Rome, the Greek World, and the East, Vol. 2 - Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire

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Emperors, Kings, and Subjects:

The Politics of Two-Level Sovereignty

*

NoonewoulddenythattheRomanEmpirewasacomplexsystem,incor-
poratingmanydifferentgeographicalzones,ethnicgroups,andpoliticalfor-
mations, or that much of what we might at first want to describe as the
‘‘government’’ of the Empire really involved diplomacyand political rela-
tions. But perhaps not enough stress has been laid on onevery important
aspectofthepoliticalstructureoftheEmpire,especiallyintheearlierperiod,
namelythepresenceofwhatonemightcallatwo-levelmonarchy,inwhich
quitelargepopulationsweresubjectbothtolocalkingsand,indirectly,toa
distantsuperiormonarchinRome,theemperor.Thischapterisconcerned
toexplorebrieflysomeaspectsofthecomplexdiplomaticandsymbolicre-
lationshipswhichthisstructurebroughtintobeing.Oneeffectofitwasthat
the public life of the dependent kingdoms was marked bya symbolic lan-
guagewhichclearlyreflectedthisdualsovereignty—thepowerandstatusof
thelocalking,combinedwith,andovershadowedby,theunseenpresence
ofthedistantemperor.Inmanyveryvisiblerespects,thepublicstatusofthe
onewoulddependonhissymbolicassociationwiththeother.
This chapter was originally given as a lecture at the conference of the
FédérationInternationaledesÉtudesClassiquesinQuébecinAugust1994,
which was the last occasion on which I had the pleasure of seeing Addi
Wasserstein,andwhenIheardhisstimulatingpaperonnon-HellenisedJews.^1
It was already sadly evident then that his strength was failing. I offer this
articlenowasasmallandinadequatetributetoatruescholar.Fewpeople

*FirstpublishedinScriptaClassicaIsraelica15(StudiesinMemoryofAbrahamWassersteinI,1996):

159–73.

1. A.Wasserstein, ‘‘Non-Hellenised Jews in the Semi-Hellenised East,’’SCI14 (1995):
   111–37.

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