cherry, frontier and society in roman north africa

Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa

DAVID CHERRY

CLARENDON PRESS· OXFORD

I998

2

The Roman Frontier-Zone

The same sort of thinking that interpreted the Roman conquest of north Afnca as a bless1l1g for its indigenous peoples has tradItlOnally understood the Roman frontiers to be lines of demarcation that distinguished and separated the civilized (that IS, Roman) world from the barbarism that was thought to lie beyond it.' The jUdgement is probably also a consequence of the nature of the physical record: very little that is visible survives of the Roman fron tiers apart from their military installations-their forts, roads, and linear barriers. So Hadrian's wall might be understood to have been intended, as one ancient writer put it (SHA Had. I I. 2), 'to separate barbarians and Romans' (qui barbaros Romanosque divideret).2

It is a view that seems now to have been largely abandoned, for at least two reasons: first, because none of the frontiers' linear barriers appears to have been wholly defensive in purpose; second, because the Romans themselves for the most part seem not to have considered the fron tiers to be lines either of defence or of demarcation. It has been remarked recently that the only surviving 1l1tact Roman map, the Tabula Peutingeriana, does not even identify

. I There is ,an excellent discussion of modern thinking about thc Roman frontiers In c., R. Whlttaker, Frontiers o[ fhe Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study (Baltlmore, 1994), 1-9.

. z, S,ee e.g. S. L Dyson, The Creation o[ the Roman Frolltier (Princeton, 1985),

3· 1t sep~rates thc world of Rome from that of thc barbarian'; R. MacMullen, ,~(1a,:g~S ',n fhe Roman Empire: l!ssays in ,'lIe Ord~nary (Princetol1, 1990), 49: like sllnilal lInes along other frontJers latcr, Hadnan's wall 'indicated a wish to ~eparate Roma? from non-Roman by a permanent barrier'. So, tao, A. R. Birley, Rom~n . Fr?ntJers and, Roman Frontier POlicy: Same Refiections on Roman

Io:peuahsm, TransactlOl1s oJ the Architectural and Archaeological Association oJ Dur~am a~d !'orthumberland: 3 (1974), J6-17. See also E. L. Wheeler, 'MethO~:logleal LllUlts and the MIrage of Rom.an Strategy', Journal 0/ Military [-!t,<,!ory, 57 (I993), 29, where the /ossatum m north Afriea is deseribed as a border'.

The Roman Frontier-Zone 25

the loeation of the frontiers3 And the Latin word that modems routinely employ to describe the Roman frontier-limes-was in Roman times a surveyor's term adapted in military usage to mea~ 'road', and not widely used to denote a demarcated border unlIl the fourth century AD4 . . .

It seems that the Roman fron tiers have always been descnbed m spatial terms. So where they were once 'boundaries', for example, they are now generally understood to have been 'zones'. 5 I,t may be agreed with C. R. Whittaker that the fronlIers functlOned necessarily' as zones, in so far as the Roman government ,:as un~ble to achieve, as Owen Lattimore has said also of the fronlIers of Imperial China,6 the 'optimum balance between its range of conquest (1.e its militaryeapacity) and the economy of its rule (i.e where the military expenditure is no longer paid for by tax returns); a?d because the turn-over from economic viability to eCOnOlTIlC hablhty is necessarily gradual, unperceived and unstable'.7 But it eannot be demonstrated that the Romans themselves ever understood the frontiers to have behaved, militarily or administratively, as zones, or for that matter as any other kind ofterritorially defined unit. The imperial government's demonstrated desire to extend its influence weil beyond the line of the fron tier fortifieations suggests that, as Benjamin Isaac has recently put it, the eoncept of a fronlIer was of littIe real importanee in shaping military strategy8

3 B. Isaac, The Limits 0/ Empire: The Roman Army in the East, rev. edn, (Oxford,

J992), 39

8. . " d "L" '". A . t Sources' 4 See B. Isaac, 'The Meaning of "LImes an Imltan~l In nelen, '

JRS 78 (1988), 125-47; Limits 0/ Empire, 408; see also Whlttaker, ,Front/ers, 20~, 5 Boundaries: e.g. 1. C. Hudson, 'Theory and Methodology ~n Comparatl.ve

Frontier Studies', in D. H. Miller and J. O. StefTen (eds.), The Fron.ller: Compara,flVe Studies (Norman, Okla., 1977), 12-13. Zones.: see espec.ially WhlUaker, Frontwfs, 62; cf. H. Elton, Frontiers 01 the Roman Empire (Bloommgton, lnd., J996), 4, 113 ('overlapping zones').

6 Studies in Frontier Histvry (London and New York, 1962), esp. at I J3 . 7 Whittaker: 'Trade and Frontiers of the Roman Empire', in p, Gar?sey and C.

R, Whittaker (eds.), Trade (lnd Famine in Classical,Antiquity (Cambndge, 1983), JJ3; cf. Frontiers, 85: the frontiers were 'a compromlse betw~en the range 0: ~onquest and tbe economy of rule'; 'Supplying .the System: Frontle~s and Beyond , m !. c. Barrett, A. P. Fitzpatrick, and L. Macmnes (eds.), Barbanans and Romans In

NOJ·th- West Europe: From the Loter Republic to Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1989), 65: the frontier was a 'borderland'. " ..

8 Isaac: Limits o/, Empire. 409, 417; see also M. Euzennat, L OIlVler et le "Limes" considerations Sllr Ja frontiere romainc deTripolitanie', BCTH (1985), qr; 1. C. Mann, 'Power, Force and the Frontiers of the Empire', JRS 69 (J979), 175-83; Whittaker, Fron/las, 95.

