The Provinces of the Roman Empire 67

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 67

Cyprian, _Quod idola dii non sint_, c. 2: _Mauri manifeste

reges suos colunt nec ullo velamento hoc nomen obtexunt_. Tertullian,

_Apolog._ 24: _Mauretaniae (dei sunt) reguli sui_. _C. I. L._ viii.,

8834: _Iemsali L. Percenius L. f. Stel. Rogatus v. (s. l. a.)_, found

at Thubusuptu in the region of Sitifis, which place may well have

belonged to the Numidian kingdom of Hiempsal. Thus the inscription also

of Thubursicum (_C. I. L._ viii. n. 7* comp. _Eph. epigr._ v. p. 651,

n. 1478) must have rather been badly copied than falsified. Still,

in the year 70, it was alleged that in Mauretania a pretender to the

throne had ascribed to himself the name of Juba (Tacitus, _Hist._ ii.

58).

 

[278] This is attested for the year 705 {49 B.C.} as regards both by

Dio, xli. 42 (comp. Suetonius, _Caes._ 54). In the year 707 {47 B.C.}

Bogud lends assistance to the Caesarian governor of Spain (_Bell.

Alex._ 59, 60), and repels an incursion of the younger Gnaeus Pompeius

(_Bell. Afric._ 23). Bocchus, in combination with P. Sittius, in the

African war makes a successful diversion against Juba and conquers

even the important Cirta (_Bell. Afr._ 23; Appian, ii. 96; Dio, xliii.

3). The two obtained in return from Caesar the territory of the prince

Massinissa (Appian, iv. 54). In the second Spanish war Bogud appears

in the army of Caesar (Dio, xliii. 36, 38); the statement that the son

of Bocchus had served in the Pompeian army (Dio, _l. c._) must be a

confusion, probably with Arabio the son of Massinissa, who certainly

went to the sons of Pompeius (Appian, _l. c._). After Caesar’s death

Arabio possessed himself afresh of his dominion (Appian, _l. c._),

but after his death in the year 714 {40 B.C.} (Dio, xlviii. 22) the

Caesarian arrangement must have again taken effect in its full extent.

The bestowal on Bocchus and Sittius is probably to be understood to

the effect that, in the western part of the former Numidian kingdom

otherwise left to Bocchus, the colony of Cirta to be founded by

Sittius was to be regarded as an independent Roman town, like Tingi

subsequently in the kingdom of Mauretania.

 

[279] If, according to Dio, xl. 43, Caesar in the year 721 {33

B.C.} after the death of Bocchus, nominates no successor, but makes

Mauretania a province, and then (li. 15) in the year 724 {30 B.C.},

on occasion of the end of the queen of Egypt, there is mention of

the marriage of her daughter with Juba and his investiture with his

father’s kingdom, and, lastly (liii. 26), under the year 729 {25 B.C.}

there is reported Juba’s investiture with a portion of Gaetulia instead

of his hereditary kingdom, as well as with the kingdoms of Bocchus and

Bogud; only the last account confirmed by Strabo, xvii. 3, 7, p. 828,

is correct. The first is at least incorrect in its way of apprehending

the matter, as Mauretania evidently was not made a province in 721

{33 B.C.}, but only the investiture was held in abeyance for the time

being; and the second partly anticipates, since Cleopatra, born before

the triumph about 719 (_Eph. epigr._ i., p. 276), could not possibly be

married in 724, and is partly mistaken, because Juba certainly never

got back his paternal kingdom as such. If he had been king of Numidia

before 729, and if it had been merely the extent of his kingdom that

then underwent a change, he would have counted his years from the first

installation and not merely from 729.

 

[280] That Balbus carried on this campaign as proconsul of Africa,

is shown in particular by the triumphal Fasti; but the consul L.

Cornelius of the year 732 must have been another person, since Balbus,

according to Velleius ii. 51, obtained that consular governorship, _ex

privato consularis_, _i.e._ without having filled a curule office.

The nomination, therefore, cannot have taken place according to the

usual arrangement by lot. To all appearance he fell into disgrace

with Augustus for good reasons on account of his Spanish quaestorship

(Drumann ii. 609), and was then, after the lapse of more than twenty

years, sent, as an extraordinary measure, to Africa, on account of his

undoubted aptitude for this specially difficult task.

