My high school Latin teachers presented “ambassadors” as hostages for the good behavior of the heads of state they represented. I was quite happy that such an attitude is no longer generally applied.
I know that our modern ideas about diplomacy date from The Treaty of Westphalia and the Congress of Vienna, but now I wonder if there was a diplomatic corps hanging around Rome?
I think all organised societies had some form of office in charge of diplomacy that would be recognisable to our modern westphalian states, atleast in asfar as the diplomat served as an official respresentative of the state (royal court) in a foreign land, with some form of legal protection while there.
The documentary record from Kush and Egypt reveals that atleast two different missions were dispatched to Kush from (or through) Roman Egypt. One by a man named named Cladon, and a second by Acutus, the latter of whom left the only latin inscription found in Meroitic Kush, which stated that his mission was from "the pharaoh of the west" (often taken to be the Emperor of Rome)
On Kush's side, there was an office of apote-lh-Arome-li-se (often translated from meroitic as the great ambassador to Rome). The office was held by several named officers in Lower Nubia that dalt primarily with Roman Egypt in political, commercial and religious capacity, and its not unlikely that these were the 'ambassadors' that Strabo refered to whom met with Augustus on the island of Samos.
Since Kush's ambassadors (and presumably Rome's envoys as well) didnt travel with large military escorts, and were considered official representatives with the ability to undertake important political negotiations on behalf of their ruler (the Samos treaty concluded with Rome withdrawing from parts of Lower Nubia), i think we can imagine them to be atleast similar in some aspects to our modern diplomats.
My high school Latin teachers presented “ambassadors” as hostages for the good behavior of the heads of state they represented. I was quite happy that such an attitude is no longer generally applied.
I know that our modern ideas about diplomacy date from The Treaty of Westphalia and the Congress of Vienna, but now I wonder if there was a diplomatic corps hanging around Rome?
I think all organised societies had some form of office in charge of diplomacy that would be recognisable to our modern westphalian states, atleast in asfar as the diplomat served as an official respresentative of the state (royal court) in a foreign land, with some form of legal protection while there.
The documentary record from Kush and Egypt reveals that atleast two different missions were dispatched to Kush from (or through) Roman Egypt. One by a man named named Cladon, and a second by Acutus, the latter of whom left the only latin inscription found in Meroitic Kush, which stated that his mission was from "the pharaoh of the west" (often taken to be the Emperor of Rome)
On Kush's side, there was an office of apote-lh-Arome-li-se (often translated from meroitic as the great ambassador to Rome). The office was held by several named officers in Lower Nubia that dalt primarily with Roman Egypt in political, commercial and religious capacity, and its not unlikely that these were the 'ambassadors' that Strabo refered to whom met with Augustus on the island of Samos.
Since Kush's ambassadors (and presumably Rome's envoys as well) didnt travel with large military escorts, and were considered official representatives with the ability to undertake important political negotiations on behalf of their ruler (the Samos treaty concluded with Rome withdrawing from parts of Lower Nubia), i think we can imagine them to be atleast similar in some aspects to our modern diplomats.