Africa (Roman province)

Africa under the Republic

The conquest

The province of Africa was conquered in 146 av. J. - C. at the time of the Third Punic War. This war opposed the cities of Carthage and Rome. In 149 av. J. - C., the consul Scipion Émilien unloaded in the territory of Carthage and took the city after a three year old seat. After this victory the town of Carthage even was destroyed and its site dedicated to the infernal gods by a ceremony of execratio . The will chôra , territory, of the late city, was annexed to the Ager publicus , the public domain of the town of Rome, thus forming a new province. In this province, one distinguished seven cities which had taken party for Rome at the time of the war and which accepted the privilege of freedom and were thus not annexed to the ager publicus : Utique, Hadrumète, Leptis Minor, Thapsus, Acholla, Usula and Theudalis

The territory of the new province was rather important, of 20 000 with 25 000 km ², but little densement populated, 700 000 inhabitants to the maximum before the Roman conquest, and especially extremely fertile. It thus constituted a territory of colonization dreamed for the party of the populares trying to solve the crises economic and social striking the Roman plebs by the redistribution of grounds of the ager publicus with the impoverished peasants. In 124 av. J. - C. an epidemic devastated Africa, releasing from new grounds for a possible colonization. This phenomenon should not be comparable with the European colonization of the modern and contemporary time; during Antiquity, to colonize is to found a colony, a city depending on the metropolis and bénificiant of its laws and its protection. In 122 av. J. - C. the Powerful orator of the plebs C. Sempronius Gracchus, chief of the party of the Populares , based a colony on the territory of old Carthage: the colonia Iunonia Karthago . This colony was then only what exists apart from Italy. The grounds distributed to the colonists represented 300.000 ha, which implies a dispersion of the colonists in the province. In 121 av. J. - C. Gracchus was assassinated and the party of the populares replaced by that of the Optimates , representatives of the Roman aristocracy; the movement of colonization undergoes a crushing argument then.

The province of Africa was bordered in the West and the South by the kingdom numide, organized after the Second Punic War by the king massyle Massinissa, combined to Scipion the African. To died of Micipsa, wire of Massinissa, a quarrel on its succession opposed its sons Adherbal and Hiempsal and its nephew Jugurtha. This quarrel led to a war in which Rome had to intervene against Jugurtha. In 111 av. J. - C. a first campaign carried out by the consul L. Calpurnius Bestia had only little effect. It was necessary in 107 av. J. - C. to conduct a new campaign against king Numide. It is the consul Marius and his second Sylla who, thanks to the alliance of the king Moor Bocchus, succeeded in capturing Jugurtha in 105 av. J. - C.. Numidie was not entirely annexed to the province. Only is and the south of the kingdom, its outlet on the plains of the Medjerba and the gulf of the Petite Syrte, was attached to the ager publicus . The town of Leptis Magna, located in this area, accepted it privilege of freedom to be itself arranged side of Rome in the conflict. The Numide kingdom itself was given to a half-brother of Jugurtha, Gauda, which divided it later between its two sons. From there it was hardly more than one Roman protectorate.

The fight between Marius and Sylla

At the time of the war carried out against Jugurtha the Marius consul, who became chief of the populares in Rome, had engaged in his army of the “proletarians”, of the peasants without ground. To reward them for their fidelity, it made vote in Rome in 103 av. J. - C. a law allotting to each veteran 252 ha of grounds. The auxiliaries recruited in the wandering people of the Gétules accepted as these gifts at the same time as the Roman citizenship. The establishments of these veterans were done in the area of the kingdom numide recently annexed, which made it possible to consolidate the border with the territories of king Gauda. The establishment was important, gathering 6 000 with 10 000 people. One cannot however see a colonization with the clean direction there since no colony was founded in this territory. At the time of the civil war which opposed the partisans of Marius and those of his old second Sylla between 88 and 83 av. J. - C., Africa constituted a bastion for the marianists, grace in particular to the presence of these veterans of the army of Marius.

