Dynastic marriages of client kings during the reign of Augustus

The article examines the practice of entering into dynastic marriages as part of the policy that was held in relation to vassal kings during the reign of the emperor Augustus (30 BC - AD 14). The author introduces the term Augustus project, bearing in mind the package of measures, aimed at creating a system of vassal kingdoms on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. According to the author, dynastic marriages as an effective instrument of real policy should have cemented the building blocks of the system. In the main part of the article the author analyses ten well-known dynastic marriages, related to the reign of Augustus. As a result of the research undertaken, the author concludes that Augustus, of course, sought to control the behavior of the kings-collaborators. Sometimes things got out of hand, and then the emperor should have intervened to resolve the resulting conflict of interests. The author asks: what did Augustus demand of vassal rulers? The answer is: loyalty and efficiency in the administration of the territories entrusted to them, which meant not only the timely dispatch to Rome of established monetary sums (tributes, taxes and other payments), but also to protect the local population from external enemies, as well as political stability and the rule of law. If it was all there and there was no danger, real or potential, for the peace and stability of the empire, Augustus overlooked extravagant matrimonial combinations, polygamy, conflicts with children and other excesses in the family life of dependent kings. But when it came to questioning loyalty and efficiency, Augustus was unmerciful and merciless in punishing the guilty. Immediate successors to Augustus rejected the Augustus project and gradually eliminated most vassal kingdoms, turning them into provinces under the control of the governors.

Provincial Monarchs as an Eastern Arcanum Imperii: ‘Client Kingship’, the Augustan Revolution and the Flavians

This paper re-examines the role of ‘client kings’ in the Roman east in the early Principate. Contrary to previous emphasis on continuity with the republican past, it proposes that Octavian-Augustus enacted a set of measures that fundamentally changed the relations of certain eastern monarchs with the imperial centre. These ‘provincial monarchs’ became a new elite of Roman administrators, personally loyal to the domus Augusta and distinct from ‘client kings’ earlier and elsewhere. This Augustan systemisation complemented the provincial division of 27 b.c.e., creating a ‘divide and rule’ dynamic between provincial monarchs and imperial legates which was expedient to the Julio-Claudians. This model is then used to challenge the view that the Flavians systematically ‘provincialised’ the east as part of a reorganisation of the frontier. It raises the alternative possibility that provincial monarchy gradually died out, following the Flavians’ realisation that its continued maintenance was detrimental to their public image in Rome.

Britain before the Romans

Much of Britain saw significant changes in the later part of the first millennium bc, particularly in the south-east. Widespread but regionally varied changes in settlement organization resulted in the emergence of new types of sites, some of which have been termed oppida. Changes included the reappearance of gold, the adoption of wheel-turned pottery, new styles of clothes fastening, and cremation burial from Late La Tène Gaul. The burial tradition included a small number of richly furnished burials. Imports of Roman origin were transmitted through Gaulish intermediaries. After Caesar’s expeditions to Britain, the influence of Rome was much more marked and imports increased. Contacts between Britain and Rome may have included formal recognition of some rulers as client kings. Evidence suggests a limited knowledge of literacy and Latin, but the cultural significance of many Roman objects is often unclear.