The sovereignty of the Roman State was vested in the two annually elected consuls. If one died or resigned, a
suffectus was voted in to replace him. Collegiality served as a prevention against tyranny. These consuls later served the state as pronconsuls governing Roman provinces abroad, a practice which continued into the triumviral period and the Empire. The Roman constitution allowed for extraordinary commissions and grants of unfettered power when the occasion required, which it increasingly did as the age of the Caesars dawned.
The geographical core of the Roman Empire remained in the hands of the Senate, who provided Italy and adjacent provinces and islands with governors - proconsuls, propraetors and proquaestors - in the traditional way. The rest of the Empire was divided into two administrative categories: the Imperial province, in which the Emperor August had unrestricted legal and military power, and client-kingdoms, where native rulers ruled under the protection of Rome (or "by the gift of the Roman people"), under the obligation of providing military assistance when called upon. These categories overlapped as the Emperor dethroned troublesome client kings, variously adding their kingdoms to his province or appointing client-kings who answered directly to him.
In reality the Emperor August's authority over Rome, the Senate and senatorial provinces was equal to that he enjoyed throughout the rest of the Empire. As the richest and most powerful man in Rome and the only source of patronage capable of giving young Roman nobleman adequate military experience the Emperor August enjoyed unprecedented authority over the Senate body. This was legitimized in part by the creation of a special magistracy entrusting him with the physical well-being of the city and people of Rome: he was also exempted from the traditional constraints placed on the authority of generals and administrators. This supreme military and legal authority was conflated with the exercise of state religion, in which he received cult as the
Divus Invictus - Unconquered God. His father and mother also received worship as divine figures associated with his own divinity: he was thus positioned as the very personification of the Roman military and as the supra-human protector of the common weal of Rome and Romans. In comparison the "sovereignty" of the consuls meant very little.
From the first Caesarion was reluctant to rule alone, having neither the energy to do so nor the hubris to ignore the nature of his own father's death. His step-brothers
Marcus Antonius Antyllus and
Iullus Antonius were replaced by his step-sons,
Tiberius (who became a Caesar by adoption) and
Drusus. These men's military and senatorial careers were yoked to the Emperor's chariot: they ruled sub-divisions of the Imperial province and lead his legions to victory in his name. The Emperor alone had
de facto control of all political offices and military commands in the Roman State: the highest were filled by these intimates (those connected to him by marriage and blood), who in turn advanced their own connections into subordinate roles.
The sheer volume of work and trouble inherent to the government of so vast an Empire necessitated the existence of such trusted middle-men, who ruled several countries at a time on his behalf. These men enjoyed immense personal power but had limited influence over the Emperor and his policies. This was the prerogative of the two formidable women in his life - his mother,
Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, and fourth wife,
Livia Drusilla.
They were, independently, the two richest women in the Empire. As patrons their careers developed with some parallel, Livia enjoying greater influence in Rome and the west and her mother-in-law exercising a putative supremacy over the Greek world as Queen of Kings and Isis incarnate. Cleopatra was richer of the two and enjoyed greater freedom of political movement as a widow. Livia benefited from her own connections among the Senatorial elite and the successes of her two sons - the xenophobia of the Roman aristocracy and the ill-fated careers of her children
Ptolemy Philadelphus and
Cleopatra Selene hampered Cleopatra somewhat.
In the aftermath of the Secular Games Cleopatra felt personally affronted by Livia's increasing interference in eastern matters: her response was to block attempts to recall her rival's disgraced daughter from exile. She would not even countenance the mitigation of the sentence of exile to
relegatio ("eviction", which was not permanent). Livia was now old and no longer shared her husband's bed: she served him as a personal secretary and intermediate in all Roman affairs, a position she exploited to the full. The small council of senators chosen to serve him as advisors on state matters hung on her every word. She could not, however, navigate the debauched waters of his bacchanalic inner circle as well as her rival could, and this the Egyptian Queen exploited shamelessly.