In 81 av. J. - C. the marianists of Africa détronèrent king de Numidie Eastern Hiempsal II, wire of Gauda, in favor of Sylla. They were overcome by an alliance gathering the king Bocchus Moor and the second of Sylla, Pompée and in 80 av. J. - C. Hiempsal was restored. The syllaniens recognized even a jurisdiction to him on Gétules makes Roman citizens by Marius. In 75 av. J. - C. the populares prevented the return in the bosom numide territories annexed in 105 av. J. - C., but he was recognized in Hiempsal in 64 av. J. - C. the independence of his grounds with respect to the ager publicus . The king numide is then an ally of the optimates and pompéiens, successors to a certain extent syllaniens. The competition growing between Jules César and Pompée does not fail to have effects on the kingdom numide. In 50 av. J. - C., with died of Hiempsal, the powerful orator césarien Curion proposes the Eastern annexation of Numidie, which precipitates new king Juba Ier in the camp pompéien, which controls all the province then.

The fight between César and Pompée

In 49 av. J. - C. the first forwarding carried out by Curion is demolished by the troops numides. At the time of the defeat pompéienne of Pharsale in 48 av. J. - C., the leaders of the party pompéien take refuge in Africa, where they form with the armies numides a force of more than 70.000 men, last obstacle for César. This last unloads in 47 av. J. - C. with six legions. It counts on the alliance of the king Moor and that of Gétules, subjected to Numides since 80 av. J. - C.. In 46 av. J. - C., a campanien exiled in Maurétanie, P. Sittius, succeeds in with the support Moor overcoming king de Numidie Western, Massinissa II, engaged at the sides of his/her Juba cousin. Numides and the pompéiens are taken between two fires and overcome in the plain of Thapsus. King Juba commits suicide, just as Caton d' Utique the leader pompéien. The victory of César is thus total.

César reorganizes Roman Africa: the kingdom of Numidie Western for half is annexed by the kingdom Moor and for half entrusted to P. Sittius; the kingdom of Numidie Eastern is annexed to the ager publicus and becomes a new province: the Africa nova or Africa new. To differentiate it the old province from Africa takes then the name of Africa vetus old Africa. In the line line of the policy of Marius, César includes colonization in Africa by sending Italian, but such Gallic veterans even African to base ports on the African coast. This policy enables him to install its veterans, but also to control the ways of coastal traffic of corn African, necessary to the supply of Rome.

The catch in hand of Africa by Octave

This new organization is upset by the third civil war, which opposes between 44 and 42 av. J. - C. the heirs to César, Octave, Lépide and Marc Antoine, and the assassins of César, Brutus and Cassius. The prince numide Arabion, wire of last king de Numidie Western, tries to reconquer his kingdom on Sittius in 44 av. J. - C.. At the same time the governor of new Africa, T. Sextius, in favor of the triumvirate césarien, eliminates his counterpart from old Africa, in favor of the Senate. In 41 av. J. - C. it eliminates Arabion and offers to the triumvirate plain Africa. The latter is entrusted in 40 av. J. - C. to Lépide. But in 36 av. J. - C. this last intrigues against Octave, which confiscates its possessions to him. The two provinces of Africa from now on are controlled by the same magistrate, generally old Consul, which carries the title of proconsul, from where the name of Africa proconsulaire that one gives to the province unified in 27 av. J. - C..

Africa under the High-Empire

The imperial reorganization

Octave, known since 27 av. J. - C. under the name of Auguste, takes again the voluntary policy of colonization of Jules César, put somewhat in withdrawal by Lépide. The policy augustéenne consists in accentuating the romanisation of Africa by structuring it on the model of the city. For that an urban hierarchy is installation, distinguishing the colonies, the municipes and the cities pérégrines.