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It might be uncIear, even to the Romans, whether certain indigenous peoples were within the empire's frontiers: so) for example, the highland tribes of the Middle Atlas mountains in Mauretania Tingitana (mod. MorocCO)9 And because the frontiers were often, it seems, little more than 'the frozen forward lines of advance that could be held following military campaigns', wand therefore inherently fluid and unstable (or, put another way, 'dynamic')," it is unlikely that many Romans, incIuding even the soldiers on the ground, would have recognized or understood any of the kinds of demarcated borders that can be drawn on a map (in the way that the fron tier-zone in Roman-era Algeria is represented in Fig. 2. I,

for example). Perhaps we would do better to deline the Roman fron tiers in the

same way that historians of the western United States have long described the American frontier, that is, as a cultural process. 12 The fron tier in Roman north Africa may be understood to have functioned, independently of space (though not of time), as a zone of

9 B. D. Shaw, 'Autonomy and Tribute: MOU11tain and Plain in Mauretania Tingitana', ROMM 41-2 (1986), 86 n. 69; on the frontier in Mauretania Tingitana, see M. Euzennat, Le Limes de Tingitane: La Fronfiere meridionale (Paris, J989).

10 Isaac, Limits o/Empire, 417; see also Mann, 'Frontiers', 513-14, who suggests 1ha1 the frontiers arose 'by default'.

11 On 'dynamic' (as opposed to 'static') frontiers, see especially 1. A. Alexander, 'Frontier Studies and the Earliest Farmers in Europe', in D. Green, C. Haselgrove, and M. Spriggs (eds.), Social Organisation and Settlement: Contributions fr0111 Anthropology, Archaeology, and Geography (Oxford, 1978), 13-29; 'Early Frontiers in Southem Africa', in M. Hall ef al. (eds.), Frontiers: Southern African Archaeology Today (Oxford, 1984), 12-23; 'The End ofthe Moving Frontier in the Neolithie of North-Eastern Afriea', in L. Krzyzaniak and M. Kubosiewicz (eds.), Origin and Early Development 0/ Food-Producing Cultures in North-Eastern A/rica (Poznan, 1984), 57-63; cf. 1. H. F. Bloemers, 'Aeculturation in the Rhine/Meuse Basin in the Roman Period: Demographie Considerations', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Maeinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 178, and, on the Ameriean frontier, M. Mikesell, 'Comparative Studies in Frontier History', in R. Hofstadter and M. Lipset (eds.), Turner and the Sociology of the Frontier (New York, 1968), 154. W. 1. H. Willems, 'Romans and Batavians; Regional Developments at the Imperial Frontier', in R. Brandt and 1. Slofstra (eds.), Roman and Native in the LOIv Countries: Spheres of Interaction (Oxford, 1983), 106, would have us distinguish instead between 'imperial' (i.e. dynamie) and 'eolonial' (i.e. statie) frontiers. See also D. 1. Mattingly, Tripolitania (Ann Arbor, 1994),77, who describes the army's advance in north Afriea as a 'rolling frontier' .

12 See e.g. R. F. Berkhofer, Jr., 'The North Ameriean Frontier as Proeess and Context', in H. Lamar and L. Thompson (eds.), The Frontier in History: Nm·th America and SoutheJ'n Africa Compared (New Haven and London, 1981), 43; w. P. Webb, The Great Plains (New York, 1931), on which see Whittaker, Frontiers, 5.

28 The Roman Frontier-Zone

interpenetra.tion between two previously distinct societies. 13 I am not suggestmg that the development of the frontier-zones was unaffected by their physieal or environmental charaeteristics. LocatlOn wIll have determined, at the very least, whieh peoples were admItted to the fronlIer-zones. My position rather is that the fronlIers cannot. be shown to have perfonned any historically recoverable functlOn other than to have aecommodated the contaet of Roman and indigenous society.

. The real question then (and the issue that much of this book is mtended to explore) is whether the frontier-zones served, as Whlttaker has suggested, to unite and integrate those who were 'culturalI~ diverse',. or, p~t another way, whether they were, as one comparatlve [rontIer l11storian believes, 'fron tiers of inclusion (more properly assimilation)'. '4 lt will be argued that in the case of the fron tier-zone in Roman-era Algeria, all the a~ailable evidence mdICates that there was very little in the way of eultural mtegratJon.

. My purpose in this chapter is to describe the nature and functlOn of the Algenan fron tier: its forts and fortifications, roads, and Imear barrrers (the jossatum). My position, which is elaborated below, IS that the fron tier cannot be shown ever to have had a stnetly defensIve purpose. lts development and arrangement would seem to mdlcate ll1stead that it was intended primarily to provlde for the secunty of the soldiers who were stationed in the regIOn, and to enable the army (and, indirectly, the imperial government) to tax the products of pastoralism.

LOCATING THE ROMAN FRONTIERS

Modern thinking about the factors that determined the location of the Roman frontiers seems often to be bound up with ideas about

,13

Cf..W S. Hansol~, The Nature <:lnd FUl1ction ofRomal1 Frontiers' in Barrett ~ltzPbatnck, aud Macmne~ (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 55 ('an area' of interac~ t100 etween two cUltures). On 110rth Africa see C. M WeHs 'Th p. bl f Desert Fro t" , . V AM' ., e 10 ems 0

'. n lers, m . . axfield and M. 1. Dobson (eds.) Roman F, {.

SStud~r:s 1989: Proceedings C!l the XVth International Congress 0/' Roman F;~~{:;; tudles (Exetcr, I991), 478.

'4 W~ittaker:, Frontiers, ,72-3; c~ 'Trade and Frontiers', 12I. 'Frontiers of inc1usion': MlkeselI, Comparahve StudJCs', 153-4 (his itaJics). See also Elton, Frontiers, 109.


their purpose. It has been said recent1y, for example, that 'the factors whieh influenced the precise chaiee of fron tier line after advanee or retreat are directly related to the function it was intended to perform'. '5 It used to be widely thought that the loeation of the fron tiers was determined mainly by military, and especially by defensive, considerations. So it might be said of north Africa's complex array of fortifications and linear barriers that it was intended to protect roads and lines of communications against incursions of Saharan nomads. 16

There is, in fact, little reason to think that the Romans' purpose in north Afriea was ta proteet the region from those who lived beyond the frontier. If the jossatum, far example, was really intended to defend what lay bebind it (against amenace real or imagined), which is to say that it was meant to interdict, in some measure, access to or across the frontier-zone, we might reasonably expect it to have been situated at or ne ar the zone's outer limits. How are we to explain then that its component parts are, for the most part, somewhere in the middle of what is generally agreed to have been the Algerian fron tier-zone (as Figs. 2. land 2-4 indieate)?" Either we must assurne that the Roman authorities charged with deeiding its location eleeted to defend that part ofthe frontierzone which was located behind, that is, north and east of, the [ossatum, but not, for some reason, the part that lay beyond, tbat is, to the south and west of, it (what is represented as 'B' in Fig. 2.2), ar it must be admitted that it had 110 real defensive purpose at all.