Tensions escalated. As Livia worked on detaching
Caesar Isidorus from his grandmother, Cleopatra set off East. In Athens she upstaged Tiberius in every imaginable way: the Athenians naturally received the almost mythical Queen with greater excitement than the staidest of Caesars and his prematurely solemn wife. She brought in her train a most inconvenient guest -
Pulcher Julianus[1] - the disliked elder son of Tiberius who had been adopted out in order to remove him from the succession. His wife was a granddaughter of Mark Antony. The two were paraded about as Imperial scions together with Cleopatra's chosen heirs,
Berenike Caesaris and
Antonius Alexas (Antony Alexander), also grandchildren of Antony, a connection which endeared them at once to the Athenians. Whatever Livia could do for Isidorus in the west, Cleopatra was more than capable to replicate for others in the east.
Tiberius infinite reluctance to accept extraordinary honours gave Cleopatra the window she wanted. The city received her with divine honors under the cult name
Cleopatra Thea Eueteria[2] and added the name of
Euetereia to the year's Panathenaic Games. She was made priestess of Demeter, in which capacity she would personify the goddess during the sacred pageant of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Her four proteges were made citizens of the city and initiated in the Lesser Mysteries (celebrated in February). The five of them received crowns, which they dedicated to Athena, and public statues. Julianus was elected as the year's
Archon Basileus ('king magistrate') so that he might preside over the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries in the fall. Cleopatra bestowed an endowment upon the city's gymnasium so that she, Berenike and Antony Alexas might be acclaimed as perpetual
gymnasiarchs; Julianus and Alexas were also named
strategoi - the two generals in command of the city's military. The Athenians no doubt imagined such honors for his son would be pleasing to Tiberius, but Cleopatra knew better. Perhaps egged on by Livia Tiberius accepted limited honors for himself and his family - citizenship, civic crowns and his own election as eponymous
archon for the coming year.
Following the celebration of the Greater Mysteries Cleopatra and her party passed over into Asia. A summons for Julianus from Rome was summarily ignored. From Mytilene to Pergamum to Smyrna to Ephesus Julianus and his wife
Fulvia Antonia were presented to the eastern elite as Imperial princelets deserving of honor on level with Cleopatra and her two heirs. Without Cleopatra he and Fulvia proceeded to Eumeneia-Fulviapolis in Phyrgia; the city had been so renamed in her grandmother's honor and gladly welcomed the two as
euergetai ('benefactors').
Cleopatra had not come to Asia merely to annoy Livia by promoting an undesired princeling. The death of her daughter-in-law
Orodaltis had left a power vacuum in the region: Orodaltis had served as regent and senior co-ruler over three realms - Comana, Cappadocia and Sophene - which were now left in the hands of inexperienced, juvenile monarchs. As it happened, Cleopatra was the grandmother of these monarchs and had the eldest of them - Antony Alexas of Comana - in her custody.
The general
Plautius Silvanus was busy pursuing the barbarian tribes into their hill-top hiding places in an effort to restore order. The son of Livia's closest friend, he made for a natural enemy to Cleopatra. Allying herself to the ever present
Fortunatus, king of Cilicia Trachea, Cleopatra seized custody of the boy-kings
Ariarathes of Sophene and
Archelaus of Cappadocia and threatened war with the Isaurian and Galatian tribes Plautius was pursuing. For Cleopatra's protection the tribal chiefs delivered to her the Roman prisoners they had captured and three Roman standards Plautius had lost to them. Plautius' campaign thus crashed to a halt: he and his men now found themselves deprived -
robbed - of the prospect of victory and vengeance, achievable only by the recapture of the lost standards.
