is a very ancient synagogue by the lake, the lower story of which is said to have been unaffected by the earthquake. Outside the town are the plastered monuments ("whited sepulchres") of R. Akiba and Maimonides. Half an hour to the south are the famous hot baths mentioned by Pliny (H.N., v. 15 [71]). Josephus calls this place Emrnaus, which has suggested an identification with Hammoth-dor (Josh. xxi. 32) or Hammon (1 Chron. vi. 76 [61]), names which perhaps point to the existence of thermal springs.
Tiberias was founded by Herod Antipas apparently not before 26 A.D., [1] and so was quite a new place at the time of our Lord's ministry in Galilee. And, though it became the capital of Galilee, it was at first a purely Greek city, which accounts for its not appearing among the scenes of the Galilæan ministry. It joined in the war of liberty, but yielded without resistance to Vespasian, and was restored by him to its master Agrippa, on whose death in 100 it fell directly under Roman rule. The place came to be a great seat of Jews and Jewish learning: it was the residence of R. Judah, the editor of the Mishnah; and, though the schools of Palestine were ultimately overshadowed by those of Babylonia, the school of Tiberias was still famous in the time of Jerome. According to Epiphanius, the first Christian church was built by Constantine, and from this time we hear of bishops of Tiberias. The Arabs took Tiberias in 637; it was restored to Christendom by Tancred, but yielded to Saladin in 1187 after the battle of Hittin. It was again in Christian hands from 1240 to 1247. In the middle of the 18th century it was one of the fortresses of the renowned Sheikh Ẓáhir, who for many years defied the Turkish power.
TIBERIUS (42 B.C.-37 A.D.), emperor of Rome, whose full name was Tiberius Claudius Nero, was born on the Palatine Hill on 16th November 42 B.C. When he became a member of the imperial family, the court genealogists made him out to be one of the ancient patrician Claudii; but the pedigree is at some points difficult to trace. His father, who bore the same name, was an officer of Julius Cæsar, who afterwards proposed to confer honours on the assassins, then joined Mark Antony's brother in his mad attack on Octavian, took refuge with Mark Antony, and returned to Rome when the general amnesty was proclaimed in 39 B.C. Livia, the mother of Tiberius, was also of the Claudian family, out of which her father had passed by adoption into that of the Livii Drusi. Early in 38 Livia was amicably ceded to Octavian (the future Augustus), and three months after her new marriage Drusus, brother to Tiberius, was born. Livia had no children by Augustus, and therefore devoted all her remarkable gifts to the advancement of her sons. They were treated with high consideration by the emperor, yet Augustus held firmly to the hope that his throne might be filled on his death by one in whose veins ran the blood of the Octavii; and not till Tiberius was past forty did there appear any probability that he would ever rise to be emperor. He passed through the list of state offices in the usual princely fashion, beginning with the quæstorship at the age of eighteen, and attaining the consulate for the first time at twenty-nine. From the great capacity for civil business which he displayed as emperor it may be inferred that he applied himself with determination to learn the business of government.
But from 22 to 6 B.C. and again from 4 to 10 A.D. by far the greater part of Tiberius's life was spent in the camp. His first service was as legionary tribune in one of the desperate and arduous wars which led to peace in the Spanish peninsula through the decimation, or rather the extermination, of the rebellious tribes. In 20 B.C. Augustus sent Tiberius with an army to seat Tigranes of Armenia on the throne as a Roman vassal. As Tiberius approached the frontier of Armenia, he found its throne vacant through the assassination of the king, and Tigranes stepped into his place without a blow being struck. Tiberius crowned Tigranes king with his own hand. Then the Parthian monarch grew alarmed and surrendered "the spoils and the standards of three Roman armies." The senate ordered a thanksgiving such as was usually celebrated in honour of a great victory. The following year was passed by Tiberius as governor of Transalpine Gaul. In the next year (15) he was despatched to aid his brother Drusus in subjugating the Ræti and Vindelici, peoples dwelling in the mountainous region whence the Rhine, Rhone, and Danube take their rise. [2] Drusus attacked from the eastern side, while Tiberius operated from the upper waters of the Rhine, and by stern measures the mountaineers were reduced to a state of quietude, and could no longer cut communications between northern Italy and Gaul, nor prosecute their raids in both countries. In 12 B.C. Agrippa, the great general of Augustus, to whom he may be almost said to have owed his throne, and who was its chief support, died at the age of fifty-one, leaving Julia, the emperor's only child, a widow. Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa by an earlier marriage, was wife of Tiberius, and had borne him a son, Drusus, afterwards father of Germanicus. Livia with great difficulty prevailed upon Augustus to replace Agrippa by Tiberius, who was compelled to exchange Agrippina for Julia, to his bitter grief. During the year of mourning for Agrippa, which delayed his new marriage, Tiberius was occupied with a victorious campaign against the Pannonians, followed by successful expeditions in the three succeeding summers. For his victories in the Danube regions, the emperor conferred on him the distinctions which flowed from a military triumph in republican times (now first separated from the actual triumph), and he enjoyed the "ovation" or lesser form of triumphal entry into the capital. On the death of Drusus in the autumn of 9 B.C. Tiberius, whose reputation had hitherto been eclipsed by that of his brother, stepped into the position of first soldier of the empire. The army, if it did not warmly admire Tiberius, entertained a loyal confidence in a leader who, as Velleius tells us, always made the safety of his soldiers his first care. In the campaign of the year after Drusus s death Tiberius traversed all Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe, and met with slight opposition. But it would be too much to believe the statement of Velleius that "he reduced Germany almost to the position of a tributary province." He was rewarded with the full triumph, the military title of "imperator," and his second consulship, though the opposition of the powerful Sugambri had been only broken by an act of treachery, the guilt of which should perhaps be laid at the door of Augustus. In 7 B.C. there was another but insignificant campaign in Germany. Next year Augustus bestowed on his stepson the tribunician authority for five years. Tiberius was thus in the most formal manner associated with the emperor in the conduct of the government on the civil side ; but Tacitus (Ann., iii. 56) goes too far when he says that this promotion marked him out as the heir to the throne.
Tiberius now suddenly begged permission to retire to Rhodes and devote himself to study. He seems to have declined absolutely at the time to state his reasons for this course, but he obstinately adhered to it, in spite of the tears of Livia and the lamentations of Augustus to the senate that his son had betrayed him. If we may believe Suetonius, Tiberius determined to commit suicide by abstention from food, and Augustus only gave way when this design was all but accomplished. The departure from Italy was as secret as it could be made. Years afterwards, when Tiberius broke silence about his motives, he declared that he had retired in order to allow the young princes, Gaius and Lucius, sons of Julia, a free course. There was perhaps a portion of the truth wrapped up in this declaration. Like Agrippa, who retired to Mytilene
