Assess the Achievements and Impact of Tiberius as Princeps

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Assess the achievements and impact of Tiberius as princeps Suetonius states that ‘it is my belief that Augustus scale’ weighed Tiberius good qualities against the bad and decided that the good tipped the scale’. This reveals the nature of Tiberius’ succession as one of necessity. Tiberius had huge feats to live up to from Augustus’ rule; however he endeavored to continually improve the Roman Empire. His most significant achievements were based around his military reforms, foreign and civil policies, increasing involvement of the senate and his successful civil administration that had a lasting impact on Rome. Therefore, it can be stated that Tiberius, despite given power with reluctance, continued to build Rome to new a level of greatness. When Augustus died in 14AD ‘two pieces of news became known simultaneously: Augustus was dead, and Tiberius was in control’- Tacitus. Tacitus was highly critical of Tiberius, perhaps because his senatorial reforms left Tacitus with little power. Tiberius embraced his new power, as Tacitus refers, ‘waywardly’ but found refuge in the army, where he was most comfortable. Scullard claims that Tiberius ‘acted firmly within the sphere of his proconsular imperium’. Raaflab adds that ‘Tiberius has the extra bonus of loyalty with the army due to his long standing role as military commander.’ In doing so he endeavored to gain more popularity in the army, which Scullard describes as ‘the first and indispensable need for any successor’. He continued to stabilize it, where he enforced reforms such as lengthening the term of legionaries to 25 years and imposing stricter punishments, Suetonius states that ‘Tiberius imposed the severest discipline on his men: reviving obsolete methods of punishment or branding them the ignominy for misbehaviors’. This impacted the efficiently and stability of the army. In addition, he increased the power

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