There are other reasons for thinking that the frontier in north Africa was not meant to be a barrier against 'tribai hostility'. IX The

/5 Hanson, 'Nature and Function', 58. 16 H.-G. Pflaum, 'La Romanisation de l'Afrique', Vestigia, I7 (r973), 63. L.

Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphir:, d'archeologie ef d'histoire africaines (Paris, 1957), 32, is similar. See also P. MacKendrick, The North African Stones Speak (Chapel Hili, NC, 1980), 247= thejossatum was designed to 'control or keep out nomads'. Cf. E. Birley, 'Hadrianic Frontier Policy', in E. Swoboda ef al. (ecls.), Carnuntina: Ergebnisse der Forschung über die Grenzprovinzen des römischen Reiches: Vorträge beim internationalen Kongress der Altertums/orscher Carnuntum 1955 (Graz and Cologne, 1956),29 (on Hadrian's wall).

'7 cr Mattingly, Tripolitunia, lO7, on thelinear barriers (cfausurae) ofTripolitania. /8 'Tribal hostility': E. L. Manton, Roman North Africa (London, 1988), 9I. The

notion is rejected by Mattingly, Tripolitania, 79, 107; R. Rebuffat, 'Au-deli des camps romains d' Afrique mineure: Renseignement, contröle, pem~tration', ANRW 2/ loh (1982), 508; see also W. S. Cooter, 'Preindustrial Frol1tiers and Interaction Spheres: Prolegomenon to a Study of Roman Frontier Regions', in Miller aod Steffen (eds.), The Fronlier: Comparative Studies, 84.

3° The Roman Frontier-Zone

N

Prontier-zone t

Frontier-zone

Desert

Fig. 2.2. Linear barriers andfrontier-zones

very nature of the /ossatum, for example, makes it unlikely that it was ~eslgned :0 prevent ?f even to deter anyone from crossing the fr?lltIer-.zone. 9 T~e ~arner was discontinuous, with gaps up to 40 mIles wlde, and m Ils most thoroughly studied sector known locally as the 'Seguia Bent el Krass', which stretched ~bout 37 mIles east-west across the poor-quality winter grazing-land that lIes south of the Oued Djedi, it consisted of little more than a low mud-bnck wall, wlth an apparently irregular system of widely

( 19 ~t cannat be said oftheJossatum, however, as it has been said ofHadrian's wall e.g. y E. N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy 0/ fhe Roman Empire jrom the Fi t ~en~urY.A. I? ta. fhe Third (~altimore, 1976), 66), that the planting of forts beyo~~

e arner IS eVldence that 1t was not meant s'olely to serve a defensive purpose for n~ne ?f. the forts located south-west of it Ce.g. EI-Gara, Ai'n Rich Caste{lum Dlml?Jdl) cao. be. show to hav~ been built belore the lossatum (which is almost c~rt~m~ H~dnall1c). The e~tenslOn of a military presence to the region south(~west) o t e arner tells us nothmg about why it was constructed in the first place.


spaced gateways and towers, fron ted by the ditch itself, which seems to have been about 6-9 feet across at the surfaee, 3 feet wide at its base, and perhaps 6-9 feet deep.oo It will be argued below that it was meant to interdict, not people, but animals.

Th,re is no basis either for assuming that Roman offieials, including the emperor, always eonsidered it to be their duty to protect provincial populations against the peoples who lived beyond the fron tiers" (though they may sometimes have been expeeted to do so, perhaps especially from about the middle of the third eentury AD). And even if the imperial government (or the emperor) had wanted to implement a poliey that aimed at developing a coherent system of defensive barriers and fortifications, it is doubtful that it could have overeome what Fergus Millar has called 'the fundamental limitations' whieh were 'placed by time, space and delays of communication', and which were a necessary consequence of the vast distanees that separated the frontiers from the capital (and from each other)." Isaac is undoubtedly right in thinking that the location of the frontiers was rarely, if ever, determined by a conscious deeision to establish a fixed line of defensive positions. 23

A variation on the view that the frontiers were meant to be preclusive barriers has their location determined by 'geography'.24 One recent study of the western fron tiers of the empire concludes

20 The most complete description of the Seguia Bent el Krass is in 1. Baradez, Fossatum Africae: Recherehes aeriennes sur l' organisation des confins sahariens ci l'epoque romaine (Paris, I949), 93-I08; see also C. Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', in 1. S. Wacher (ed.), The Roman Warld (London and New York, I987), i. 244; Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie, 36-8. For the dimensions of the ditch, Y. Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste (Paris, 1989), 370 n. 34 (illustration at 429); cf. E. W B. Fentress, Numidia and {he Roman Army: Socia!, Military and Economic Aspects 0/ the Frontier Zone (Oxford, 1979), 112 (2-4.5 m. wide). On the gaps, see also Whittaker, 'Trade and Frontiers', 122-3 n. 10.

21 The point is made in Isaac, Limits 0/ Empire, at 393-4 (cf. 377, 425). On the role ofthe emperor in detennining fron tier 'policy', see especially F. Millar, 'Emperars, Frontiers and Foreign Relations, 3I B.C.-A.D. 378', Britannia, 13 (1982), 7, who argues that most tactical and strategie decisions were 'taken by the Emperor in person'. 22 Miliar: 'Emperors, Frontiers', 7.

23 Isaac: Limits ofEmpire, 387; cf. 416-I7 ('military policy was dictated by events in the field'). It seems to me to be pressing the point too hard, however, to argue that 'random factors often decided the objects of Roman wars' (379; my italics).

