The Provinces of the Roman Empire 47

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 47

In a similar sense the internal organisation of the country was

regulated. It was based, as in Italy on the Latin and in the East on

the Hellenic urban community, so here on the Phoenician. When the

Roman rule in Africa began, the Carthaginian territory at that time

consisted predominantly of urban communities, for the most part small,

of which there were counted three hundred, each administered by its

sufetes;[296] and the republic had made no change in this respect.

Even in the kingdoms the towns formerly Phoenician had retained their

organisation under the native rulers, and at least Calama--an inland

town of Numidia hardly of Phoenician foundation--had demonstrably

the same Phoenician municipal constitution; the civilisation which

Massinissa gave to his kingdom must have consisted essentially in his

transforming the villages of the agricultural Berbers into towns after

the Phoenician model. The same will hold good of the few older urban

communities which existed in Mauretania before Augustus. So far as

we see, the two annually changing sufetes of the African communities

coincide in the main with the analogous presidents of the community

in the Italian municipal constitution; and that in other respects,

_e.g._ in the common councils among the Carthaginians formed after a

fashion altogether divergent from the Italian (ii. 16) {ii. 15.}, the

Phoenician urban constitution of Roman Africa has preserved national

peculiarities, does not at least admit of proof.[297] But the fact

itself that the contrast, if even but formal, of the Phoenician town

to the Italian was retained was, like the permission of the language,

a recognition of the Phoenician nationality and a certain security

for its continuance even under Roman rule. That it was recognised

in the first instance as the regular form of administration of the

African territory, is proved by the establishment of Carthage by Caesar

primarily as a Phoenician city as well under the old sufetes[298] as

in a certain measure with the old inhabitants, seeing that a great,

perhaps the greatest part of the new burgesses was taken from the

surrounding townships, again also under the protection of the great

goddess of the Punic Carthage, the queen of heaven Astarte, who at

that time marched in with her votaries anew into her old abode. It

is true that in Carthage itself this organisation soon gave place

to the Italian colonial constitution, and the protecting patroness

Astarte became the--at least in name--Latin Caelestis. But in the rest

of Africa and in Numidia the Phoenician urban organisation probably

remained throughout the first century the predominant one, in so far

as it pertained to all communities of recognised municipal rights and

lacking Roman or Latin organisation. Abolished in the proper sense

it doubtless was not, as in fact sufetes still occur under Pius; but

by degrees they everywhere make way for the duoviri, and the changed

principle of government entails in this sphere also its ultimate

consequences.

 

[Sidenote: Transformation of the Phoenician towns into Italian.]

 

The transformation of Phoenician urban rights into Italian began under

Caesar. The old Phoenician town of Utica, predecessor and heiress of

Carthage--as some compensation for the severe injury to its interests

by the restoration of the old capital of the country--obtained, as

the first Italian organisation in Africa, perhaps from the dictator

Caesar, Latin rights, certainly from his successor Augustus the

position of a Roman _municipium_. The town of Tingi received the

same rights, in gratitude for the fidelity which it had maintained

during the Perusine war (p. 311). Several others soon followed; yet

the number of communities with Roman rights in Africa down to Trajan

and Hadrian remained limited.[299] Thenceforth there were assigned on

a great scale--although, so far as we see, throughout by individual

bestowal--to communities hitherto Phoenician municipal or else colonial

rights; for the latter too were subsequently as a rule conferred

merely in a titular way without settlement of colonists. If the

dedications and memorials of all sorts, that formerly appeared but

sparingly in Africa, present themselves in abundance from the beginning

of the second century, this was doubtless chiefly the consequence of

the adoption of numerous townships into the imperial union of the towns

with best rights.

 

[Sidenote: Settlement of Italian colonists in Africa.]

