Arvay and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a podcast series looking at the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me as always is Dr.

Rianna Evans, lecturer in ancient Mediterranean studies at Latrobe University.

This is episode X II,-I-I-I-Tiberius the gloomiest of men.

When we last left Tiberius, he'd left Rome, made himself scarce, and isolated himself on the island of Capri.

Back in Rome he's left the commander of the Praetorian guards, Sir Janus, in charge by proxy.

And that's the situation that the Senate isn't quite comfortable with.

Here's Rianna Evans.

Sir Janus should be in charge of the bit of the army that looks after the Emperor,

but instead he sort of gets moved sideways and very definitely upwards to being a sort of vice regent.

He doesn't technically have power, he doesn't officially have power,

but he becomes the way that you get to Tiberius. Tiberius isn't physically there, and

Sir Janus is kind of standing in the way, which is sort of what he should be doing as the person

who protects the Emperor, but now he's leading

all information to and from the emperor as well.

And that means he has an enormous amount of power and he could possibly abuse that power or he could take on roles that he doesn't

officially have.

So what's his background is probably not a member of the ruling class?

Absolutely not. More of a man of the ruling class. Absolutely not.

More of a man of the people so to speak?

Well, man of the people is all relative, isn't it?

He comes from the equestrian class, which is the second class down, and it's still enormously wealthy.

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