Phd in PHILOLOGY AND HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT
WORLD

Thesis title: Dal regno alla provincia. La nascita delle province procuratorie nel principato di Claudio

This dissertation aims to explore the historical, political and economic reasons that led Emperor Claudius to transform some of Rome's former allied kingdoms into procuratorial provinces. Through the analysis of the cases of the provinces of Mauretania, Judea, Thrace, Cottian Alps and Noricum, we will attempt to identify the dynamics that determined the specific choice of the provincial form of procuratorship in each case. To this purpose, particular attention has been paid to certain characteristics of the final moments of the pre-provincial phase of the kingdoms transformed into procuratorial provinces. In particular, we will see the close connection that emerges between the existence of large portions of imperial property in these territories and the establishment of the province. Each case has been investigated according to its specific circumstances, but with constant attention to the problem of the origin of the imperial properties there. The investigation has revealed the importance of inheritance as a means of expanding the patrimonium Caesaris, already at the time of Caligula, to whom we can attribute the prodromes of the dynamics that led to the formation of the procuratorial provinces by Claudius. The investigation therefore contributes to articulating modern knowledge of the provincial system of the imperial age by proposing to place the procuratorial province within the panorama of administrative instruments that Rome had applied until the Claudian age to manage the new territorial annexations, according to new criteria. At the same time, on a synchronic level, the work helps to better define the relationship between the principate of Caligula and that of Claudius, the early stages of which were both a confirmation and a breaking of the provincial policies that Caligula adopted and that are here investigated in their most significant both ideological and economic aspects.