 

Besides the conversion of Phoenician towns into Italian _municipia_ or

colonies, not a few towns of Italian rights arose in Africa by means

of the settlement of Italian colonists. For this too the dictator

Caesar laid the foundation--as indeed for no province perhaps so much

as for Africa were the paths prescribed by him--and the emperors of

the first dynasty followed his example. We have already spoken of the

founding of Carthage; the town obtained not at once, but very soon,

Italian settlers and therewith Italian organisation and full rights

of Roman citizenship. Beyond doubt from the outset destined once more

to be the capital of the province and laid out as a great city, it

rapidly in point of fact became so. Carthage and Lugudunum were the

only cities of the West which, besides the capital of the empire, had

a standing garrison of imperial troops. Moreover in Africa--in part

certainly already by the dictator, in part only by the first emperor--a

series of small country-towns in the districts nearest to Sicily,

Hippo Diarrhytus, Clupea, Curubi, Neapolis, Carpi, Maxula, Uthina,

Great-Thuburbo, Assuras, were furnished with colonies, probably not

merely to provide for veterans, but to promote the Latinising of this

region. The two colonies which arose at that time in the former kingdom

of Numidia, Cirta with its dependencies, and New-Cirta or Sicca, were

the result of special obligations of Caesar towards the leader of free

bands Publius Sittius from Nuceria and his Italiano-African bands

(iv. 470, 574) {iv. 447, 544.}. The former, inasmuch as the territory

on which it was laid out belonged at that time to a client-state (p.

311, note), obtained a peculiar and very independent organisation, and

retained it in part even later, although it soon became an imperial

city. Both rose rapidly and became considerable centres of Roman

civilisation in Africa.

 

[Sidenote: And in Mauretania.]

 

The colonisation, which Augustus undertook in the kingdom of Juba and

Claudius carried forward, bore another character. In Mauretania, still

at that time very primitive, there was a want both of towns and of the

elements for creating them; the settlement of soldiers of the Roman

army, who had served out their time, brought civilisation here into

a barbarous land. Thus in the later province of Caesarea along the

coast Igilgili, Saldae, Rusazu, Rusguniae, Gunugi, Cartenna (Tenes),

and farther away from the sea Thubusuptu and Zuccabar, were settled

with Augustan, and Oppidum Novum with Claudian, veterans; as also

in the province of Tingi under Augustus Zilis, Babba, Banasa, under

Claudius Lix. These communities with Roman burgess-rights were not, as

was already observed, under the kings of Mauretania, so long as there

were such, but were attached administratively to the adjoining Roman

province; consequently there was involved in these settlements, as

it were, a beginning towards the annexation of Mauretania.[300] The

pushing forward of civilisation, such as Augustus and Claudius aimed

at, was not subsequently continued, or at any rate continued only to

a very limited extent, although there was room enough for it in the

western half of the province of Caesarea and in that of Tingi; that

the later colonies regularly proceeded from titular bestowal without

settlement, has already been remarked (p. 332).

 

[Sidenote: Large landed estates.]

 

Alongside of this urban organisation we have specially to mention

that of the large landed estates in this province. According to Roman

arrangement it fitted itself regularly into the communal constitution;

even the extension of the _latifundia_ affected this relationship

less injuriously than we should think, since these, as a rule, were

not locally compact and were often distributed among several urban

territories. But in Africa the large estates were not merely more

numerous and more extensive than elsewhere, but these assumed also the

compactness of urban territories; around the landlord’s house there was

formed a settlement, which was not inferior to the small agricultural

towns of the province, and, if its president and common councillors

often did not venture and still oftener were not able to subject such a

fellow-burgess to the full payment of the communal burdens falling upon

him, the _de facto_ release of these estates from the communal bond of

union became still further marked, when such a possession passed over

into the hands of the emperor.[301] But this early occurred in Africa

to a great extent; Nero in particular, lighted with his confiscations

on the landowners, as is said, of half Africa, and what was once

imperial was wont to remain so. The small lessees, to whom the domanial

estate was farmed out, appear for the most part to have been brought

from abroad, and these imperial _coloni_ may be reckoned in a certain

measure as belonging to the Italian immigration.

