Tiberius (15 page)

English through the translation of War
ren Bradley Wells. As Dr Marafo
n is both a psychologist and a medical doctor he has concentrated his attention on the mind and health of Tiberius, writing, as he puts it, "a study of his resentment" rather than a biography of the emperor himself, and in these areas his informed deductions are of great value.

At the last it should be said, as was said at the beginning, that much of what we know of Roman times two thousand years ago rests on a choice between two authorities, as to which of them is better informed. We cannot even be certain, for example, of the historicity of such a famous incident as Mark Antony's funeral oration for Julius Caesar; some authorities record it, some who should, in all reason, have mentioned it conspicuously do not. Tacitus, Suetonius, and the other ancients whose works have survived at all have come down to us as copies of copies of copies—sometimes as copies restored from palimpsests, from manuscripts which have been erased and overwritten—usually copied by slaves, monks, or hired scribes whose interest in the subject
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often slight and whose education was sometimes negligible. Even what we have is incomplete. There is a great gap in Tacitus at one of the most interesting periods in Tiberius' life, which can only in part be restored by reference to other sources.

Yet it is not only Tiberius' life of which this can be said. We know about as much concerning his appearance, habits, and acts as we can know of anyone who has been dead for nearly two thousand years. Probably we know a little more about Julius Caesar. But probably we know somewhat less of Jesus.

The author does not wish to excuse gross errors of fact by this disclaimer, only to assure the reader that he has tried to avoid them. Unfortunately, all precedent suggests that some may be found. But it has been the author's intention, which he hopes to have fulfilled to the satisfaction of the reader, that in this book more than in any other the living figure of Tiberius may be seen.

Ernst Mason

the end