 

[281] The tribes whom Tacitus names in his account of the war, far

from clear, as always, in a geographical point of view, may be in some

measure determined; and the position between the Leptitanian and the

Cirtensian columns (_Ann._ iii. 74) points for the middle column to

Theveste. The town of Thala (_Ann._ iii. 20) cannot possibly be sought

above Ammaedara, but is probably the Thala of the Jugurthan war in the

vicinity of Capsa. The last section of the war has its arena in western

Mauretania about Auzia (iv. 25), and accordingly in Thubuscum (iv. 24)

there lurks possibly Thubusuptu or Thubusuctu. The river Pagyda (_Ann._

iii. 20) is quite indefinable.

 

[282] Ptolemaeus, iv. 3, 23, puts the Musulamii southward from the

Aures, and it is only in accord therewith that they are called in

Tacitus ii. 52, dwellers beside the steppe and neighbours of the

Mauri; later they are settled to the north and west of Theveste (_C.

I. L._ viii. 270, 10667). The Nattabutes dwelt according to Ptolemaeus

_l. c._ southward of the Musulamii; subsequently we find them to the

south of Calama (_C. I. L._ viii. 484). In like manner the _Chellenses

Numidae_, between Lares and Althiburus (_Eph. epigr._ V. n. 639), and

the _conventus (civium Romanorum et) Numidarum qui Mascululae habitant_

(_ib._ n. 597), are probably Berber tribes transplanted from Numidia to

the proconsular province.

 

[283] In the year 70 the troops of the two Mauretanias amounted

together, in addition to militia levied in large numbers, to 5 alae

and 19 cohortes (Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 58), and so, if we reckon on

the average every fourth as a double troop, to about 15,000 men. The

regular army of Numidia was weaker rather than stronger.

 

[284] Inscription _C. I. L._ viii. 8369 of the year 129: _Termini

positi inter Igilgilitanos, in quorum finibus kastellum Victoriae

positum est, et Zimiz(es), ut sciant Zimizes non plus in usum se habere

ex auctoritate M. Vetti Latronis pro(curatoris) Aug(usti) qua(m) in

circuitu a muro kast(elli) p(edes)_ D. The _Zimises_ are placed by the

Peutingerian map alongside of Igilgili to the westward.

 

[285] If the praefect of a cohort doing garrison duty in Numidia held

the command at the same time over six Gaetulian tribes (_nationes_, _C.

I. L._ v. 5267), men that were natives of Mauretania were employed as

irregulars in the neighbouring province. Irregular Mauretanian horsemen

frequently occur, especially in the later imperial period. Lusius

Quietus under Trajan, a Moor and leader of a Moorish troop (Dio lxviii.

32), no Λίβυς ἐκ τῆς ὑπηκόου Λιβύης, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀδόξου καὶ ἀπῳκισμένης

ἐσχατιᾶς (Themistius, _Or._ xvi p. 250 Dind.), was without doubt a

Gaetulian sheikh, who served with his followers in the Roman army.

That his home was formally independent of the empire, is not affirmed

in the words of Themistius; the “subject-territory” is that with Roman

organisation, the ἐσχατιά its border inhabited by dependent tribes.

 

[286] To the inscriptions, which prove this (_C. I. L._ viii. p. xviii.

747), falls now to be added the remarkable dedication of the leader of

an expeditionary column from the year 174, found in the neighbourhood

of Géryville (_Eph. epigr._ v. n. 1043).

 

[287] The _tumultus Gaetulicus_ (_C. I. L._ viii. 6958) was rather an

insurrection than an invasion.

 

[288] Ptolemy certainly takes as boundary of the province of Caesarea

the line above the Shott, and does not reckon Gaetulia as belonging to

it; on the other hand he extends that of Tingis as far as the Great

Atlas. Pliny v. 4, 30, numbers among the subject peoples of Africa “all

Gaetulia as far as the Niger and the Ethiopian frontier,” which points

nearly to Timbuctoo. The latter statement will accord with the official

conception of the matter.

 

[289] Already in Nero’s time Calpurnius (_Egl._ iv. 40) terms the

shore of Baetica _trucibus obnoxia Mauris_.--If under Pius the Moors

were beaten off and driven back as far as and over the Atlas (_vita

Pii_, 5; Pausanias viii. 43), the sending of troops at that time from

Spain to the Tingitana (_C. I. L._ iii. 5212-5215) makes it probable

that this attack of the Moors affected Baetica, and the troops of the

Tarraconensis marching against these followed them over the straits.

