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Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, and Marcus Antonius (known as Mark Antony), Roman consul and triumvir, was born in 40 BCE. This made her around ten years old when the civil war between her father and his fellow triumvir Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (known as Octavian) culminated in Octavian’s victory over Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE and his conquest and annexation of Egypt the following year. Following her parents’ suicides, she was taken back to Rome with Octavian and spent the remainder of her childhood in the household of his sister Octavia, who also happened to be her father’s ex-wife. While Octavian’s biographer Suetonius claimed that Octavian was a kindly father figure and reared her as if she was his own flesh and blood, there was undoubtedly a political dimension to this decision as retaining control of her meant that any potential threat to Rome’s power over Egypt was neutralized before it could gain any momentum. But what was Octavian to do with a princess who was no longer in possession of a kingdom? A convenient solution presented itself in the form of another of his wards, Gaius Julius Juba. Like Cleopatra Selene, Juba was the last surviving member of a deposed North African royal family. His father, Juba I, had been King of Numidia (modern Libya) but had chosen the wrong side in a previous Roman civil war, and as with Cleopatra, he had died by suicide leaving his kingdom and his child to be confiscated by Rome. Apparently Octavia made the match between her two foster children and the pair were married in around 25 BCE. As a wedding present, Octavian appointed them joint rulers of the newly created Roman client kingdom of Mauretania (modern Morocco and Algeria).

Mauretania was the only Roman client kingdom in the west of the empire and it was by far the largest, comprising a vast territory blessed with considerable natural resources that included not only luxuries such as purple dye, scented citron wood, and exotic animals for the arena such as lions, but also staples such as grain, fish, and fish sauce. Its population was diverse, made up of many different indigenous groups which are today referred to collectively as ‘Berbers’, but there were also a number of Greek and Roman colonies located along the Mediterranean littoral. The southern borders were not so clearly defined, leading to incursions by hostile indigenous tribes, and Juba would come to spend a considerable amount of his time on campaign against them.

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