In recent years, scholarship has continued to broaden our view of Tiberius and his reign, supplementing the familiar historical narrative of his political and personal vicissitudes with a variety of additional, often wonderfully surprising perspectives, ranging from the emperor's own intellectual interests and folkloric reputation to broader vistas of contemporary literary and material culture, and much else besides. In this context, Rebecca Edwards' new book on the relationship of Tiberius and his era to Augustus might initially seem to be a more traditional contribution, dedicated to covering well-travelled scholarly ground. Such appearances would be deceiving. Although Edwards' book does cover familiar territory, Augustus' reign and legacy, she draws on a vast and diverse range of evidence to help produce a fresh and compelling image of the historical Tiberius and his reign, and thereby a stronger sense of how Augustus' achievements formed a successful basis for the rule of Tiberius and the Julio-Claudian dynasty more broadly. Edwards' Tiberius is a sincere and largely sensible, if fallible, ruler who achieves noteworthy dynastic and political success - and some difficulties - through his efforts to perpetuate the political order founded by Augustus.
While both Roman authors and their scholarly counterparts supply ample evidence for Tiberius' deference to his adoptive father's precedent, the prevailing image of Tiberius in modern and ancient, post-Tiberian, discourse is often of a negative departure from Augustus' achievements. Edwards is not concerned to deny (all of) these differences, but to reinterpret many of them as byproducts of the process of institutionalizing the Principate that Tiberius undertakes. Edwards draws on Max Weber's theory of leadership, which holds that charismatic rulership, of the sort that Augustus exercised, survives the irregular circumstances of its rise by becoming routinized into a less personal and charismatic and a more rational, legal and institutionalized form. As the ruler who concluded the institutionalization of Augustus' charismatic authority, Tiberius' adherence to the system and legacy of Augustus thus paradoxically led him to rule in different ways from Augustus. In consequence, while Tiberius was not a charismatic leader like his stepfather, the differences between the two emperors and their reigns are not simply a matter of diverging personalities but are also a function of Tiberius' routinizing the charismatic authority of Augustus into more durable forms. This process, in turn, committed Tiberius to maintain the authority of Augustus and provided added impetus for Tiberius to temper his own self-presentation, lest it undermine the charismatic source of his own authority. Tiberius' supremacy thus depended both on promoting an exalted image of Augustus that threatened to diminish his own achievements and on preserving Augustan precedents that sometimes led to undesirable political outcomes, producing unflattering comparisons with political life under his predecessor.
Framed by an introduction and conclusion, six main chapters organized by theme track the origins and impact of this process of 'routinizing charisma' in a range of contexts.
First, the Introduction presents the argument and surveys how Max Weber's thinking on charismatic leadership has been applied to the study of Roman history. In Chapter 1, Edwards continues the survey, explains Weber's concepts and applies them to Augustus and Tiberius. Augustus fits Weber's image of a charismatic leader. Tiberius does not attempt to imitate his predecessor's magnetic public profile. Instead, he promotes the image of the now-deified Augustus as protector of the domus Augusta and the Roman state and presents his own leadership as following Augustus' example. This reconstruction of Tiberius' objectives helps explain his ambiguous behaviour at his accession in 14 CE. Tiberius' modest and diffident approach to taking power evokes Augustus' own recusatio imperii in 27 BCE and attempts to convey the idea that "his principate should merely be seen as a continuation of that of Augustus" (30).
Chapter 2 tracks how the imperial cult during Tiberius' reign helps routinize Divine Augustus' charisma, supporting the idea that the charismatic founder continues to watch over Tiberius, the state, and the domus Augusta. The importance of promoting Divine Augustus helps explain Tiberius' opposition to receiving worship, as such extraordinary honours for himself would make Augustus' charisma less potent as a source of authority for himself. In Chapter 3, the focus is on Tiberius' adherence to Augustus' precedent in matters of public policy, such as senatorial matters and foreign affairs. Such deference towards Augustus' actions helps preserve their aura of authority. Tiberius does not always follow Augustus' example, though this is sometimes necessary as part of his broader goal of preserving the dynastic and political order that Augustus established.
Chapters 4 and 5 offer surveys of how Augustus, Tiberius and the domus Augusta are portrayed in the Tiberian material (coins, inscriptions, sculpture, objets d'art) and literary record (Ovid, Germanicus, Manilius, Strabo, Velleius, Valerius Maximus, Phaedrus, Seneca the Elder). As Edwards offers nuanced readings of individual objects and authors, these chapters illustrate the prevalence of the image of the charismatic Divine Augustus' continued protection of the peaceful state, the harmonious imperial house and his emphatically mortal successor. This image was not simply a feature of high-political or public religious discourse but was also present in Tiberian material and literary culture more broadly.
In Chapter 6, Edwards follows the development of maiestas-trials and dynastic conflict during Tiberius' reign. The importance of Augustus' authority for the supremacy of Tiberius and the imperial house commits Tiberius to protect it against perceived attacks. This incentivizes maiestas-prosecutions in the Senate as a means to curry favour with Tiberius or as a pretext to pursue personal vendettas. Tiberius' commitment to follow Augustan precedent by selecting a member of the imperial household - one related to Augustus - as his successor makes Augustus' charisma a pivotal dynamic in Tiberius' succession crisis. A short Conclusion notes the continued importance of relation to Augustus and his household for the rest of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and casts the routinization of Augustus' charisma as a first and necessary step toward a non-Julio-Claudian emperor occupying the throne.
Edwards' book offers compelling insight into how Augustus' reign helped found a dynasty and how his first successor could both perpetuate his legacy and yet rule in such a distinct way. Rather than getting sidetracked with the character-evaluation that dominates our ancient sources for Tiberius' reign, Edwards persuasively shows that Tiberius was often successful in achieving some of his largest goals. Much of Tiberius' behaviour that has seemed confusing or problematic makes better sense when viewed as part of his broader objective of institutionalizing a new political order. Through this contribution, Edwards advances our sense of a Tiberian age that is not chiefly a projection of later literary sources. This achieved, she offers further material for scholars of those later authors to draw on, to better illuminate their possible influences and objectives.
Rebecca Edwards: Tiberius and the Charisma of Augustus. The Principate Enshrined, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2025, X + 241 S., ISBN 978-1-009-47667-6, GBP 90,00
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