Cleopatra's Daughter and Other Royal Women of the Augustan Era by Duane W. Roller (review)

The latest volume in Oxford University Press' Women in Antiquity series is something of a departure from its predecessors in that it does not focus on one woman or even two women. Rather, it covers seven, all members of influential Eastern Mediterranean royal families during the Augustan Principate and the early years of the Julio-Claudian dynasty: Cleopatra Selene; Glaphyra of Cappadocia; Salome of Judaea; Dynamis of Bosporos; Pythodoris of Pontos; Aba of Olbe; and Mousa of Parthia. Roller opens the volume with an overview of the concept of queenship in classical antiquity, contextualizing the position that each woman was in in their respective families, before proceeding methodically through chronological overviews of their lives, deaths and legacies, and finally concluding with a discussion of the relationships between these women and their Roman counterparts Livia, Octavia, and Antonia Minor.

It is unfortunately common practice to deal with ancient women in terms of their male relations and to underplay or overlook their own contributions to history, even in the case of such well-known individuals as Cleopatra VII. However, by studying these seven women as a group and identifying connections and commonalities between them, Roller makes a strong case for it being necessary to reconsider the significance and influence of women as individuals in their own right with their own agency in this period, not just in the allied kingdoms located at the periphery of the Roman Empire, but also at its very heart. He considers their crucial roles in first Marcus Antonius' and later Augustus' vision for the territories in the Eastern Mediterranean. He details the kinships and friendships that each woman enjoyed with women of the Julio-Claudian family and with each other, and highlights the influence that they exerted, or attempted to exert, in a variety of directions over the course of their eventful and in some cases extremely long lives.

Due to the nature of the historical and archaeological evidence that survives from antiquity, the biographies vary considerably in length and detail, but this is hardly a flaw, or even an insurmountable obstacle, since the same can be said when attempting to write the biography of any historical figure from antiquity. Roller is careful not to push his limited evidence too far, making suggestions regarding potential motivations based on careful consideration of each woman's historical and cultural context. He steps away from canonical Roman historiography and mines a wide range of other genres of ancient literature for nuggets of information, and also utilizes documentary evidence such as inscriptions and papyri, numismatics, and other types of material culture to attempt to provide insights into the women's ideological programs and the events of their reigns that are otherwise unattested in the literature that survives. He is uniquely qualified to attempt this endeavor due to his previous scholarship on Rome's allied kingdoms, as well as focused studies on the monarchs Cleopatra VII, Juba II and Cleopatra Selene.¹

In Cleopatra's Daughter and Other Royal Women of the Augustan Era, Roller has succeeded in synthesizing a considerable amount of information that is not necessarily widely known or readily accessible and making it engrossing and entertaining for both specialist and non-specialist readers. He has offered a fresh perspective not only on the subject of women in antiquity, but also on the Augustan Principate and the Julio-Claudian period, and this will hopefully lead to more nuanced discussions of both.