ABSTRACT
In Britain, as elsewhere in the Empire, an important aspect of Roman expansion was the use of local rulers who exercised a nominal authority over their people but were in reality obligated to maintain Rome’s, rather than their own, interests. This practice can be traced back to the third century BC. At the outset, the monarch in question was bound to the Roman people by formal treaties, which helped to create the illusion of equality between the two states, but by the late Republic this notion of equality was barely maintained even in theory, and in the Imperial period had disappeared completely. ‘Client kings’, as they are aptly known,1 were appointed or dismissed at the whim of the current emperor. The institution provides a good illustration of Rome’s traditional readiness to adapt to circumstances. Usually the king’s task was to form a buffer between Roman territory and potential enemies; within the borders of the imperium, however, he might be appointed to rule areas whose terrain made them difficult to police, as in Cilicia in Asia Minor, where a mountainous area known as Rough Cilicia seems to have been administered by client-kings through most of the Julio-Claudian period.2 Judaea forms a category of its own-a country without particular military importance but with special social and religious sensitivities, where direct Roman rule invariably led to problems.