The probably contemporary activity of the Syrian legion at the Aures

(p. 320) suggests moreover that this war extended also to Numidia.--The

war with the Moors under Marcus (_vita Marci_, 21, 22; _vita Severi_,

2), had its scene essentially in Baetica and Lusitania.--A governor of

Hither Spain under Severus had to fight with the “rebels” by water and

by land (_C. I. L._ ii. 4114).--Under Alexander (_vita_, 58) there was

fighting in the province of Tingi, but without mention of Spain in the

case.--From the time of Aurelian (_vita Saturnini_, 9) there is mention

of Mauro-Spanish conflicts. We cannot exactly determine the time of a

sending of troops from Numidia to Spain and against the Mazices (_C. I.

L._ viii. 2786), where presumably not the Mazices of the Caesariensis

but those of the Tingitana on the Riff (Ptolem. iv. 1, 10), are meant;

perhaps with this is connected the fact that Gaius Vallius Maximianus,

as governor of Tingitana, achieved in the province Baetica (according

to Hirschfeld, _Wiener Stud._ vi. 123, under Marcus and Commodus) a

victory over the Moors and relieved towns besieged by them (_C. I. L._

ii. 1120, 2015); these events prove at least that the conflicts with

the Moors on the Riff and the associates that flocked to them from

the country lying behind did not cease. When the Baquates on the same

coast besieged the pretty remote Cartenna (Tenes) in the Caesariensis

(_C. I. L._ viii. 9663), they perhaps came by sea. Where the wars with

the Moors under Hadrian (_vita_, 5, 12) and Commodus (_vita_, 13) took

place is not known.

 

[290] More information than in the scanty accounts of Victor and

Eutropius is supplied as to this war by the inscribed stones,

_C. I. L._ viii. 2615, 8836, 9045, 9047. According to these the

_Quinquegentiani_ may be followed out from Gallienus to Diocletian. The

beginning is made by the Baquates who, designated as _Transtagnenses_,

must have dwelt beyond the Shott. Four “kings” combine for an

expedition. The most dreaded opponent is Faraxen with his _gentiles

Fraxinenses_. Towns like Mileu in Numidia not far from Cirta and Auzia

in the Caesariensis are attacked, and the citizens must in good part

defend themselves against the enemy. After the end of the war Maximian

constructs great magazines in Thubusuctu not far from Saldae. These

fragmentary accounts give in some measure an insight into the relations

of the time.

 

[291] Apart from the coins this is proved also by the inscriptions.

According to the comparison, for which I am indebted to Herr Euting,

the great mass of the old Punic inscriptions, that is, those written

probably before the destruction of Carthage, falls to Carthage

itself (about 2500), the rest to Hadrumetum (9), Thugga (the famous

Phoenico-Berber one), Cirta (5), Iol-Caesarea (1). The new Punic occur

most numerously in and around Carthage (30), and generally they are

found not unfrequently in the proconsular province, also in Great

Leptis (5) and on the islands of Girba (1) and Cossura (1); in Numidia,

in and near Calama (23), and in Cirta (15); in Mauretania hitherto only

in Portus Magnus (2).

 

[292] The coining in Africa ceases in the main after Tiberius, and

thereafter, since African inscriptions from the first century after

Christ are before us only in very small numbers, for a considerable

period documents fail us. The coins of Babba in the Tingitana, going

from Claudius down to Galba, have exclusively Latin legends; but the

town was a colony. The Latin-Punic inscriptions of Great Leptis, _C.

I. L._ viii. 7, and of Naraggara, _C. I. L._ viii. 4636, may doubtless

belong to the time after Tiberius, but as bilingual tell rather for

the view that, when they were set up, the Phoenician language was

already degraded.

 

[293] From the __EXPRESSION__ in the epitome of Victor, that the emperor

Severus was _Latinis litteris sufficienter instructus, Graecis

sermonibus eruditus, Punica eloquentia promptior, quippe genitus apud

Leptim_, we may not infer a Punic course of rhetoric in the Tripolis of

that time; the late and inferior author has possibly given a scholastic

version of the well-known notice.

 

[294] On the statement of the younger Arnobius, writing about 460

(_ad Psalm._ 104, p. 481 Migne: _Cham vero secundus filius Noe a

Rhinocoruris usque Gadira habens linguas sermone Punico a parte

Garamantum, Latino a parte boreae, barbarico a parte meridiani,

Aethiopum et Aegyptiorum ac barbaris interioribus vario sermone numero

viginti duabus linguis in patriis trecentis nonaginta et quattuor_), no

reliance is to be placed, still less upon the nonsense of Procopius,

_de bello Vand._ ii. 10, as to the Phoenician inscription and language

in Tigisis. Authorities of this sort were hardly able to distinguish

Berber and Punic.

 

[295] In a single place on the Little Syrtis the Phoenician may still

have been spoken in the eleventh century (Movers, _Phön._ ii. 2, 478).