A Brief History of Roman North Africa

The Rise and Fall of Carthage (see map below)

From the 12th century B.C., the Phoenicians set up trading posts along the African coast (from Libya to Morocco), in the islands (Balearic Islands), Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and in southern Spain. From the founding of Carthage in 814 B.C. Tunisia, now Punic (Libyo-Phoenician), headed a maritime empire. Carthage tried in vain to stamp its authority on the Sicilian Greeks (6th-3rd centuries) who responded by sending an expedition to Africa (Agathocles epic, 310-307). The age-old partition of Sicilia between Greeks and Phoenicians was ended when the failure of Pyrrhus's expedition (278-76) established a Carthaginian protectorate on the island.

But the rising power of Rome first overthrew the Greeks, then after the First Punic War, 264-241) wiped out the Sicilian Phoenicians, and finally (exploiting the mercenaries' war in Carthage) annexed Sardinia and Corsica (238).

But following Amilcar's and Hasdrubal's conquest of Spain, Hamilcar's son Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees and Alps, surprising the Romans with his use of elephants, and won stunning victories over the Romans in Italy, though never succeeding in crushing them definitively.

Scipio's retaliation in Spain and then Tunisia ended this Second War, 218- 202, and stripped Carthage of all but its African territory.  Rome, in order to control the shores of the Straits of Sicily, and forestall the Numidian King Massinissa's designs on Carthage, sparked off the Third Punic War (149-146), razing Carthage to the ground and preventing its being rebuilt.  They put salt on the land to ensure that it could not be re-inhabited and so it remained for over a hundred years.

Roman Africa

The Punic land (the north-eastern third of present day Tunisia) became the Provinca Africa.  This province, run from Utica by a praetor, was seen by the Romans as a buffer against the Numidian kingdom stretching from Tripolitania to eastern Algeria.

Though Massinissa’son King Micipsa (148-118) remained faithful to the alliance with Rome, his nephew Jugurtha opposed this partition of the kingdom.  He eliminated the chosen successors and grabbed power himself.  He had to fight the armies of consuls Metellus and Marius one after the other and was captured and in 104 executed, bretrayed by his father-in-law Bocchus, king of Mauritania(present day Morocco). After a new partition, the Romans extended to the east Bocchus's kingdom, taking land from Gauda's kingdom (he was Jugurtha's half-brother), and set up a buffer state in western Numidia.

In 50 B.C., in an attempt to preserve his independence, Juba (Gauda's grandson) joined Cato of Utica with the Pompeys against Caesar and was disastrously defeated at Thapsus,in 4 B.C. In taking over Juba I's kingdom, Caesar completed the conquest of the Punic land started by Scipio. Africa Nova was added to the traditional Africa (now known as Africa Vetus). Coveted by the triumvirate of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus, the 2 provinces disappeared in 27 B.C. under Augustus Caesar to become the Proconsular Province of Africa administered by the Senate.

Despite the resistance from the Berbers (Musulames, Garamentes, Nasamons...) encountered in the war of Tacfarinas the Numidian (17-24 A.D.), the Romans gradually conquered the whole Maghreb, adding to Proconsular Africa the provinces of Numidia, Caesarian Mauritani present day Algeria) and Mauritania Tingitana (present day Morocco).

In the 2nd century, Proconsular Africa experienced unprecedented prosperity, reflected in increasing urbanization and a flourishing intellectual and artistic life. Its political and economic weight in the empire was so great that an African dynasty, the Severus dynasty, wielded power in Rome between 193-235.

Relatively sheltered from the effects of the great crisis that shook the Roman world (235-285), Proconsular Africa did suffer from heavy taxation, which sparked off the Thysdrus (EI Jem) revolt in 238, ushering in a cycle of usurpations in the empire: Proconsul Gordian was supported in his bid for power by the Senate, against Emperor Maximian the Thracian, supported by the army.

In a bid to check the crisis, Emperor Diocletian (284-305) created 12 dioceses: Africa, plus its 8 provinces, administered by a vicar from Carthage, and 3 for what had been Proconsular Africa (Tripolitania - the Libyan coast; Byzacenus - central and southern Tunisia and Zeugitana (north-eastern Tunisia). Unfortunately this only inflamed regional ambitions.

In the 4th C, the economic crisis was worsened by a social crisis: the agricultural day laborers (circoncelliones) experienced terrible poverty and were quick to rise against the great landowners. Simultaneously, the spreading of Christianity, accompanied by its schisms (especially Donatism), which spread into and became dominant in neighboring Numidia) gnawed away at Roman society and institutions.

This led to a series of usurpations and rebellions by the civilian and military provincial authorities. And yet, despite the convoluted history of this period, recent research has stressed the enduring prosperity of the African provinces - until the eve of the Vandal conquest of 439.