24 e.g. D. Potter, 'Empty Areas and Roman Frontier Policy', AJP r 13 (I992), 269 (citing also 'the cultural development of border regions' and 'military necessity').


that the imperial government 'searched' for defensible borders' the legions, it is said, were moved to 'firm geographical feature~ on which to fix their lines'.'5 But there is nothing to indicate that Roman military planning was determined or even influeneed by regional or loeal geographie conditions. The Romans cannot be shown to have used maps in strategie or tactieal planning. ,6 And the irregularity of the line of Roman fortifieations in many parts of the empire, where it sometimes ignores cr even cuts across eonspicuous geographie features, strongly suggests that they either knew or (more likely in my view) eared little about geography. '7

Other historians, like lohn Eadie, have argued that 'relations with tribal groups determined the shape and eharaeter of Roman [rontiers'.28 The frol1tier-lines, it is said, were located, as a matter of policy, at 'pre-existing triba! interfaces or lines of articulation' in other words, in the border regions that separated one triball; eontrolled territory /fom another. '9 At a broader level, the objeet of Roman imperialism is understood to have been, in Isaac's words, 'ethnic father than territorial or geographie'. 30

In a somewhat more sophistieated version ofthe same argument, the limits of Roman expansion, and therefore, by default, the location of the frontier-lines, are thought to have eoineided roughly with the outer perimeter ofthe provineiallands that were eontrolled by indigenous tribes whose soeial strueture was readily adaptable to the Roman administrative system, whieh in turn is understood to have aimed at governing the provinces indireetly through existing, urbanized (or partly urbanized), indigenous social elites. The frontiers, in other words, were meant to incorporate those triba! territories in which 'the adoption of native aristocracies was clearly more straightforward and eomprehensive' beeause of their 'previous tradition of urbanism and developed central authority'.3 1

25 S. K. Drummond and L. H. Nelson, The Western Frontiers o/Imperial Rome (Armonk and London, 1994), 6-7 ('The Search for Borders').

2{) See especially Miliar, 'Emperors, Frontiers', 18. 27 Cf. Isaac, Limits 0/ Empire, 401.

28 'Civitates and Clients: Roman Frontier Policies in Pannonia and Mauretania Tingitana', in Miller and Steffen (eds.), The Fromier: Comparative Studies 59.

29 Cootel; 'Preindustrial Frontiers', 85. ' 3.0 .Limits 0/ Empire, 395: cf. 426: 'Roman conceptions of power and military

actlVlty focused on peoples and towns rather than geography.' . 3' ,~. Millett, 'Romanization: I:Iistorical Issues and Archaeological Interpreta~

tlOns, 111 T. F. C. Blagg and M. MIllett (eds.), The Early Roman Empire in the West (Oxford, 1990), 38-9.


Roman military expansion in Germany, for example, is interpreted as having stopped at the interseetion of 'the more highly stratified Celtic soeiety and the less stratified Germanie soeiety', beeause the former, with its 'centralised political system' was 'far easier for the Roman state to incorporate'. 32

It is undoubtedly true that the Roman authorities preferred to govern the provinces indireetly, and did so wherever it was practi~able. It cannot be disputed either that the imperial government WIll have wanted to deal with provincial societies that were eontrolled bya native aristocraey whose members eould be readily eo-opted to share in the benefits, and burdens, of Roman rule. What eannot be demonstrated, however, is that Roman military or politieal objectives, and therefore, in some measure, the loeation of the frontierlines, were determined on the basis of what was known about indigenous soeieties. The implicit assumption, that the Romans had suffieient knowledge of the peoples who lived near ar beyond the frontiers, at the time that theji-ontier-lines were established, to be able to distinguish between those who were adaptable to Roman administration and those who were not, is almost certainly wrong. There is nothing to indieate that the state systematieally eolleeted information about the lands ar peoples who lay beyond the frontier-zones; it may be agreed with Millar that the fron tier often functioned as an 'information barrier'.33 Nor can it be shown that the fron tiers traeked the interseetions of tribal eultures. In fact the German frontier-line cut across a zone of social and cult~ral homogeneity, dividing, as Whittaker has remarked, the peoples who were neither wholly Celtie nor German 34 .

My own position is that the main purpose of the frontJers and the factars that determined their location were, in a broad sense, strategie and eeonomie. 35 It seems now to be widely agreed that the frontiers' linear barriers were intended, not to prevent movement into 01' across the frontier-zones, but to 'control' it. 36 It has been said recently of Hadrian's wall and the German palisade, for

32

L. Hedeager, 'Empire, Frontier and the Barbarian Hinterland: R<?m.e and Northern Europe from AD 1-400', in M. Rowlands, M. Larsen, and K. Knstlansen (eds.), Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World (Camb~id.ge, 1987), .126.

33 MilIar: 'Emperors, Frontiers', 19. So, tao, Isaac, Limits 0/ Empire, 402. 34 Whittaker: 'Trade and Frontiers', III; 'Supplying the System', 66. 35 Cf. Whittaker, 'Trade and Frontiers', II3 ('economic, ecological and social') . 3

6 See e.g. D. J. Breeze and B. Dobson, Hadrian's Wall (Landon, T976), 77;

Mattingly, Tripolilania, I 14-T 5.


example, that 'the principle which they have in common' is the 'restrict~o~ a.~d contral cf movement into Roman territory', and that thelr mIlItary function' was to 'facilitate the doser control of small-scale local movement across the frontier'37 On one level at least, this interpretation is, it seems to me, undoubtedly correc!. It is in fact most conspicuously evidenced in the ca se ofthe north African Jossatum, which, because it was discontinuous cannat have been intended to prevent movement into Roman-con;rolled territory, but must mstead have been designed to direet and ehannel it, in my view not away [rom certain areas (for example, from 'the sown' as has sometimes been argued),38 but rather towards the pla;es-the leglOnary base at Lambaesis, for example-where it could be more easily monitored by the Roman army, and, in some instances, taxed.

This is admittedly not a completely novel idea. It has been said before that the fossatum was designed to 'keep an eye on the tribes of the deser!', and to 'control and to direct the flow of traffie' into and out of the frontier-zone. 39 The question that seems rarely to have been asked, however, is this: why would the imperial government have mvested so much of its resources (in money and in manpower) in constructing and maintaining an elaborate system of barriers and fortifications whose purpose was merely to monitor (that is, 'watch over') the loeal, and in the north African case, mostly seasonal movements of the trans-fron tier populations?40 It has been suggested that the Roman linear barriers had a secondary purpose of levymg customs duties on goods that were brought across the fron tiers. 4' It will be argued below that this is very likely to have heen the primary purpose of the fossatum.

