Death of Tiberius (1864). Oil on canvas. 177 x 223. The Death of Tiberius is a painting by Jean-Paul Laurens in 1864. It is at the Paul-Dupuy Museum in Toulouse. Jean-Paul Laurens represents the death of the Roman emperor Tiberius, which occurred in 37 in the villa of Lucullus. The emperor, seventy-seven years old, was sick and bedridden. If the ancient historians gave several interpretations on the cause of his death, Laurens retains the most dramatic version for his subject: Tiberius, who had momentarily regained consciousness, would have fallen from his bed and then would have died suffocated on the orders of the prefect of the praetorium Macron according to Tacitus, or Caligula would have accomplished this murderous gesture according to Dion Cassius. The place, the luxurious villa of Lucullus, is suggested by a refined wall fresco and a bed frame carved in dark material. He encircles the two characters that make up the painting: Tiberius, after sliding from his bed, is on the ground, draped in a narrow toga that wraps him from head to toe; only a hand and the face are visible. The murderer grabbed Tiberius' hand and tried to snatch his ring from him, a symbol of imperial power, a gesture mentioned several times by Suetonius. Their knotted hands mark the contrast between the livid hue of Tiberius and the carnation of the murderer. Streaks of white hair emerging from the gown that wrapped Tiberius' head indicate his great age. This toga represents a shroud by the form of which the painter will express the agony of the emperor. Laurens seems to want to show only the face of Caesar, thus joining the text of Ferdinand Fabre: The chapter spread out before his eyes was that avenging chapter where Montesquieu branded the hideous face of Tiberius with a hot iron.