Auguste founds in particular a circle of Roman colonies around Carthage, but also in new Africa with the borders of the Maurétanie. These colonies undoubtedly have like drank that to reinforce the romanisation of Africa by the establishment of town cores functioning on the Roman model. The most important colony augustéenne was that of Cirta, city in the center of the principality of Sittius which was not annexed to the province of Africa. At the other end of the Roman territory of Africa, the town of Carthage sees its increased privileges: it becomes capital province, profits from a tax exemption and especially is equipped with an extended territory, the pertica Karthagensis sown pagi and of castella which is communities of Romans installed in Africa but who do not constitute cities.

With the second rank are the municipes, cities who receive privileges of administration comparable with the towns of Italy, but without contribution of Roman colonists. The statute of Municipe thus takes part in the promotion of towns of indigenous origin. These cities, are initially three counted among the seven free cities of the moment of the Roman conquest: Hippone, Utique and Mustis. This statute of municipe was granted to them only because these cities count a majority of Roman citizens in their population, downward majority of the marianists installations and Cesareans. Their institutions, copied on those of Rome, are distinguished from the indigenous cities mainly by the presence of a senate, also called curie, and assemblies of the people.

The curia of these cities constitutes true a ordo , elite of the cities, which has its privileges and its Cursus honorum: one begins municipal official, one becomes to duumvir, then to duumvir quinquennial (critic), and finally flamine perpetual when one manages the imperial Culte. This last load is particular since it is exclusively nun. Lastly, the Questeur does not form part of the course honorum, it is more one drudgery. At the time of the entry in load, the magistrates must discharge a honorary Somme which constitutes a good portion of the budget of the city: 38 000 sesterces for the duumvirs with Carthage or 20 000 with Cirta.

Finally the indigenous cities are transfered to confer the statute of cities pérégrines, which recognized a clean legal personality to them and the capacity to manage itself according to their own habits. One often finds there an administration directed by two magistrates called the Suffète S, which seems to have a Carthaginian origin and is found in the most important cities. Many towns of more small size are directed by a council of eleven members, called the undecimprimi . These cities pérégrines remained however apart from the Roman law and their inhabitants did not profit from the Roman citizenship.

The relationship with Maurétanie

The kingdom of Maurétanie was in right completely independent of Rome, even if in the facts the sovereigns Moors were to compose with the Roman policy to preserve their States. This situation ended in 33 av. J. - C. when the king Bocchus II bequeathed his kingdom to Octave. This transfer was not without political ambiguity for the future Auguste: being posed as a restorer values old morals and respecting republican legality seemingly, it was impossible for him to become king. He thus chooses a complex solution: it gave kingdom to ager publicus (i.e. it made of it the property of the Romain People), but there installed a sovereign, the prince numide Juba II, wire of last king de Numidie Eastern, which had been raised by the sister of Auguste, Octavie. Juba II was married with Cléopâtre Séléné, girl of Marc Antoine and Cléopâtre. The new king, installed on the throne in 25 av. J. - C., was to be used as symbol of the union of Africa with the romanity. The Maurétanie thus formed a kingdom distinct from the province of Africa proconsulaire until the death of Ptolémée the son of Juba and Cléopâtre in 39 a. J. - C.. As of 41 the Maurétanie was organized in Roman provinces, Tingitane and Césarienne. Maurétanies are then imperial provinces, whereas Proconsulaire, of which they form to some extent romanisées steps, less urbanized, is a senatorial Province.

Maurétanie is divided into two provinces separated by a littoral band from 300 km to the accesses of the Moulouya river:

the Maurétanie Tingitane, around Tingi (Tangier), Volubilis and Sala (Reduction), and
the Maurétanie Césarienne, around Césarée, old capital of Juba II.

A Procurateur ducénaire (which gains 200 000 sesterces), named per annum by the emperor, controlled these provinces, with defending it of the auxiliary units, divided into Ailes of cavalry and Cohortes of infantry, often made up of riders émésiens.

The defense of these provinces was ensured, in Maurétanie Tingitane by about fifteen forts, in particular posted on the Sebou river, and a wall enters Sala and the Atlas, in the south, in Maurétanie Césarienne, with two military roads parallel with the littoral.

