The Provinces of the Roman Empire 44

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 44

The states of Massinissa, of Bocchus, of Bogud, as also

the Carthaginian, proceeded from the northern verge, and all the

civilisation of North Africa is based pre-eminently on this coast;

but, so far as we can discern, they all regarded the tribes settled

or roving in the south as subjects, and, if they withdrew themselves

from subjection, as insurgents, so far as the distance and the desert

did not by doing away with contact do away with control. Neighbouring

states, with which relations of right or of treaty might have

subsisted, can hardly be pointed out in the south of northern Africa,

or where such a one appears, such as, in particular, the kingdom of the

Garamantes, its position is not to be strictly distinguished from that

of the hereditary principalities within the civilised territory. This

was the case also as regards Roman Africa; as for the previous rulers,

so also doubtless for Roman civilisation there was to be found a limit

to the south, but hardly so for the Roman territorial supremacy. There

is never mention of any formal extension or taking back of the frontier

in Africa; the insurrections in the Roman territory, and the inroads

of the neighbouring peoples, look here all the more similar to each

other, as even in the regions undoubtedly in Roman possession, still

more than in Syria or Spain, many a remote and impassable district knew

nothing of Roman taxation and of Roman recruiting. For that reason it

seems appropriate to connect with the view of the several provinces

at the same time the slight information which has been left to us in

historical tradition, or by means of preserved monuments, respecting

the friendly or hostile relations of the Romans with their southern

neighbours.

 

[Sidenote: Province of Africa and Numidia.]

 

The former territory of Carthage and the larger part of the earlier

kingdom of Numidia, united with it by the dictator Caesar, or, as they

also called it, the old and the new Africa, formed until the end of the

reign of Tiberius the province of that name, which extended from the

boundary of Cyrene to the river Ampsaga, embracing the modern state

of Tripoli as well as Tunis and the French province of Constantine

(iv. 470 f.) {iv. 447.}. The government, however, for this territory,

which was considerable, and required an extended frontier-defence,

reverted under the emperor Gaius in the main to the twofold division

of the republican times, and committed the portion of the province

that did not stand in need of special border-defence to the civil

government, and the rest of the territory furnished with garrisons to

a military commandant not further amenable to its authority. The cause

of this was, that Africa in the partition of the provinces between

emperor and senate was given to the latter, and, as from the state

of things there a command on a larger scale could not be dispensed

with, the co-ordination of the governor delegated by the senate and

of the military commandant nominated by the emperor--which latter

according to the subsisting hierarchy was placed under the orders of

the former--could not but provoke and did provoke collisions between

these officials and even between emperor and senate. To this an end was

put in the year 37 by an arrangement that the coast-land from Hippo

(Bonah), as far as the borders of Cyrene, should retain the old name

of Africa and should remain with the proconsul, whereas the western

part of the province with the capital Cirta (Constantine), as well

as the interior with the great military camps to the north of the

Aures, and generally all territory furnished with garrisons, should

be placed under the commandant of the African legion. This commandant

had senatorial rank, but belonged not to the consular, but to the

praetorial class.

 

[Sidenote: The two Mauretanian kingdoms.]

 

The western half of North Africa was divided at the time of the

dictator Caesar (iv. 461) {iv. 438.} into the two kingdoms of Tingi

(Tangier), at that time under king Bogud and of Iol, the later

Caesarea (Zershell), at that time under king Bocchus. As both kings

had as decidedly taken the side of Caesar in the struggle against

the republicans as king Juba of Numidia had taken the side of the

opposite party, and as they had rendered most essential services to

him during the African and the Spanish wars, not merely were both left

in possession of their rule, but the domain of Bocchus, and probably

also that of Bogud, was enlarged by the victor.[278] Then, when the

rivalries between Antonius and Caesar the younger began, king Bogud

alone in the west placed himself on the side of Antonius, and on the

instigation of his brother and of his wife invaded Spain during the

Perusine war (714) {40 B.C.}; but his neighbour Bocchus and his own

capital Tingis took part for Caesar and against him. At the conclusion

of peace Antonius allowed Bogud to fall, and Caesar gave the rest of

his territory to king Bocchus, but gave Roman municipal rights to the

town of Tingis. When, some years later, a rupture took place between

the two rulers, the ex-king took part energetically in the struggle in

the hope of regaining his kingdom on this occasion, but at the capture

of the Messenian town Methone he was taken prisoner by Agrippa and

executed.

 

[Sidenote: Juba II.]

