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).

10.   The eras and the turns of eras in Roman, Jewish and early Christian history in the 1st century CE

In about 30 CE a series of elderly gentleman trained under the reign

of Augustus were ruling in Rome and in Palestine. From the Isle of Capri the 70-year-old emperor Tiberius directed events in Rome. In the capital of the empire the knight Aelius Seianus, the chief minister of state, was in control of everything.

In Palestine the tetrarchs Herod Antipas and Philip had ruled the northern territories for more than 30 years. For more than 20 years Antipas had been supported by the governor Jesus.

Judaea and Samaria were under direct Roman administration as the province Judaea, and since 26 CE the knight Pontius Pilate had ruled with a rod of iron. In the following years this peaceful idyll of Augustean stability and Middle Eastern joie de vivre was about to be shaken by a line of events, in the course of which the rulers were completely exchanged.

In the years 36/37 CE responsibility for the political order was handed over to a new generation of political leaders.