212 The Imperial Government
yondtheimperialfrontier.Secondly,onceagain,itmayremindusthat‘‘the
imperial frontier’’ itself is not an unambiguous concept. Roman dealings
withtheunsubduedtribalpeoplesofwesternMauretaniahadthemselvesin
partthecharacterofforeign,ordiplomatic,relations.Inthisinstance,Roman
citizenshipisbeingsoughtbysomeonewhoclearlylayatbestonthemargins
oftheurban,literateworldofGraeco-Romanculture.Thedocumentalso
touches on another ambiguity characteristic of what we might otherwise
wanttocallRoman‘‘foreign’’policy.LiketheHerodiankingswhoruledone
areaoranotherinthePalestineregioninthefirstcentury,orthekingsofthe
Bosporankingdom(theeasternCrimeaandwesternTumanpeninsulaacross
thestraits)throughoutthewholeperiodwithwhichweareconcerned,this
familyofMoroccantribalchiefswashenceforthtoholdRomancitizenship.
Thecitizenshipwasanotherrespectinwhichthenatureofastrict‘‘frontier’’
betweenRomanandnon-Romandoesnotapply.Finally,itisstrikingthat
evenatthislatestagethereisareflectionoftheambiguoussovereigntypre-
vailingintheRomanstateitself.Thetaxesanddutieswhichthebeneficiaries
willstillhavetopayareduebothtotheimperialfiscus(treasury)andtothe
populus.
Ifwecomebacktothegovernmentalandbureaucraticpracticeoftheim-
perialcourt,CassiusDio,itwillberecalled,hadspecifiedlettersasonearea
wheretheemperorwouldcertainlyneedanaideofequestrianrank(52,33,5,
citedabove).Itisnoticeable,however,thathere,inclearcontrastwiththe
passagewherehespeaksofthereceptionofforeignembassiesbytheSenate
(53,31,1,citedabove),heisthinkingoftheinternalworkingoftheEmpire.
Someofthisimperialcorrespondencewasaddressed,invariablyinLatin,to
officials,inparticularprovincialgovernors;PlinytheYounger’scorrespon-
dencewithTrajanfromtheprovinceofPontusandBithyniaisonlythebest-
knownexampleofastandardformofexchange,whichrepresentsacentral
element in how the Empire was governed.Two specimens are, of course,
incorporatedintothedocumentfromBanasajustquoted.Equally,imperial
letters to cities in the Latin-speaking part of the Empire,of which onlya
rathermodestnumberispreserved,werealsonaturallywritteninLatin.
Butverydifferentconsiderationsappliedtocitiesandprovincialcouncils
intheGreek-speakinghalfoftheEmpire.Here,allthelettersfromemper-
orsandfromgovernors,whichinscriptionsputupbythesecitiesreveal,are
written in Greek.The suspicion that the original letters might have been
translated from Latin in the cityconcerned, in order to make them more
readilyintelligibletopassers-bywhostopped—astheymightwhenentering
thetheatreofAphrodisias—toreadtheinscribeddocuments,isnatural,but
infactnotjustified.Forthoseinscribedarchives,orperhapspseudo-archives,