Tiberius received his position through his mother, who was Augustus's second wife. Tiberius became one of his step-father's principal lieutenants, leading military campaigns in Germany and on the Danube. In pursuance of their family policy, he was compelled by politics in 12 B.C. to divorce his first wife, Vipsania, daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and marry Julia Caesaris, daughter of Augustus, and widow of the same Agrippa (and, thus, his own step-sister and his first wife's step-mother), but that marriage failed. Tiberius went into self-imposed exile on Rhodes.

He returned several years later, following the death of Julia's sons by Agrippa, Gaius and Lucius, and was made Augustus's heir. When he became Emperor following Augustus's death in 14 AD, the saturnine Tiberius quickly became unpopular, and when his nephew Germanicus died under mysterious circumstances in the East in 19, suspicions were voiced that Tiberius had had a role in his death.

Tiberius spent much of the latter part of his reign in self-exile on the island of Capri. The city of Rome was controlled in his place by Sejanus, the head of the Praetorian Guards. Sejanus, who was rumored to have poisoned Tiberius's only son, Tiberius Drusus in 23 AD, and certainly carried on an affair with Drusus's widow, Tiberius's niece Livilla, launched a reign of terror against possible political enemies. Germanicus's widow, Agrippina, and her elder sons, Nero and Drusus, were exiled to small islands, where they died.

Sejanus, in fact, plotted to himself take control of the Empire, but his plans were foiled thanks to a timely warning to Tiberius from his sister-in-law, Antonia, and instead Sejanus and his supporters were arrested and executed in 31 AD.

After having most of his potential successors killed, Tiberius summoned his grand-nephew Caligula and grandson Tiberius Gemellus to Capri. Suetonius writes how Tiberius engaged in extreme sexual perversions on Capri, but he is an often-unreliable source and it is unknown if his reports are true.

Tiberius died on March 16, 37 AD. It is most likely that Tiberius died a natural death, but popular notion has it that Caligula and his guard Macro smothered Tiberius with a pillow.

In his will Tiberius left the empire to both Caligula and Tiberius Gemellus, but soon after becoming Emperor, Caligula had Tiberius' will declared void and soon had Gemellus killed.

In the Bible, Tiberius is mentioned by name only once, in Luke 3:1 (stating that John the Baptist entered on his public ministry in the fifteenth year of his reign). However, since it was during his reign that Jesus Christ preached, many references to Caesar (or the emperor in some other translations), without further specification, actually refer to Tiberius.

The town Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee was named in Tiberius's honour by Herod Antipas.

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