Excavations at the ancient city of Doliche reveal high quality mosaic floor

"Archaeologists are excavating the ancient city of Doliche, which was part of the province of Syria in Roman times."
Read the full article here: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/11/2015/excavations-at-the-ancient-city-of-doliche-reveal-high-quality-mosaic-floor

To be precise, it was part of the petty kingdom of Commagene that was absorbed into the province of Syria under Vespasian. Its royal heirs and the cult of Doliche feature prominently in the "Romanike" series.

The map of Commagene as featured in the "Romanike" series

The House of Balbilli and the last Kings of Commagene

 

For the purposes of our series of historical novels, "Romanike", we have recreated the family tree of the House of Balbilli, a notorious clan in Imperial Rome whose history has never been fully written yet. Some of its more prominent members may need a few comments:

• Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus was a trusted friend of emperor Tiberius who met him first during his self-imposed exile on Rhodes. Thrasyllus was a dubious court astrologer but also a respectable philosopher who edited the works of Democritus and those of Plato, arranging the latter into the still familiar sets of four volumes.
• Claudius Balbillus, his son, was court astrologer of the emperors Claudius and Nero. His career included the head office of the Library of Alexandria and the prefecture of Egypt. The city of Ephesus - followed by Smyrna and Pergamon - installed the Balbilleian Games in his honour; the last games ever to be named for an individual person.
• Ennia Thrasylla, grand-daughter of Thrasyllus, was wife of the Praetorian Prefect Macro and mistress of Caligula. At one point, Caligula promised her marriage. If he had not withdrawn that promise, the Balbilli would have advanced into the Iulio-Claudian house of emperors.
• Antiochos IV was another associate of Caligula but suffered from the emperor's impredictability. Claudius restored his throne but Vespasian ultimately removed him and annexed his realm to the province of Syria. Commagene would never be a sovereign kingdom again.
• Iulia Capitolina, daughter of Balbillus, was the first member known to claim royal descent through the kings of Commagene.
• Prince Philopappus is chiefly known from the Philopappus-Monument in Athens, a major tourist attraction up to this day, on which he prides himself of royal blood through the kings of Commagene. It has been suggested by researchers that Iulia Balbilla may have financed the monument that commemorates his somewhat premature death.
• Princess Iulia Balbilla (also of royal blood, according to her self-description) was an associate of Hadrian's empress, Sabina, and with their entourage in Egypt. Common consensus among historians makes her Capitolina's daughter and Philopappus' sister, assuming that Capitolina was married to king Epiphanes before she wed Iunius Rufus. This assumption is entirely unfounded; worse, Epiphanes seems to be too old to be her father. We have moved her one generation forward, therefore, and made her Philopappus' daughter which deemed us more plausible. In our "Romanike" series, her desire to reclaim the power of her ancestors Thrasyllus and Balbillus is the prime motivation of the political crisis arising.
• Avidius Cassius is of course the hero of the Parthian war in the age of emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus who, somewhat unintentionally, would become a short-lived usurper of the Imperial Purple. In our "Romanike" series it is indicated that the Balbilli had a part in this.
• The two Iulii Balbilli appear as high priests of the Severan dynasty. It is not known whether they were actually related to Claudius Balbillus, but the fact that this rare cognomen was still prominent at the Imperial Court is striking, particularly considering the close relations of the Severan dynasty to Syria (and Commagene). For narrative purposes we have assumed that Balbillus Aquila was a nephew of Princess Balbilla.

Commagene: The Realm that Is No More

 

 

 

Another map I have created for the "Romanike" series, this time historically accurate, without any added fictional names. We see the territory of the lost kingdom of Commagene that few people have ever heard of these days though its royal house has produced world-famous artifacts: the Hierotherion on the top of #Nemrud #Dagh, a mountain in eastern Turkey, the #Philopappus #Monument in #Athens and the cults of #Mithras and #Jupiter #Dolichenus. Its ancient royal capital, #Samosata, also produced a classic author: the satirist #Lucian.

In our novels, the kingdom has fallen and been absorbed by the Roman Empire in which it constitutes just a far-away district of a far-away province. But its power lives on, hidden, though not vanquished. And in a time of crisis, when Rome is facing a major war with the Parthian kingdom in the east, the Realm that Is No More raises its head again to reclaim the power it has once had - over the Imperial throne.

The entire series is available on paper or digitally here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Romanike  
And more background information is available on our blog: http://www.corpus-sacrum.de

Iulia Balbilla, Princess of Commagene

We would not even know that Iulia Balbilla had existed if she had not left four graffiti at the statues of Memnon, in Egypt. Nothing else of her life is known, save that on 19–21 November 130, she was in the retinue of emperor Hadrian's wife, Vibia Sabina, as they visited the Valley of the Kings. One of her four epigrammes, written in a rare Aeolic dialect of Greek, she refers to her grandfathers "Balbillus the Wise" (probably Tiberius Claudius Balbillus, prefect of Egypt under emperor Nero and notorious astrologer) and "Antiochus the King" (who was last king of Commagene before its annexion by emperor Vespasian). There are speculations that Balbilla may have financed the raising of the Philopappos Monument in Athens and a heroon in Sparta that was dedicated to a distant relative.

In "Opus Gemini", Vol. IV to VI of the "Romanike" series, Balbilla has been exiled to her ancestor's capital, Samosata, due to her dedication to astrology. When Samosata falls to the invading forces of king Vologaeses of Parthia, Balbilla escapes and plots to restore her power by regaining the Opus Gemini, the last surviving sibling of the Antikythera Mechanism.

Iulia Balbilla of the "Romanike" series is a woman of high age, yet agile. She pursues her aims with aristocratic ruthlessness, trusting nobody but her closest living relatives, and travels all way across the Roman Empire to get the Opus Gemini which she claims as the heirloom of her ancestors, the House of Balbilli. Being the oldest living descendant of the royal house of Commagene, she is also high priestess of the cult of Iuppiter Dolichenus, which gives her a significant power base to draw upon.

I will present and analyse Balbilla's epigrammes in future posts of this blog.