Statue of Tiberius
The Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC-37 AD) is described by the sources as a man cruel, miserly, grumpy and prone to vice, but not only.
Suetonius says that with advancing age, man's pre-existing and unhealthy sexual desire for of boys and girls which, again according to what the historian narrated, forced to consume relationships in front of him to get excited.
A perversion that falls within the scope of pedophilia, although almost certainly in the case of Tiberius there was much more, namely obsessive disorders, disinhibition and paranoia .
But Tiberius was also mad, and therefore the pedophile instinct would have been part of the complicated psychic picture of him, or was he perfectly aware of the harm he did, including that on the little ones?
In reality, it seems that the thread of madness united most of the Roman emperors, although some scholars have rejected the hypothesis that this also applied to Tiberius, such as Gregorio Maranon , who dedicated a book to the analysis of the character of this twisted figure, according to which the extreme lucidity and almost scientific nature of certain wicked and terrible actions strongly desired and carried out by him, would testify to the perfect ability to understand and want to this controversial emperor.
This, however, while recognizing the character traits and delusions typical of a subject who is not entirely sane and, in some ways, unbalanced.