This study examines a number of royal women who ruled in the Mediterranean world in the latter first century BC and into the following century, existing in a symbiotic relationship with the Roman government, which controlled most of the region. It is the first detailed examination of the role of royal women in the ever-changing world of the era of the emperor Augustus. Previous studies have centered on the kings of the era, and, as expected, less attention has been given to the women who ruled as their partners, or on their own.
The most famous of these is Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of the famous Cleopatra VII of Egypt and her partner, the Roman magistrate Marcus Antonius. She ruled Mauretania (northwest Africa) in with her husband for over 20 years, and attempted to reconstitute her mother's legacy in this remote region and was a patron of the arts and scholarship. Other women of note included in this book are Pythodoris of Pontos, who ruled northern Asia Minor for over 40 years, and Salome of Judaea, the sister of Herod the Great, who was never queen but exercised major power in Judaea for nearly half a century. All these, and others, were contemporaries, and were part of the interrelated dynasties of the world of Augustus. Moreover, they had close relationships with the Roman elite and the prominent women of Rome, such as Livia and Octavia, the wife and sister of Augustus, and Antonia, the granddaughter of Antonius and mother of the emperor Claudius. Their values and attitudes toward rule directly affected the emergent Roman imperial system, and their legacy survived for hundreds of years through their descendants and the goals of the imperial women of Rome.
