Tiberius quotes from I, Claudius

Tiberius

[about Livia] They say a snake bit her once... and died.

Tiberius

[to Livia, concerning Claudius] That grandson of yours could wreck the empire just by strolling through it.

Tiberius

[about Augustus] Well don't bother on my account, for Gods know I've done my best. He's never liked me, never. Thirty years I've run his errands for him; I've fought on his bloody frontiers, collected his taxes. He never once put his hand on my arm and said "Thank you, what would I have done without you?" Now he sends me off to Illyricum and he doesn't even plan a farewell dinner; not even a goodbye, just "Get on your horse and ride." Well, damn him! I retired before once and I can do it again! Let his precious grandson run his empire for him. I'm sick to death of it.

Tiberius

[to Livia] I tell you what I'm going to do. It's your letter: you stick to it. And if it's read in the House, I'll deny all knowledge of it and excuse you on the grounds of mental incompetence brought on by extreme old age!

Tiberius

You and I will draw up a list during dinner. A long list. The city will be purged! As surely as if she had gorged herself on figs for a year! I will open Rome's bowels! The streets will run like a sewer!

Tiberius

Mother, I'm a happily married man. Julia doesn't interest me. She wouldn't interest me if you hung her naked from the ceiling above my bed.

Livia

She might even do that if I asked her!

Tiberius

Aren't you forgetting something? She's still married to Marcellus, and Marcellus is not dead yet.

Livia

When I start to forget things, you may light my funeral pyre and put me on it, dead or alive.

Tiberius

Anyway, where does all this get us? There's not only Marcellus, there's Agrippa too. And Augustus prefers both of them to me.

[screams off stage] No! No!

Tiberius

Ye gods, what's that?

Livia

It sounds as though there is now only Agrippa.

A man should keep himself clean, not have slaves do it.

Tiberius

And how's he supposed to scrape his own back?

He gets his brother to do it.

Tiberius

If he hasn't got a brother?

He gets his son.

Tiberius

If he hasn't got a son?

Gets his friend.

Tiberius

And if he hasn't got a friend?

Then he should go and hang himself.

Tiberius

I've tried it. Better to have a slave scrape your back.

Tiberius

Let me go, you fat drunken cow!

Fat? Fat? If I'm fat, I'm fat where a woman should be fat, not skinny like a boy!

[about Lucius Agrippa] And your other stepson has been given command of the armies in Spain.

Tiberius

Lucius? He couldn't fight his way out of a harem!

Tiberius

Has it ever occurred to you, mother, that it's you they hate and not me?

Livia

There is nothing in this world that occurs to you that does not occur to me first. That is the affliction I live with.

Tiberius

My dear - you look like a Greek tragedy.

And you look like a Roman farce.

Tiberius

That tongue of yours has cost you dear and will cost you dearer.

You pitiful worm-eaten old ruin, it's not my tongue that's cost me dear, but the love that people have for me and my family.

Tiberius

[about Macro] Do you know him personally?

Caligula

No, but I've slept with his wife several times.

Tiberius

And is deception with the wife regarded these days as a sound introduction to the husband?!

Tiberius

I shall make you my successor, Gaius Caligula! I’ve decided. You shall stay here with me. Rome deserves you. I will nurse you like a viper in her bosom.

Caligula

Is that a joke, uncle?

Tiberius

Not yet, but it will be.