Nubian Roman Foerderati

What if Nubian cliental kingdoms formed during the Imperial Roman Age ( allegedly there maybe was even one and Nero had plans to regarding Nubia) and Latinize to some degree ? ( In the South of Egypt Nubians lived and Egypt was Roman). Would Nubians be a fare more common appearance in the Roman Empire, if several Nubian states have strong ties to Rome maybe even joining as a province ? Could we see some of them rise to significant prominence in the Empire in the time to come ? Could we see a rise of importance and influence like Berbers and North Africans had in Rome to some degree ( Phillip Arabs) ? Would there be Nubians in the Roman Army ? How would trade develope ?
 
Why would they Latinize? They'd Hellenize, more likely.

Also, its very difficult to extend even soft power down into Nubia, due to the geography (especially the cataracts), particularly if your center of power isn't already in Egypt. And as for those whose center of power is in Egypt, thats the governor, who is in charge of a province that is already rich enough to make the Emperors nervous. So, now, he'd be the chief liaison between Rome and a federate army. Thats not a good combination.

Besides, Nubia wasn't much of a threat to Egypt, so there's no pressing need to clientalize them.

Now, if Rome somehow managed to take and hold Arabia, and got a presence in the Mandeb strait, then I could see something working out, since you'd likely have a governor of Arabia Felix and maybe one for the Hedjaz, too. But those would also be logistically difficult, absent a suitable canal for supplies between the Med and Red, so we're back to square one.

But if there is one thing that AH loves, its a canal...
 
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Tbh, I do love canals.

Then again, I'm currently figuring out how to have Nubia build canals around the Cataracts. (If anyone would actually be interested in doing so, it would be Nubia).

Now, if you had the 25th Dynasty of Egypt (the Nubian one), commit to a project like that and succeed - apart from the slim chance of changing history - it likely means that in a reasonably close TL to our own, the Romans would be required to go further south to secure Nubia - at which point, having a client kingdom at the end of it could be useful simply to secure Egypt, as it is easy to travel both ways now.
 
Wouldn't you need pound locks for that? That alone would be a huge divergence.

It would likely depend on the exact route - one that runs almost parallel with the river to avoid the cataracts and skill keep reasonably level wouldn't need something like that.

It'd be an immense project though. Grand-Canal scale even.
 
It would probably have some impact on what happens after the end of Meroe.

But I thought a lot of the Rome-Nubia things OP describes were basically OTL, even if Nubia wasn't quite as linked as, say, the Berbers.

It would likely depend on the exact route - one that runs almost parallel with the river to avoid the cataracts and skill keep reasonably level wouldn't need something like that.

It'd be an immense project though. Grand-Canal scale even.

This deserves its own thread. Did the technology and resources exist during the 25th Dynasty for this to even be feasible? Might it have to wait for a later Nubia, like a 25th Dynasty part 2 (I guess in the post-Roman era, a Nubia wank conquers Egypt).
 
What if Nubian cliental kingdoms formed during the Imperial Roman Age ( allegedly there maybe was even one and Nero had plans to regarding Nubia) and Latinize to some degree ?
Romanization ≠ Latinization. In almost all eastern Romania, it took the mantle of hellenistic network of cities (whom laws and customs were integrated to Roman law, rather than coming from colonies of Latin and Roman law directly) and political relationship that was already present and dynamic before the Roman conquest, from which Roman institutions and frames imposed themselves.

Now, to the matter at hand : clentelization was a practice that tended to disappear with the classical Roman Empire, emperors preferring to resort to direct control. It wasn't systematical (especially on the Persian border) or irremediable (Crimea being provincialized then re-clientelized), but the "golden age" of clientelization was passed.

The problem of Roman-Nubian relations is that Nubia was really peripherical (especially as Kushites moved their chief center South) and heavily depended from the situation in Egypt to thrive politically : as Roman Egypt was really recentered on Mediterranean relations since the hellenistic period and even more so with Roman influence and conquest, Kush declined slowly at the benefit of Axum and Somali city-states.
As Rome campaigned against Kush in the Ist century AD and ruined Meroe and the north of the Kushite kingdom, it more or less created a vaacum that didn't broke immediatly their relations with the nubian state, but allowed peoples as Blemmyes and Nobatians to take place in northern Nubia, as sort of blur march of conflicting loyalties.
It's quite interesting to see that Blemmyes (living on the region set roughly between Nile and the sea) and Nobatians (probably issued from the desertified regions of north-western Sudan) did enjoyed more of a clientelized/laetic relationship with Rome than Kush on this regard.

Simply said, Rome was uninterested on Nubia as long as Nubian and quasi-Nubian peoples didn't raided their borders, and historically, you did have nubian peoples being clientelized or enjoying a relationship with Rome close to what existed with Berbers in Roman Africa.
But it wouldn't really happen with Kush for the aformentioned reasons : we'd rather sooner see a clientelized Axum or Hejaz.

A detail, but Federates ≠ Clients. the federate status as it appeared in the IVth century was more or less a deviation of dedicitii status, as in a personal status of subservience of non-citizens (which was eventually taken as a relation between the emperor and king/kinglets inside Romania) and clientelization, which is is more a deviation of a patronage and sponsoring between two freemen (if of different statutes) closer to a status of protectorate.
 
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ATP45

Banned
What if Nubian cliental kingdoms formed during the Imperial Roman Age ( allegedly there maybe was even one and Nero had plans to regarding Nubia) and Latinize to some degree ? ( In the South of Egypt Nubians lived and Egypt was Roman). Would Nubians be a fare more common appearance in the Roman Empire, if several Nubian states have strong ties to Rome maybe even joining as a province ? Could we see some of them rise to significant prominence in the Empire in the time to come ? Could we see a rise of importance and influence like Berbers and North Africans had in Rome to some degree ( Phillip Arabs) ? Would there be Nubians in the Roman Army ? How would trade develope ?
Nubian archers repelled arabs ,when Egypt fall.If Byzantines hired them,than you can get muslim repelled from Egypt,too.Byzantine with egypt could conqer Italy.And maybe Spain.What you get,is potential Byzantine wank.Imagine world,when they take over Europe.All becouse some hired archers.....
 
Nubian archers repelled arabs ,when Egypt fall.If Byzantines hired them,than you can get muslim repelled from Egypt,too.Byzantine with egypt could conqer Italy.And maybe Spain.What you get,is potential Byzantine wank.Imagine world,when they take over Europe.All becouse some hired archers.....

There's a difference between Nubians repelling Arabs on their home turf, which as noted above, was peripheral, and Nubians repelling Arabs in a foreign land, and a land which the Arabs would definitely want to conquer because it's so damn rich.
 

ATP45

Banned
There's a difference between Nubians repelling Arabs on their home turf, which as noted above, was peripheral, and Nubians repelling Arabs in a foreign land, and a land which the Arabs would definitely want to conquer because it's so damn rich.
You are probably right.Byzantines would need a lot of nubian archers,good commander and luck.I would try to say,that even if arab was repelled,all benefits would be reap by Byzantine,not Nubia.So - whatever you do,there would be no nubiawank.You could get only byzantinewank or ,like OTL,arabwank.
 
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