3; Hanson, 'Nature and Function', 58-9. 3 e.g. ~Y Ba:ad~z, Foss~tum Africae, '48; Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie, 71; see

also the dlScusslon III Mattmgly Tri')olitania pp xv 69 39", '1-, . , .

Tnbes of tl?e desert': S. Raven, Rome in Africa, 3rd edn. (London and New York, 1993),91. Flow of trafik': Fentress Numidia II2

40 'Watch over': Le Bohec, La Troisierne' Legion A~gus;e 578' see also M Janon '~echerc.hes.a Lambese', An!. afr. 7 (1973),198-9; p. Tr~usset, Recherch~s sur l~ ~lmes Tn~~iI(an!,s d~ Cho~t el-Djeri~~ lafrontiere tuniso-libyenne (Paris, 1974), esp. at 140 -1, SJgmficatlOn dune frontIere: Nomades et sedentaires dans la zone du limes d' Afrique', in W S. Hanson and L. 1. F. Keppie (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1979, (Ox~ord" I?80), 935; 'L'Idee de frontiere au Sahara d'apres les donnees archeologlques,}n P"R. Baduel (ed.), Enjeux sahariens: Table ronde du Centre de Recherehes et d'Etudes sur fes Socil!tes Mediterraneennes (Paris 1981) 62

4' H 'N d ., , ,. a~son, at~re an Funchon, 60; for north Africa, see 1.-P. Darmon, 'Note

sur le tar.lf de Z~rat'.' Cahiers de Tunisie, 12 (1964), 7-23; R. Mariehai, Les Ostraca de Eu Njem (Tnpoh, 1992), 1 I2-I3; Mattingly, Tripolitania, II3-!4; R. Rebuffat,


The 'least-effort subsistence model' of frontier-zone economlc development that has been constructed by eomparative historians of agricultural eolonization predicts that frontiers will be located where 'full extension oflands is possible', with the smallest possible investment of labour and eapital, and 'within the limitations of natural environmental faetors' (for example, drainage, preeipitation, vegetation cover)42 Put another way, the frontiers are likely to be located in regions where there is an economic and ecological transition [rom intensive agricultural production to more extensive uses of the land, in many eases therefore to pastoralism (in the widest sense of the term).

The determining factor then in the loeation of the Roman frontiers will have been, as Whittaker has remarked, 'the marginality of the land' 43 The point is most dearly illustrated by the historical development of the Algerian fron tier.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRONTIER-ZONE

It was remarked earlier that the Roman conquest of north Africa was aecomplished over a very long period of time, beginning with the defeat of Carthage in the third Punic war (149-146 BC), and achieving its fullest expression, in a territorial sense, only with the Severan-era extension of forts into the fringe of the Sahara (for example, Castellum Dimmidi, constructed in AD 198)44 The slow pace of Roman expansion may be explained, at least in part, by what seems to have been the popular understanding of the character of the African interior, which as late as the time of Pomponius Mela (e. AD 40?) was considered to be generally worthless. The

'Une zone militaire et sa vie economique: Le Limes de Tripolitaine', in Armees el Jiscalite dans le monde antique (Paris, 1977), 405-7; 'La Frontiere romaine en Afrique: Tripolitaine et Tingitane', Ktema, 4 (1979), 230-5.

42 S. W Green, 'The Agricultural Colonization of Temperate Forest Habitats: An

Ecological Mode!', in W W. Savage and S. I. Thompson (eds.), The Frontier: Comparafive Studies, ii (Norman, Okla., 1979), esp. at 78.

43 Frontiers, 86; cf. 288-9 n. 36; see also P Trousset, 'Limes et frontiere climatique', in Actes du Ille colloque international sur l'histoire ef l'archeologie de l'Afrique du Nord (Montpelliel; 1-15 avri/, 1985) (Paris, 1986), esp. at 65. I am not persuaded by Wheeler's suggestion ('Methodologieal Limits', 234) that the Romans would have been unable to identify economic marginality without 'demographie and economie surveys'.

44 For the date, AE (1948),214; see also Lesehi, ifudes d'epigraphie, 322.


Romans will have had little interest in acquiring control of lands that were thought to be unsuitable for cultivation.

Mainly by building a complex network of roads and forts, and by imposing treaties and diplomatie controls (backed up by the exchange of envoys and by the threat of military intervention), Rome sporadically extended its military authority south and west from the territory that had been controlled by Carthage, settling eventually along a line-in east-central Algeria and in southem Tunisia-that more or less coincided with the ISO millimetre isohyet.45

Modern opinion has it that nearly all of the roads were constructed in the period between Augustus and Septimius Severus46 Some are dated securely by their milestones (of which more than 2,000 survive). More often, the milestones serve to indicate only when an emperor began to advertise his generosity in having provided a road47 For the most part, and always outside the towns, the roads were unpaved paths, levelled off and c1eared of stones48 Some at least are likely to have followed existing (that is, indigenous) routes. But all were characteristically Roman in their determination to take the shortest possible line, even where it meant ascending a steeper slope than necessary. They generally kept to higher elevations, avoiding valley-bottoms whenever possible; where they did cross lower ground, they were often seeured by watch-towers or lookout postS. 49

The roads seem to have been intended to serve one main purpose, to carry military traflk50 It would appear that some, like the road built under Augustus from Ammaedara (mod. Hajdra) to Tacapae (mod. Gabes), may have been designed also to 'mark off' the land, in some fashion-the boundary-stones

45 On diplomatie eontrols, see Mattingly, Tripolitania, 74. For Tunisia, M. Euzennat, 'Quatre annees de reeherches sm la frontiere romaine en Tunisie meridionale', CRAI (1972),7-27; 'Les Recherehes sur la frontiere romaine d'Afrique', in 1. Fitz (ed.), Akten des Xl internationalen Limeskongresses, Szeke~fehervlll; '976 (Budapest, 1977), 533-43.