Maurétanie will be also reorganized by Dioclétien at the end of the 3rd century: the Maurétanie Sitifienne is detached from the Cesarean, while Maurétanie Tingitane is attached to the prefecture of Spain.

The role of the army

In 27 av. J. - C. Octave annexed Numidie Eastern or new Africa with the province of old Africa. By doing this, it left in place in a permanent way a legion, the III Augusta . The role of this legion was of great importance in the history of the province. A troop was detached in Carthage, under the direct orders of the proconsul, to ensure the protection and the police force of the city and the pertica of Carthage. The Roman Armée in Africa is consisted of the legion, but also of auxiliary units, which form half of manpower.

The permanent presence of an army in Africa is made necessary by the insecurity which make weigh on the province the tribes Gétules of the south of the Atlas. Between 17 and 24 a former member of the Roman auxiliary troops, Tacfarinas, gathers around him a tribal confederation, the Musulames, which gathers of Gétules of the south of Proconsulaire. It is combined with Cinithiens, populates sub-Saharan installed close to the Petite Syrte, and with tribes Moors revolted against Ptolémée. It thus encircles the Roman possessions in Africa. In spite of the intervention of one second legion, the IX Hispanica , in 20 at the sides of the III Augusta , Tacfarinas is not demolishes. The conflict calms down finally with the recognition by the proconsul of Africa of the right-of-way of the tribes gétules in Roman territory.

Between 37 and 41, the emperor Caligula withdraws with the proconsul d' Afrique the command of the III Augusta . It is thus the only legion not to be under the direction of the governor of its province of residence since an imperial legate named by the emperor the order. This “African exception” illustrates well the particular position of the province of Africa. This legion is initially based in Ammaedera, then with Thebeste into 75 after JC, then with Lambese, which becomes definitively its general headquarter, in 115 after JC. The legion, after the legate, is ordered by 6 powerful orators knights of which one, the Tribun laticlave, is a future senator. Beyond the general headquarter, the legion sends missions, the vexilationes , and groups in detachment, often made up in ethnic ways, the will numera .

After the revolts of Tacfarinas, the Roman armies of Africa will have to still face the agitation of the Nasamons and Garamante S in Tripolitaine, under Flaviens, then with revolts of the tribes Moors, which invade Spain while passing by Tingitane into 171, and foment disorders in Cesarean in years 220. Lastly, the Austuriani besiege Lepcis Magna into 253. The province of Africa knows also internal disorders: the troops of Maxence which plunder Carthage into 310, revolts of Firmus in 375, his/her brother Gildon, Count d' Afrique, in 388… and obviously the seizure of power of the emperor Gordien, governor of Africa, in 238, which involves the temporary removal of the third majestic legion.

The hierarchy of the cities

The dynasty of the Flaviens revival the policy of promotion of the model of the city in Africa which Auguste had followed. This policy undergoes however installations which translate the greatest share granted to the promotion of the indigenous cities.

First of all one can strictly speaking notice breathlessness of the movement of colonization, i.e. of foundation of cities dependant on Rome by a group of Roman citizens, generally veterans. The last founded colony, that of Timgad is in 100, at the moment when the pax romana seems from now on to extend in Africa with the stop from the raids from tribes gétules, Moors or Saharan. The statute of colony becomes in Africa a purely honorary statute which decorates the cities being itself most completely comparable with the Roman model.

With the other end of the scale of the cities, the statute of the Municipe evolves/moves. The republican municipes and augustéens were municipes of Roman law, i.e. cities organized institutionnellement on the model of Rome, with magistrates, a senate and assemblies of the people, the municipes flaviens are municipes of Latin right. The Latin right goes back to the first phases of the Roman expansion, it had been reactivated by César which had distinguished several cities in Narbonnaise from this statute. The principal distinction of the Latin right with respect to the Roman law, it is the fact that the Roman citizenship is not allotted to all the population of the municipes of Latin right, but only with their elites. The use of this right, until there restricted with the Narbonnese, by Flaviens reveals the will of those to associate the indigenous elites with the process of romanisation.

