The High Roman Empire is characterized by a notable intensification of the cultural Hellenization that Rome had already been experiencing since the Republican era. As a result, several emperors showed interest in Greek tradition and even associated themselves with certain figures, such as Caligula with Castor and Pollux, Nero with Apollo citharoedus or Hadrian with Dionysus. In this work, we will focus on the relationship of Emperor Tiberius with Odysseus, evident both in literary sources and archaeological evidence.
Archaeological Sources
The clearest proof of Tiberius' fixation with Odysseus are the Sperlonga sculptures. In this well-known cave, Tiberius had four groups featuring Odysseus installed: one depicting the monster Scylla, another the Cyclops Polyphemus, the theft of the Palladium, and Odysseus carrying the body of Achilles (this last interpretation is controversial). Two of them represent his adventures during the Iliad, while others depict monsters he faced in the Odyssey. The position of the cave contributed to the theme: 30 km out at sea, one could see the Mt. Circeo, an island (Aeaea) later converted into a cape where Odysseus met the sorceress Circe and according to the Telegony, was taken after his death.
Throughout Italy, there were indeed various areas identified as settings of the Odyssey: Polyphemus' cave was under Mount Etna, Scylla inhabited the area around Messina (that is, between Sicily and the Italian peninsula) and the Sirens in the vicinity of Capri (Stewart, 1977, p. 87). Misenum and Baiae were named after two companions of Odysseus, Misenus and Baio, and here Tiberius had a villa with a nymphaeum featuring a statue of Odysseus offering wine (the water from the spring) to Polyphemus. The nymphaeum, attributed by some to Claudius, was surrounded by statues of members of the imperial family, commemorating the legendary genealogy of the Claudians: the gens linked its origin with Telegonus, founder of Tusculum and son of Circe and Odysseus (Avilia and Caputo, 2012).
Also Capri, as we mentioned, had a connection to Odysseus because it was where he encountered the Sirens, so much so that there was a temple dedicated to them just 15 kilometers from the island. Here stood the villa Iovis in which Tiberius lived, an authentic palace whose layout and decorations had a fully Hellenistic style (Tamargo, 2023, pp. 77-79). From its dining room, a monumental hemicycle with views of the sea from the highest promontory on which the villa stood, one could see other sites associated with Odysseus and, just 5 kilometers away, the temple of Athena erected by King Ulysses himself (Champlin, 2013, p. 225).
Champlin even suggests that villa Iovis may be a misreading of Suetonius and actually was called villa Inonis (Champlin, 2013, pp. 225-229). Ino, deified as Leucothea and identified in Rome with Mater Matuta (Grimal, 1981, p. 318), was a sea goddess who saved Odysseus from a storm sent by Poseidon. This name would reinforce the villa's connection to places associated with Odysseus, but it is a speculative correction with little evidence to support it.
Literary Sources
Suetonius (Tib. 70) provides an important testimony by noting that Tiberius was obsessed with mythology to the point of ridicule, and he would test his grammarians with extremely obscure questions about this field. Interestingly, all three examples of these questions given by Suetonius are related in some way to Odysseus (Champlin, 2013, p. 232).
On the other hand, Plutarch (Mor. 419 B-E) tells us that Tiberius defended the theory that Pan was the son of Hermes and Penelope, Odysseus' wife, and Euphorion, one of Tiberius' favorite authors, considered Odysseus himself to be Pan's father. It is worth noting that Pan has several representations in the villa Iovis (Champlin, 2018). Also from Tiberius' intellectual circle came the Silloi of Apollonides of Nicea, dedicated to the emperor and consisting of parodies of some Homeric passages, such as the inventory of ships or the journey to Hades. Therefore, it is clear that Odysseus was fully present among the intellectuals serving Tiberius.
The "comparatio Odyssei" of Tiberius
Champlin (2013, pp. 237-242) and Stewart (1977, pp. 87-88) agree in recognizing parallels between Tiberius and Odysseus both in their qualities and in their biography. Among the former, Stewart lists shared traits: intelligent men, excessively cautious, easily irascible, proverbially harsh, and very proud of their achievements, especially military.
As for biographical parallels, both spent seven years exiled on an island (Rhodes in Tiberius' case, Calypso's island for Odysseus), until they were called back by Augustus and Zeus respectively. Champlin (2013, pp. 238-239) compares Julia with Penelope over the murder of the "suitors," although it was her father Augustus' wrath rather than Tiberius' that unleashed against them. We could add a relationship between Penelope and Vipsania, his ex-wife, as the love from which Tiberius had to separate for political obligations and whom he missed greatly.
A final parallel: returning home. Odysseus must leave Ithaca to attend to his duty as king in the Trojan War, and upon its conclusion, his great desire is to return home. Similarly, Tiberius must leave Rhodes to fulfill his imperial duties in Rome, after which he does not return to the island but moves to Capri, where he lives surrounded by Greeks (Champlin, 2003, pp. 240-241). In a sense, "he returns home."
Conclusions
Therefore: can we speak of an identification of Tiberius with Odysseus? Not in public and propagandistic terms like Augustus with Aeneas (Zanker, 2018, pp. 239-249), but perhaps on a private and personal level. Archaeological and literary sources demonstrate the emperor's special fondness for Odysseus, which could be hypothetically related to parallels between the hero's history and his own life.
J. E. Lendon (2022, p. xii) has compared Tiberius' fixation with Odysseus to Alexander the Great's with Achilles, as two rulers who admired and tried to "emulate" (aemulatio) a Homeric hero, as well as other historical figures that "imitated" (imitatio) Alexander. However, given the type of relationship we have observed, these terms do not seem appropriate. Rather, using Elena Torregaray's categories, we should speak of comparatio:
"Thus, imitatio would imply a conscious desire on the part of the imitator to plagiarize Alexander's manners and actions; aemulatio, in turn, would consist of the desire to achieve or even surpass Alexander's works without necessarily imitating him; and finally, comparatio, would respond to third parties' actions, primarily classical authors —and, in our opinion, also modern historiography— who establish comparisons between Alexander and other historical figures" (Torregaray, 2003, p. 140).
Bibliography
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Champlin, E. (2003). Agamemnon at Rome. Roman dynasts and Greek heroes. In D. Braund & C. Gill (Eds.), Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome. University of Exeter Press.
Champlin, E. (2013). The Odyssey of Tiberius Caesar. Classica et mediaevalia, 64, 199-246.
Champlin, E. (2018). Tiberius & Pan. Ahoros, 157-165.
Grimal, P. (1981). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology. Paidós.
Lendon, J. E. (2022). That tyrant, persuasion: How rhetoric shaped the Roman world. Princeton Univ. Press.
Stewart, A. F. (1977). To entertain an Emperor: Sperlonga, Laokoon and Tiberius at the dinner-table. The Journal of Roman Studies, 67, 76-90.
Tamargo, L. (2023). Imperial palaces in Rome and the expression of power: from Augustus to Diocletian. Alejandría, 2, 73-89.
Torregaray, E. (2003). The influence of the Alexander model in the Scipionic tradition. Gerión, 21(1), 137-166.
Zanker, P. (2018). Augustus and the power of images. Alianza.
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