Date Presented:

25 October

摘要:

This paper studies how displaced royal families in the Roman principate speak about their royal ancestry. Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes "Philopappos" and his sister Julia Balbilla, who were descendents of the Orontid dynasty of Commagene in northwestern Syria, are objects of this study. The kingdom of Commagene was twice incorporated into the Roman province of Syria, first upon the death of Antiochos III Epiphanes in 17 CE, then during Vespasian's reign in 72 CE. Philopappos and Balbilla were displaced and eventually integrated into the circle of the Roman senatorial élite. The two siblings are examples of displaced royal families "at work," creating their extraordinary status within the Roman principate through monumental and literary works that claim inheritance to their ancestral past.  This paper will first review relevant scholarship – such as David Braund on client kingship (1984), Joel Allen on hostage and hostage taking in the principate (2006), Paul Burton on Roman foreign relations in the Republic (2011) – to clarify the operating terms of amicitia, fides, and foedus that formed the socio-political context within which Philopappos and Balbilla operated. The second part of the paper will discuss how the visual and inscriptional programme of Philopappos' monument at Athens and Babilla's graffitti poetry on the statue of Memnon in Egyptian Thebes negotiate socio-political contexts. This paper argues that Philopappos' monument did not only speak to his extraordinary status as humbled royalty under Rome, but also his belonging to Athens, and how Commagenian royalty and Roman citizenship attributed to his sense of belonging. Similarly, Balbilla was a valued member of Hadrian and Sabina's court specifically because of her conscious pronouncement of her family's royal blood and their piety, which qualities were pronounced in her graffiti poetry. Together, Philopappos and Balbilla marks a change in the nature of client kingship from Trajan onwards, as royal members become valued not for their ability to govern kingdoms, but for their extraordinary status as royal Roman citizens.