Cleopatra was not finished. Meeting Plautius she saluted his officers as an
imperator would: she paid his tired troops and had the legions acclaim Julianus and Alexas as victorious generals. On the brink of mutiny Plautius was left little scope for action; indeed, he encouraged his troops and welcomed Cleopatra warmly. Whatever arrangement he had been hoping for with the great Queen, he soon despaired when he found that she had sent Julianus and Alexas onward to Antioch with the standards, freed Roman prisoners and hostages given to her by the Galatian and Isaurian chiefs. Though
Furius Camillus was a friend of Tiberius, Plautius had treated him with disdain: the president of the Council of Asia thus relished the opportunity to receive Cleopatra and shame Plautius.
The Council and city received Julianus and Alexas as triumphant generals: the standards were presented to
Dea Roma and the
Divine Julius and laudatory inscriptions and statues commissioned. Camillus did more than just humour Cleopatra, who had followed the boys with a great entourage to Antioch. Julianus was dispatched to Rome with two standards and a hearty recommendation from the Council of Asia. The boy Archelaus was removed from the throne of Cappadocia and replaced with her grandson Ariarathes-Nikomedes (now
Ariarathes XI), hitherto merely King of the smaller adjacent realm of Sophene. Archelaus was also unceremoniously deprived of his young wife, Cleopatra[3]. The Egyptian Queen's ally
Deiotaurus III Philadelphus[4], King of Paphlagonia, received this girl in marriage and authority over Galatia (or at least, to subdue Galatia) at the same time. Cleopatra had already conferred another granddaughter,
Mithridatis, upon the loyal dynast
Tarcondimotus Philopator II of Anazarbos[5]: Camillus happily obliged her by addressing Tarcondimotus as
rex and expanding his territory. Fortunatus was also rewarded with some of Archelaus' old territory bordering Lycaonia. Archelaus of Cappadocia and
Amyntas of Galatia (son of the previous king, Artemidorus) remained in Cleopatra's possession; the other hostages obtained were later sent by Camillus to Deiotaurus.
The suicide of Plautius was the natural end to this uncomfortable episode.
Her political muscles appropriately flexed, Cleopatra received her grandson
Gaius Caesar on his return from Armenia, where he had set the loyal
Ariobarzanes of Media atop the empty throne. Gaius and Cleopatra were virtual strangers, but as with Isidorus before him, he readily perceived in his grandmother the easiest chance for ready finances which would permit him a freer hand undertaking the military exploits he so desperately desired. He ratified her (technically Camillus') reorganization of Asia Minor's affairs and took to ignoring his tutor
Volusius Saturninus (the friend and kinsman of Tiberius) entirely. In exchange for gold to pay and recruit troops with which he might campaign gloriously the coming spring, he gladly sent away his Roman wife[6] and sealed his alliance with his grandmother by consorting with her heiress Berenike.
Warmly received in Rome, Julianus was elected as the consular colleague of Gaius for 3AD.
Berenike Caesaris and her half-brother, Gaius Caesar
[1] Drusus Claudius Pulcher Julianus. Born Drusus Claudius Nero, he became Drusus Julius Caesar when the Emperor adopted his father. To remove him from the Caesarean succession he was adopted by a cousin, Claudius Pulcher, changing his name for a third time.
[2] A cult named of Demeter meaning the "beneficient" or "bountiful" - the bringer of prosperity.
[3] Daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Galatia and Paphlagonia, and Orodaltis of Comana. A useful marriage uniting the native dynasty with the Ptolemaic "newcomer" and his Mithridatid wife.
[4] Son of Castor Saocondarius "Philorhomaios" (died 37BC), King of Galatia and Paphlagonia in Mark Antony's service, and Adobogiona, daughter of King Deiotaurus I.
[5] His grandfather Tarcondimotus I Philantonios ("the Antony-loving") died at Actium fighting for Mark Antony. Anazarba or Anazarbos was the capital of the Tarcondimotid realm in eastern Cilicia, comprising also Mount Amanos and the Pyramos basin.
[6] Calpurnia Macedonica, the maternal half-sister of Caesar Isidorus.