XLII Moreover, having gained the licence of privacy, and being
as it were out of sight of the citizens, he at last gave free
rein at once to all the vices which he had for a long time ill
concealed; and of these I shall give a detailed account from the
beginning. Even at the outset of his military career his excessive
love of wine gave him the name Biberius, instead of Tiberius,
Caldius for Claudius, and Mero for Nero. Later, when emperor and
at the very time that he was busy correcting the public morals,
he spent a night and two whole days feasting and drinking with
Pomponius Flaccus and Lucius Piso, immediately afterward making
the one governor of the province of Syria and the other prefect
of the city, and even declaring in their commissions that they
were the most agreeable of friends, who could always be counted
on. He had a dinner given him by Cestius Gallus, a lustful and
prodigal old man, who had once been degraded by Augustus and whom
he had himself rebuked a few days earlier in the senate, making
the condition that Cestius should change or omit none of his usual
customs, and that nude girls should wait upon them at table. He
gave a very obscure candidate for the quaestorship preference
over men of the noblest families, because at the emperor's challenge
he had drained an amphora of wine at a banquet. He paid Asellius
Sabinus two hundred thousand sesterces for a dialogue, in which
he had introduced a contest of a mushroom, a fig-pecker anoyster
and a thrush. He established a new office, master of the imperial
pleasures, assigning it to Titus Caesonius Priscus, a Roman knight.
XLIII. Secessu vero Caprensi etiam sellaria excomitavit, sedem
arcanarum libidinum, in quam undique conquisiti puellarum et exoletorum
greges monstrosique concubitus repertores, quos spintrias appellabat,
triplici serie conexi, in vicem incestarent coram ipso, ut aspectu
deficientis libidines excitaret. Cubicula plurifariam disposita
tabellis ac sigillis lascivissimarum picturarum et figurarum adornavit
librisque Elephantidis instruxit, ne cui in opera edenda exemplar
imperatae schemae deesset. In silvis quoque ac nemoribus passim
Venerios locos commentus est prostantisque per antra et cavas
rupes ex utriusque sexus pube Paniscorum et Nympharum habitu,
quae palam iam et vulgo nomine insulae abutentes "Caprineum"
dictitabant.
[Synopsis, after Robert Graves' translation]: After retiring
to Capri, where he had a private pleasure palace built, many young
men and women trained in sexual practices were brought there for
his pleasure, and would have sex in groups in front of him. Some
rooms were furnished with pornography and sex manuals from Egypt
- which let the people there know what was expected of them.
Tiberius also created lechery nooks in the woods and had girls
and boys dressed as nymphs and Pans prostitute themselves in the
open. The place was known popularly as "goat-pri".
XLIV. Maiore adhuc ac turpiore infamia flagravit, vix ut referri
audirive, nedum credi fas sit, quasi pueros primae teneritudinis,
quos pisciculos vocabat iustitueret, ut natanti sibi inter femina
versarentur ac luderent lingua morsuque sensim adpetentes; atque
etiam quasi infantes firmiores, necdum tamen lacte depulsos, inguini
ceu papillae admoveret, pronior sane ad id genus libidinis et
natura et aetate. Quare Parrasi quoque tabulam, in qua Meleagro
Atalanta ore morigeratur, legatam sibi sub condicione, ut si argumento
offenderetur decies pro ea sestertium acciperet, non modo praetulit,
sed et in cubiculo dedicavit. Fertur etiam in sacrificando quondam
captus facie ministri acerram praeferentis nequisse abstinere,
quin paene vixdum re divina peracta ibidem statim seductum constupraret
simulque fratrem eius tibicinem; atque utrique mox, quod mutuo
flagitium exprobrarant, crura fregisse.
[Synopsis, after Robert Graves' translation]: Some of the things
he did are hard to believe. He had little boys trained as minnows
to chase him when he went swimming and to get between his legs
and nibble him. He also had babies not weaned from their mother
breast suck at his chest and groin. There was a painting left
to him, with the provision that if he did not like it he could
have 10,000 gold pieces, and Tiberius kept the picture. It showed
Atalanta sucking off Meleager. One in a frenzy, while sacrificing
he was attracted to the acolyte and could not wait to hurry the
acolyte and his brother out of the temple and assault them. When
they protested, he had their legs broken.
XLV. How grossly he was in the habit of abusing women even of
high birth is very clearly shown by the death of a certain Mallonia.
When she was brought to his bed and refused most vigorously to
submit to his lust, he turned her over to the informers, and even
when she was on trial he did not cease to call out and ask her
whether she was sorry"; so that finally she left the court
and went home, where she stabbed herself, openly upbraiding the
ugly old man for his obscenity. Hence a stigma put upon him at
the next plays in an Atellan farce was received with great applause
and became current, that " the old goat was licking the does."
Source.
From: Suetonius: TIBERIUS XLII-XLV [Loeb Translation, 1913]
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