Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East

This collection of studies is devoted to the multifarious relations that the Roman empire maintained with the kings and princes of Near Eastern lands. Building on an outlook of royal and princely realms from both the Roman and the Parthian point of view, individual papers focus on the specifics of different areas and themes through a set of updated regional studies. Themes include Roman citizenship, the coinage issued by the 'client kings,' royal religious ideology, and the reflection on friendly relations between empire and kingdoms in poetry. Five case-studies of individual regions, including late-Ptolemaic Egypt, post-Mithridatic Pontus, Commagene, Emesa, and Edessa, show how the available evidence creates different impressions of their relations with Rome. The absence of royalty at Palmyra is viewed as a variation to 'client kingship,' and the world of the nomadic confederations as an alternative.