 

Already some years before (721) {33 B.C.} king Bocchus had died;

his kingdom, the whole of western Africa, was soon afterwards (729)

{25 B.C.} obtained by the son of the last Numidian king, Juba II.,

the husband of Cleopatra, the daughter of Antonius by the Egyptian

queen.[279] Both had been exhibited to the Roman public in early youth

as captive kings’ children, Juba in the triumphal procession of Caesar

the father, Cleopatra in that of the son; it was a wonderful juncture

that they now were sent away from Rome as king and queen of the most

esteemed vassal-state of the empire, but it was in keeping with the

circumstances. Both were brought up in the imperial family; Cleopatra

was treated by the legitimate wife of her father with motherly kindness

like her own children; Juba had served in Caesar’s army. The youth of

the dependent princely houses, which was numerously represented at the

imperial court and played a considerable part in the circle around

the imperial princes, was generally employed in the early imperial

period for the filling up of the vassal principalities, after a similar

manner, according to free selection, as the first class in rank of the

senate was employed for the filling up of the governorships of Syria

and Germany. For almost fifty years (729-775 U.C., 25 B.C-A.D. 23) he,

and after him his son Ptolemaeus, bore rule over western Africa; it is

true that, like the town Tingis from his predecessor, a considerable

number of the most important townships, particularly on the coast, was

withdrawn from him by the bestowal of Roman municipal rights, and,

apart from the capital, these kings of Mauretania were almost nothing

but princes of the Berber tribes.

 

[Sidenote: Erection of the provinces of Caesarea and Tingi.]

 

This government lasted up to the year 40, when it appeared fitting to

the emperor Gaius, chiefly on account of the rich treasure, to call

his cousin to Rome, to deliver him there to the executioner, and to

take the territory into imperial administration. Both rulers were

unwarlike, the father a Greek man of letters after the fashion of this

period, compiling so-called memorabilia of a historical or geographical

kind, or relative to the history of art, in endless books, noteworthy

by his--we might say--international literary activity, well read in

Phoenician and Syrian literature, but exerting himself above all to

diffuse the knowledge of Roman habits and of so-called Roman history

among the Hellenes, moreover, a zealous friend of art and frequenter

of the theatre; the son a prince of the common type, passing his time

in court-life and princely luxury. Among their subjects they were

held of little account, whether as regards their personality or as

vassals of the Romans; against the Gaetulians in the south king Juba

had on several occasions to invoke the help of the Roman governor,

and, when in Roman Africa the prince of the Numidians, Tacfarinas,

revolted against the Romans, the Moors flocked in troops to his banner.

Nevertheless the end of the dynasty and the introduction of Roman

provincial government into the land made a deep impression. The Moors

were faithfully devoted to their royal house; altars were still erected

under the Roman rule in Africa to the kings of the race of Massinissa

(p. 305). Ptolemaeus, whatever he might be otherwise, was Massinissa’s

genuine descendant in the sixth generation, and the last of the old

royal house. A faithful servant of his, Aedemon, after the catastrophe

called the mountain-tribes of the Atlas to arms, and it was only after

a hard struggle that the governor Suetonius Paullinus--the same who

afterwards fought with the Britons (I. 179)--was able to master the

revolt (in the year 42). In the organisation of the new territory

the Romans reverted to the earlier division into an eastern and a

western half, or, as they were thenceforth called from the capitals,

into the provinces of Caesarea and of Tingi; or rather they retained

that division, for it was, as will be afterwards shown, necessarily

suggested by the physical and political relations of the territory,

and must have continued to subsist even under the same sceptre in one

or the other form. Each of these provinces was furnished with imperial

troops of the second class, and placed under an imperial governor not

belonging to the senate.

 

The state and the destinies of this great and peculiar new seat of

Latin civilisation were conditioned by the physical constitution of

North Africa. It is formed by two great mountain-masses, of which the

northern falls steeply towards the Mediterranean, while the southern,

the Atlas, slopes off slowly in the Sahara-steppe dotted with numerous

oases towards the desert proper. A smaller steppe, similar on the whole

to the Sahara and dotted with numerous salt-lakes, serves in the middle

portion, the modern Algeria, to separate the mountains on the north

coast and those on the southern frontier. There are in North Africa no

extensive plains capable of culture; the coast of the Mediterranean

Sea has a level foreland only in a few districts; the land capable of

cultivation, according to the modern __EXPRESSION__ the Tell, consists

essentially of the numerous valleys and slopes within those two broad

mountain-masses, and so extends to its greatest width where, as in the

modern Morocco and in Tunis, no steppe intervenes between the northern

and the southern border.

 

[Sidenote: Tripolis.]

 

The region of Tripolis, politically a part of the province of

Africa, stands as respects its natural relations outside of the

territory described, and is annexed to it in peninsular fashion. The

frontier-range sloping down towards the Mediterranean Sea touches at

the bay of Tacapae (Gabes), with its foreland of steppe and salt-lake,

immediately on the shore. To the south of Tacapae as far as the Great

Syrtis there extends along the coast the narrow Tripolitan island of

cultivation, bounded inland towards the steppe by a chain of moderate

height. Beyond it begins the steppe-country with numerous oases. The

protection of the coast against the inhabitants of the desert is here

of special difficulty, because the high margin of mountains is wanting; and traces of this are apparent in the accounts that have come to us of the military expeditions and the military positions in this region.