Another innovation is the use of the untied Latin right of the municipal statute. Indeed the Latin right is conceded in modest cities pérégrines where the elites are too very few to form a senate, which prevents them from profiting from the municipal statute. Thus the association of the elites to the Romanitas exceeds the strict framework of the important cities.

A true honorary scale of the statute of the east cities thus installation, the city pérégrine acquiring thus gradually the Latin right, the municipat, Roman law and supreme ambition the honorary statute of colony. The various cities and their elites launch out thus in a race to the statute near the emperors, in particular sending embassies charged to acquire an additional statute, testimony of the success of the city. Indeed the towns of Africa profit during all the high-empire from a particularly flourishing economic context.

The religion in Africa

Year 312 constitutes a great turning in the history of the Roman Empire and Roman Africa: it is the conversion of Constantin the Large one with Christianity. Previously, the Christians were the target of periodic persecutions, due not as well to their quality of Christians as to their refusal to take part in the imperial worship, by which each Roman citizen expresses his membership of the Empire. After 312, the Christians are theoretically in strong position, which does not mean the disappearance of all the other religions, on the contrary. Christianity forever successful completely to impose itself in the facts on the whole of the African population. The religion of the Africans is composed of several layers: the lybic layer, which is a survival of the worships returned to the gods of panthéons numides and Moors, at one time when powerful kingdoms " berbères" occupied the space of the future African provinces. Such survivals are before very observable in rural environment, like saint Augustin, bishop of Hippone, attests it in several of its letters. Some of these gods are Macurgum, the healer, Macurtam and Iunam, the riders, for Numidie and Proconsulaire, the Aulisia goddess in Maurétanie; in the latter provinces, the Roman magistrates of the time former to the legalization of Christianity, concerned to reconcile the local gods, but having difficulties in pronounce their multiple names, are satisfied to indicate them under the Latin term of " dii mauri ." The second layer is composed of survivals of the punic religion, i.e. gods honoured by Carthage, before its destruction of 146 before Jesus-Christ. Initially, the Romans conquerors tried to join these gods by the rite of the evocatio , then, gradually, these gods took a new face, in contact with Roman civilization. The two principal punic gods were Baal Hammon and Tanit, protective of Carthage and they were compared to Saturn and Caelestis Romans, by the means of the " interpretatio romana ", term employed by Tacit in its works, which indicates a kind of Syncrétisme; it is to be specified that, while having found equivalents Roman, these gods preserved their African characteristics, which the history Glay perfectly analyzed in its main work entitled " Saturn africain." The Saturn temple with Thugga, for example, takes the shape of a punic temple. Macurgum and Eshmoun are associated with Esculape, Melqart with Hercules. The third layer is that of the official Roman religion, which is not essential by the force, but which all the same constrained inhabitants of the Empire having acquired Roman citizenship, to adhere to some basic principles, summarized by the adoption of the Triade capitoline and the imperial Culte. The Eastern worships are diffused quickly, with the assistance of the civils servant, the army especially and the Roman tradesmen: Esculape as of the 2nd century, Mithra in the soldiers, especially in Maurétanie, Cybèle, protective of Antonins, with the 2nd century, and Isis and Sérapis, devoted by their appearance on the triumphal arch of Severe Lepcis of Septime. The imperial worship takes forms animists with a source devoted to Septime Severe, close to Timgad… finally the sacrifice of children is the subject of substitution: a lamb replaces it at the last time. However they perdurent: at the 3rd century one still found small aligned tomb stones, in the countryside… The imperial worship is organized by the municipalities: inscriptions, temples, brotherhoods of freed: colleges of Sévirs, flamines particular or perpetual, statues… and on the level of the province within the provincial council of sacerdotal which defends the interests of the province in addition, near the emperor, against the abuses the governors. For Christianity in Africa to see Roman Africa.

See too

Internal bonds

Posterity of the province in the Islamic Empire: to see Ifriqiya.

External bonds

Greek and Roman Libya by Claude Sintès, Conservative as a chief of the Inheritance.

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