Meroitic-Kush never became part of the Roman empire – although the Romans tried to make it part.

After the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian became undisputed master of Rome and its territories, and as Augustus Caesar (31 BC-14 AD), the first true emperor, got control of Egypt (Aegyptus). He made it a Roman province, governed by a chief magistrate under his own control. Kush  just to Egypt’s south – was outside the empire. Candace Amanirenas (Photo) is one of the great queens of Meroitic history. She was the wife of King Teriteqas and succeeded him after his death.

After the suicide of the first chief magistrate of Roman Egypt, Cornelius Gallus (Cassius Dio, Book 53: 23), Aelius Gallus the second chief magistrate was named and was ordered by Augustus to conquer Arabia and Ethiopia. Taking advantage of his absence in the campaign against Arabia, in 24 BC the Candace of Meroe, Amanirenas, and her son the crown prince Akinidad, defeated the Roman coharts at Syene (Aswan), Philae, and Elephantine, and return with prisoners and booty, which included several statues of Augustus (Jameson 1986: 71-84). In Stabo's detail account (Book 17, chap 1: 53-54) of these events, Candace is described as brave, and blind in one eye.

The Kushites were driven out of Aswan in the same year by General Gaius Petronius, who now held the office of Roman magistrate in Egypt. According to a detailed report made by Strabo (17: 53-54), the Roman troops advanced far to the south and finally reached Napata. Although they withdrew again to the north they left behind a garrison in Qasr Ibrim (Primis), where the southern border of the Roman Empire now lay. When the Meroites made a renewed attempt to seize Primis, Petronius was able to forestall their efforts. Following this event, negotiations were begun between the Romans and the Meroites. The latter sent mediators to Augustus, who was then in Samos, and in the year 21/20 BC. a peace treaty was conducted which was strikingly favorable to the Meroites: the southern part of the Thirty-Mile Strip, including Primis, was evacuated by the Romans, and the Meroites were exempted from having to pay tribute. On the other hand, the Romans continued to occupy the Dodekashoinos as a military border zone, so the frontier now lay near Hiere Sycaminos (Maharraqa). This arrangement continued until the end of the third century AD, the relations between Meroe and Roman Egypt remaining generally peaceful during this time (Hintze 1978 :100).



Bronze Head of Augustus
Roman, about 27-25 BC
From Meroe, Sudan

This bronze head of Augustus, now in the British Museum, was found buried in a temple at Meroe. 

The writer Strabo tells us that statues of Augustus were erected in Egyptian towns near the first cataract of the Nile at Aswan and that an invading Meroites army took many of them as booty in 24 BC. This head of Augustus was buried beneath the steps of a temple dedicated to Victory in Meroe. It seems likely that the head, having been cut from its statue, was placed there deliberately so as to be permanently below the feet of the Meroites. A wall painting in this temple depicted several prisoners including a Roman (Shinnie 1981: 167-172).

After the treaty with Augustus established the northern border of the Meroitic kingdom near Hiere, settlements of Lower Nubia intensified, and this led to a noticeable rise in the economic prosperity of the region. Heavily populated settlements were supported and perhaps actually made possible by the introduction of the water wheel (sakia), which facilitated the irrigation even of high-lying fields and thus significantly improved agricultural production. Numerous villages and cities were founded, in which spacious, abundantly furnished houses attest to the fact that the general population enjoyed considerable prosperity. Minor arts, particularly ceramic art, came into full bloom. The administration of Lower Nubia rested in the hands of Merotics officials. 

Augustus directed his administrators to collaborate with the priesthoods of the region in the erection of a temple at Denur. In its relief and inscriptions, Augustus himself appears as the chief celebrant of the local deities but there pays particular homage to two youths [brothers, Pahor and Pedese, who are believed to have been sons of a local Nubian elite ruler], whose deaths had elevated them to the status of divine intercessors. They are enrolled among the local deities in this temple and are the recipients of a cult. The temple of Dendur also served as their cenotaph.



The Temple of Dendur, Nubia, 15 BC

After a confrontation with Meroe, Augustus commissioned the construction of a temple at Dendur, Nubia. Ostensibly depicting Augustus worshipping the Nubian local deities, the relief decoration and accompanying inscriptions pay particular homage to brothers, Pahor and Pedese, who are believed to have been sons of a local Nubian elite ruler and who seem to have met their fate by drowning in the Nile River, apparently resulting in their being deified. The temple of Dendur celebrates these two brothers and contains within the thickness of its rear wall, which abutted the hillside into which the temple was constructed, a chamber serving as their cenotaph. This temple appears to have replaced an earlier rock cut shrine, or speos, in which the cult of these two brothers was apparently celebrated. The rituals celebrated at Dendur in the name of Augustus on behalf of these two brothers were contemporary with other rituals performed at Sayala in the vicinity of Abu Simbel. Nubian religious praxis in speoi, therefore, persisted into the Roman Period at both Sayala and Dendur alike.