46

Ravell, Rome in Alrica, 66-7. On Roman roads in north Africa, see especially P. Salama, Les Voies romaines de I'Ajriqu(' du Nord (Algiers, 1951).

47 Isaac, Limits 01 Empire, 34 n. 94. 4R R. G. Goodehild, 'The Roman Roads of Libya and their Milestones', in F. F.

Gadallah (ed.), Libya in History (Benghazi, 197I), 157. 49 See Manton, Roman North Alrica, 84-5. 5° Cf. Isaae, Limits 01 Empire, 103 (roads are 'better interpreted as links than as

barriers').


associated with them (eIL 8. 22786, for example) employ the word limitavit. 51

. .

Forts, too, were scattered widely across the regIOn, especmlly over the southern part of what was to become the provlllce of Numidia and in Mauretania Caesariensis. The factors and consider~tions that will have decided their locations are, unfortunately, mostly unrecoverable, at least in part because the Roman sources never discuss them5 ' Their location was probably determined partly by indigenous political geography, mcludmg the distribution of proto-urban centres. 53 The legionary base at Lambaesis, for example, seems to have been built at the site of a pre-Roman urbanized settlement. 54

It might be assumed that at least some forts were placed at or near strategically important sites such as tnbal centres and boundaries. 55 But the only factor that can be shown consistently to have influenced the choice of sites is the availability of water: so a number of forts in southern Numidia-at Ad Maiores, AYn RICh,

. t d t ases 56 Doucen, Gemellae-were located near spnngs or a eser 0 .

The Frontier in the First Century AD

There were enough Roman citizens living at Cirta by 112 BC for Jugurtha to be able to massacre a significant number of them57

But it was not, it seems, until the time of Augustus that there were

5' That limito was used to mean 'mark off' (or s?m~thing like ~t) at least fro~ about the middle ofthe Ist cent. AD would seem to b~ 1l1dlcated by Plmy, HN 17· 169. vineas limitari decumano XVIII pedum latitudinis ('v1l1eyards should be sepa~ated by a roadway eighteen feet wide'). . 5~ ~ee Isaac, Lin-:i~S o.f ~mp,lre, 375.

53 Cf. M. Millett, The Romanization 0./ Bntam: An Essay 111 Afchaeologlut! Inter relation (Cambridge, I990), 74; R. 1. A. Wilson, JRS 8,2 (1992), 290-3 (01: B .( P ) 0 Wales see V E Nash-Williams The Roman Frontzer m Wales (Cardlff, n 'aln. n , .. , . , b tl't 1954), who concludes (7) that there was a 'si~nificant eo~forI?-lty etween le SI es of Roman forts and the principal coneentratlOns of natIve IulI-fort settlements.

54 Janon 'Recherehes a Lambese', 217. , . 55 Cf. M: Millett, 'Forts and the Origins of Towns: Cause or Effec.t? : 1ll T. F. C.

BI· d A C King (eds) Military and Civilian in Roman Bntam: Cultural <lggan ... , "1 't' d Relationships in a Frontier Province (Oxford, 1984), 69 .. A snll1 ar pom IS ~a. e about Seotland in L. Keppie, 'Beyond the Northern FrontIer: Roman and Native III S 11 d' 'n M Todd (ed.) Research on Roman Britain 1960-89 (Londoll, 1989),

co an ,I., G f ·1' T Mur) 67. For strategically loeated forts in Wales (e.g. Bryn-y- e el laU, omen-y- , see Nash-Williams, Roman Frontier, 111. . . ,.

56 Cf. Fentress, Numidia, 72, who emphasizes instead proX111uty to eultlvab~e land. Does she mean to imply that the soldiers were expected also to ?e far.mers.

57 Sallust, Bell. lug. 21 (multitudo togatorwn); see also Raven, Rome m Ajnca, 52.


any sustained Roman military operations outside the territory that had been controlled by Carthage. Four governors of the province of Africa Proconsularis were awarded triumphs in 34, 33, 28, and 21 BC: it is unclear where they fought, or against whom58 In 19 BC, L. Cornelius Balbus directed an expedition, apparently to the Fezzan, against the Garamantes, for which he, too, was awarded a triumph. 59 The next attested Roman military action was the socalled Gaetulian 'war', which began perhaps in AD 3 and was brought to a close by Cossus Cornelius Lentulus in 6. Though the M usulamii seem also to have been involved, the campaign was directed mainly against the Gaetuli, who, according to Cassius Dio (55· 28. 3-4), refused to submit to the Romans60 Perhaps, as Marcel Benabou has suggested, the Romans had tried to force the Gaetuli to stay in certain areas or had intentionally blocked their transhumant routes6

' It is diffieult to judge the seriousness of the fighting, which appears to have extended along the whole of the southern limit of Roman-controlled territory from Mauretania to Leptis Magna: Florus describes it (2.31) as 'an uprising rather than a war' (tumultuatum magis quam bellatum).

It was also under Augustus, probably in AD 14, that the Third Augustan legion built a road to connect its winter quarters at Ammaedara to the coastal town of Tacapae6 ' It evidently cut across the traditional territory of the Musulamii, which appears to have extended from Sieca Veneria south to Theueste, and probably also across their transhumant routes. The road is sometimes said, therefore, to have been the cause ofthe Musulamian rebellion which began in AD 17, and which lasted, under the resolute leadership of Tacfarinas, until 24. 63 There is, however, no evidence to

58 In~criptiones Italiae 3. 569; see also Fentress. Numidia, 65. 59 Plmy, HN 5. 36; see also Mattingly, Tripolitania 43 70. 60 The rebellion is mentioned also in Velleius Pater;ulu~ 2. II6. 2, and in Orosius

4· I 8, ~4; see also Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 34. 6r Benabou: La Resistance africaine ci la romanisation (Paris, 1976), 65; but cf.

Fentress, Numidia, 65.

62 ~~nstruct.ion of the ro~~ is att~sted by CIL 8. 22786,22789; A. Merlin (ed.), InscnptlOns larmes de la TWUfne (Pans, 1944), nos. 73-4; cf Whittaker, Frontiers, 44, 283 n. 16., The size ~nd location of the base at Ammaedara are unknown: V. A. Maxfield, T~e Frontlers <?fthe Roma~ ~mpire: Some Recent Work', JRA 2 (1989), 343· On the s1te, see espectally P. A. Fevner, Approches du Maghreb romain (Aix-enProvence, 1989-90), i. 106--8.

