The years 68-70 CE marked the second turn of an era.

 With Nero’s forced suicide the short era of the divine emperors and the hundred-year rule of the emperors of the high aristocratic family of Augustus were over. In 69 CE, the year of four emperors, Vespasian founded the Flavian dynasty. The new emperor understood himself not as a god, but as a human being and did not deny his low origins from the Italian countryside.

In the Flavian time the epos (poetry in the style of Homer and Virgil) experienced a revival by the poets Valerius Flaccus and Statius. The time until the rule of the emperor Nero was considered to be a completed era, to which tribute was to be paid and after which a new beginning was needed.

A fresh start was undertaken by thinking back to Greek culture. The Flavian epic poets give the Romans Greek legends as an Old Testament of Roman culture (Michael von Albrecht).