 

[Sidenote: Organisation of the Berber communities.]

 

We have formerly remarked (p. 306) that the Berbers formed a

considerable portion of the population of Numidia and Mauretania

through the whole time of the Roman rule. But as to their internal

organisation hardly more can be ascertained than the emergence of the

clan (_gens_)[302] instead of the urban organisation under duoviri or

sufetes. The societies of the natives were not, like those of North

Italy, assigned as subjects to individual urban communities, but were

placed like the towns immediately under the governors, doubtless also,

where it seemed necessary, under a Roman officer specially placed over

them (_praefectus gentis_), and further under authorities of their

own[303]--the “headman” (_princeps_), who in later times bore possibly

the title of king, and the “eleven first.” Presumably this arrangement

was monarchical in contrast to the collegiate one of the Phoenician as

of the Latin community, and there stood alongside of the tribal chief a

limited number of elders instead of the numerous senate of decuriones

of the towns. The communities of natives in Roman Africa seem to have

attained afterwards to Italian organisation only by way of exception;

the African towns with Italian rights, which did not originate from

immigration, had doubtless for the most part Phoenician civic rights

previously. Exceptions occur chiefly in the case of transplanted

tribes, as indeed the considerable town Thubursicum originated from

such a forced settlement of Numidians. The Berber communities possessed

especially the mountains and the steppes; they obeyed the foreigners,

without either the masters or the subjects feeling any desire to come

to terms with one another; and, when other foreigners invaded the land,

their position in presence of the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Arabs,

the French, remained almost on the old footing.

 

[Sidenote: Husbandry.]

 

In the economy of the soil the eastern half of Africa vies with Egypt.

Certainly the soil is unequal, and rocks and steppes occupy not

only the greater portion of the western half, but also considerable

tracts in the eastern; here too there were various inaccessible

mountain-regions, which yielded but slowly or not at all to

civilisation; particularly on the rocky ridges along the coast the

Roman rule left few or no traces. Even the Byzacene, the south-eastmost

part of the proconsular province, is only designated as a specially

productive region by an erroneous generalisation of what holds good

as to individual coast districts and oases; from Sufetula (Sbitla)

westward the land is waterless and rocky; in the fifth century A.D.

Byzacene was reckoned to have about a half less per cent of land

capable of culture than the other African provinces. But the northern

and north-western portion of the proconsular province, above all the

valley of the largest river in north Africa, the Bagradas (Mejerda),

and not less a considerable part of Numidia, yield abundant grain

crops, almost like the valley of the Nile. In the favoured districts

the country towns, very frequent, as their ruins show, lay so near

to each other that the population here cannot have been much less

dense than in the land of the Nile, and according to all traces it

prosecuted especially husbandry. The mighty armed masses, with which

after the defeat at Pharsalus the republicans in Africa took up the

struggle against Caesar, were formed of these peasants, so that in the

year of war the fields lay untilled. Since Italy used more corn than

it produced, it was primarily dependent, in addition to the Italian

islands, on the almost equally near Africa; and after it became subject

to the Romans, its corn went thither not merely by way of commerce,

but above all as tribute. Already in Cicero’s time the capital of

the empire doubtless subsisted for the most part on African corn;

through the admission of Numidia under Caesar’s dictatorship the corn

thenceforth coming in as tribute increased according to the estimate

about 1,200,000 Roman bushels (525,000 hectolitres) annually. After the

Egyptian corn supplies were instituted under Augustus, for the third

part of the corn used in Rome North Africa was reckoned upon, and Egypt

for a like amount; while the desolated Sicily, Sardinia, and Baetica,

along with Italy’s own production, covered the rest of the need. In

what measure the Italy of the imperial period was dependent for its

subsistence on Africa is shown by the measures taken during the wars

between Vitellius and Vespasian and between Severus and Pescennius;

Vespasian thought that he had conquered Italy when he occupied Egypt

and Africa; Severus sent a strong army to Africa to hinder Pescennius from occupying it.