63 .~. Brett and E. W B. Fentress, The Berbers (Oxford, 1996), 46; Fentress, NUmldlG, 66; I-M. Lassere, 'Un conftit "routier": Observations sur les causes de


show that any land was taken from the Musulamii or that their use of it was in any way restricted64 None of the boundary-stones (cippi) that records centuriation in their territorydates to the period bejare the rebellion. 6s Tacitus probably had !l generally nght (Ann. 2. 52) when he located the origins of the insurgeney in the raiding activities of the small band of former auxiliaries who followed Tacfarinas (it is not, however, necessary to believe also, with Taeitus, that they were deserters)66

The course of the war, which appears to have been joined by the Gaetuli and Garamantes, and which seems at some point to have spread from the Tebessa mountains around A~~aedara west towards the Auros, has been desenbed many bmes: there 18 little to be gained by re-examining it here. What really matters, I think, is that the rebellion was never duplicated, either in scale or 1ll

AI . 68 length, in any part of Roman-era germ. . At least, so it seems. It has often been remarked that the anelent

sources have suspieiously little to say about armed resistanee to Roman expansion in north Afriea. Little of what may have happened can now be reconstrueted 69 It is hard to believe, however,

la guerre de Tacfarinas', Ant. afr. 18 (1992), II-2S; M. Rachet, Rome el l~s Berberes: Un probleme militaire d'Auguste a Dioclttien (Brussels, 1970), 75; Whittaker, Frontiers, 79.

64 Cf. Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 238; MacKendrick, Nor~h African Stones 216 who maintains that the rebellion was a product of MusulamJan resent-ment ~t RO~lan 'urbanization and land-grabbing'. .

65 See also Fentress, Numidia, 67. On centuriation, see especial!y R. Chevalher, 'La Centuriation et les problemes de la coloni~ation rom~i~e', l!tudes, rurales, 3 (1961), 54-80; 1. Soyer, 'Les Centuriations romames en Algene onentale , An!. afr. TO (r976), 107-80.

66 See also B. D. Shaw, 'Pear and Loathing: The Nomad Menace and North Africa', in C. M. WeHs (ed.), L'Ajrique romaine: Les Conferences Vanier 1980. Roman Africa: The Vanier Lectures /980 (Ottawa, 1982), 36-8. . ..

67 e.g. by Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 75-84; A. Berthle.r, La NUffUdze: Rome el la Maghreb (Paris, 1981), 100-7; see also R. Syme, 'Tacfannas, the Musulamii and Thubursicu', in P. Coleman~Norton (ed.), Studies in Roman Social a~d Economic History in Honor 0/ A. C. Johnson (Princetoll, 1951), II3-3~. The mal11 Roman sources are Tacitus, Ann. 2. 52; 3. 20-1, 32, 73-4; 4. 23-6; Vellems Paterculus 2. 125. 5, 129. 4; Aurelius Vietor, Caes. 2. 8.

68 So P. Gamsey, 'Rome's African Empire under the Principate', in P. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker (eds.), Imperialism in the Ancient World (Can~.brid~e, 1~78), 252.

69 Cf. Ravell, Rome in Africa, 59. A catalogue of north Afncan wars, ~o BC-A~ 298, may be [ound in Benabou, La Resistan.ce.afr~caine, 250-1. Indeed, Benabous review of the evidence is so thorough that 11 1S dlfficult to unders.tand wh~ D .. F. Graf, JRS 82 (1992), 278, maintains that there was 'no compreh~ns.1ve exammat10n of all the evidence from North Africa' before A. Gutsfeld, Romlsche Herrschaft

4° The Roman Frontier-Zone

that arebellion as large and dangerous as that of the M usulamii could have gone unreported. The long-held notion that indigenous resistance to Roman occupation was ferocious and unremitting~ which goes back at least to Rene Cagnat's L'Armee romaine d'Ajrique el l'occupation militaire de I'Ajrique sous fes empereurs (1913), must now be abandoned. There is simply no evidence to support the view that native military resistance was tenacious.70

Perhaps the best indication of north Africa's widespread acquiescence in Roman rule is the relatively sm all size of the Roman military presence there (except in Mauretania)-a single legion (the Third Augustan) and probably about 10,000-15,000

auxiliaries, perhaps 20,000 men in all in the provinces of Africa Proconsularis and Numidia. 7' And some at least of what moderns have classified as native rebellions seem to be acts rather of brigandage 7' (the line is, admittedly, an easy one to cross, and it is impossible now to determine whether any of the so-called 'brigands' may have been motivated by nativist sentiment).

Serious and sustained military resistance seems to have been centred father in Mauretania, especially [rom AD 40, when Caligula ordered its annexation. The Moorish rebellion that his po!icy inspired appears at some point to have involved also the Musulamii, and to have spread even to southern Numidia. It seems, tao, that armed resistance recurred sporadically for some time after the rebellion was extinguished (AD 45), and perhaps well into the second century.73

Outside Mauretania, there appears to have been little military

und einheimischer Widerstand in Nordafrika: Militärische Auseinandersetzungen Roms mit den Nomaden (Stuttgart, 1989).

7° Pace Benabou, La Resistance alricaine, 248; cf. P. Leveau, 'Paysans maures et villes romaines en Mauretanie cesarienne centrale (la resistance des populations indigenes a la romanisation dans l'arriere-pays de Caesarea de Mauretanie)' Me!anges d'arc!7eo!ogie el d'histoire de rEeole Fran('aise de Rome, 87 (1975): 857-71; M. SpeideJ, 'A.frica and Rome: Continuous Resistance?', Proceedings oI the Alrican Clussical Association, J3 (1975), 36-8; and the exchange of views in M. Benabou, 'Les Romains ont-ils conquis I'Afrique?', P. Leveau, 'La Situation coloniale de l' Afrique romaine', and Y. Thebert, 'Romanisation et deromanisation en Afrique: Histoire decolonisee ou histoire inversee?', Ann. ESC 33 (1978), 64-92.

