tacitus (Annals 1 to 6) describes vividly his dissimulation and vindictiveness. In speaking of Nero he says: "in order to remove the rumour of his having set fire to Rome, Nero shifted the charge on others, and inflicted the most refined punishments on those whom the populace called Christians, and who were hated for their scandalous doings. The author of the name, Christ, in the reign of Tiberias was visited with capital punishment by the governor Pontius Pilate." In Luke 3:1 John the Baptist's (six months senior to our Lord) ministry is set down in the 15th year of Tiberias' "principate" (hegemonia). Augustus admitted Tiberias to share the empire two or three years before his own death, so that "the 15th year" is to be dated from the co-partnership at the end of A.U.C. 764. The 15th year will thus be the end of 779, and our Lord's birth 749 or 750, which agrees with Herod's death some time after Christ's birth. The Christian era fixed by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century places Christ's birth in the year 754.