Ahhay and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a podcast about the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.

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

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

This is episode X, X, X I, I, I, Vespasian becoming a god.

Emperor Vespasian has a long compared to other emperors,

and uneventful again compared to other emperors, time as the Emperor of Rome.

His rule was a pretty quiet one, mostly highlighted by reform, buildings and taxes.

But Vespasian was most notable for his down to earth nature and his sense of humour is literally

one of the highlights of the history books. Here's Rianna Evans.

When Vespasian became Emperor he seems to be quite interested in making Rome over in some of the traditions of the

Republic. The Republic is so far back now, it's a hundred years back, but still the Romans hark back to that as a better time as a more moral time

and Vespasian isn't very he's not very tough on this he doesn't come in with strong

censorship but he does for example bring in codes

that separate out the different orders of Rome so the different classes this

suggests that there is an idea that morality is falling apart a bit.

One of his laws is that if a woman takes a slave as her lover, then she gets the status of a slave herself. It's a way of keeping the different

orders in their own band, and it looks like that means that he at least perceives that there is a lot of crossing of these boundaries and he's trying to stop that.

But didn't he cross that boundary himself though?

Well, after his wife dies, he has a lover who is or a courtesan she's often called or

mistress who is a freed woman so an ex-slave called kindness she seems to have been

treated almost as his wife I think that means he didn't have lots of other lovers

until she died. But she is never given the status of wife. And remember that this law is about

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