7) See Daniels, 'The Frol1tiers: Africa', i. 235-6; cf Raven, Rome in Africa, 58. 7

2 MacKendrick, North Alrican Stones, 328.

73 Cf. Garnsey, 'Rome's Africal1 Empire', 252. The rebellion is described in Bellabou, La Rhistance alricaine, 89-95; D. Fishwick, 'The Annexation of Mauretania', Historia, 20 (1971), 467-87; the main Roman sources are Suetonius Galba 7-8; AureJius Victor, Caes. 4. 2-3; Cassius Dio 60. 9. 6. '


activity of any kind in the half century that followed the defeat of Tacfarinas. We may suspect that there were localized hostilities which have escaped notice. It is likely, too (but equally unproven), that Roman military surveyors were busily engaged in cadastrating the land that had been seized by the army. There is no indication, however, of any significant change in Roman strategy or in the positioning of Roman forces until the time of Vespasian, when the legion was moved, probably in AD 75, from Ammaedara to Theueste with the resul! that the frontier was shifted a little , west and south. 74

The fron tier was moved again, much further to the west, in the late 70S or early 80S AD, when a number of forts were COll

structed in the northern reaches of the Aur"s mountains-at Mascula, Aquae Flavianae, Vazaivi, and Lambaesis (where the first of several Roman camps was buil! in 81).75 It may be conjectured that forts were built also in the region of the Chott Djetid.76 Sometime later a road was built to connect Lamasba to Zarai and, following a !ine north of the Hodna mountains, to the military outpost at Auzia (mod. Souk EI Ghoziane, south-east of Algiers)77 By the end of the century, the line of Roman fortifications stretched 400 miles from Tacapae to Mauretania (see Fig.

2·3)·

74 AD 75: Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 240. There is .no reason to. bclieve, with MacKendrick, North African Stones, 218, that the legIOn was statlOned at Mascula after it was moved from Ammaedara and before it arrived at Theueste. It can hardly be agreed either, with Andre Berthier, La Numidie, 122, that Vespasian's purpose in relocating the legion was to 'neutralize' the Aures mou~1tains, which are more than 40 miles from Theueste. The legion seems to have remamed at Theueste until AD IIS/I7, when it was trallsferred to Lambaesis: Le Bohec, La Troisibne Legion Auguste, 362; cf. Raven, Rome in Alrica, 68.

75 For the forts, see Daniels, 'The Frolltiers: Africa', i. 240. Pace Y. Le Bohec, Les Unites auxiliaires de l' armee romaine en Afrique Proconsulaire et Numidie sous le Haut-Empire (Paris, 1989), 162, they did not 'encirc1e' the mountains. On ~ascula, see Fentress, Numidia, 96; there has been IlO significallt excavation at the slte. For Vazaivi, see T. R. S. Broughton, The Romanization of Afriea Proconsularis (Baltimore, 1929), 103. Lambaesis: Fevrier, Approches du Maghreb romain, i. II 1. A pla.n of the camp may be found in Le Bohec, La Troisieme ~egion Augu.ste, 363. The1:e lS

an excellent aerial photograph of the whole of the leglOnary base 10 MacKendnck, North African Stones, 222-3. It used to be thought that the extension ofthe frontier to the region west of Theueste belonged to the 2nd cent. An: see e.g. Broughton, Romanization oI Africa, 104. 7

6 Mattingly, Tripol:'.tania, 77: 80. 77 MacKendrick, North Alrican Stanes, 219. On Lamasba (mod. Am Merwana),

see B. D. Shaw, 'Lamasba: An Ancient Irrigation Community', Ant. afr. 18 (1982), 61-103- For Zarai (mod. Zraia), see Fentress, Numidia, 94.

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The Frontier under Trajan and Hadrian

In keeping with the aggressive posture that he exhibited on Rome's other frontiers, Trajan set out to expand the territorial limits of Roman power a1so in north Africa. In Mauretania, the fron tier was pushed west, with the road from Zarai to Auzia extended to the edge of the Titteri range, and from there via Sufasar to the Chelif valley7

8 But the principal military objective of Trajan's African policy, it seems, was to encircle the massif of the Aures mountains79 A military colony was plan ted at Thamugadi (mod. Timgad) in AD 100, and connected by road to the Flavian outposts that had been established along the northern flank of the Aures80

Then, from about AD [04, the frontier-line was shifted south to run along the southern edge of the Aures and Nememshas81 At the direction of the legionary commander (legatus), L. Minicius N atalis, a fort was constructed at Ad MaiDres (mod. Hr. Besseriani) in AD

[04 or 105, and linked by road to the co ast at Tacapae8' The road

was later extended along the southern and western reaches of the Aures to three military outposts that were established probably at about the same time-Vescera, Calceus Herculis (mod. EI Kantara), and further to the west and north, in the broad plain of the Hodna basin, Thubunae83

It was probably also under Trajan, perhaps in AD [[5/17, that

78 See Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 242. 79 So Broughton, Romanization oI Ajdca, 119; Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion

Auroste, 370. o Thamugadi is located in fertile, rolling country north' of one ofthe main passes of

the Aures. The site is described in Broughton, Romanization of Aji'ica, I J9; Manton, Roman North Aji'ica, 98-9. There is 00 evidence of a pre-existing (indigenous) settlement: Fentress, Numidia, 127-8. 81 Cf. Whittaker, Frontiers, 79,

82 L. Minicius Natalis: eIL 8. 2478 (= 17969), 2479 (= 1797I). On the fort, which measured qo X 100 m., see Fentress, Numidia, 97; MacKendrick, North African Stones, 243. For the date, Fevrier, Approches du Maghr{'b romain, i. I I I. The road is described in Raven, Rome in Africa, 91; see also Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i . 242; Whittaker, Frontiers, 79.

83 On Ca1ceus Herculis, whose ruins lie on the east bank of the Oued EI Kantara, see Fentress, Numidia, 91 (except for a bridge that crosses the oued, no military constructiori has been found). The earliest epigraphic iodication of a Roman military presence dates to AD q6-7: Le Bohec, La Troisibne Legion Auguste, 425. For Thubuoae, see Fentress, Numidia, 92. On communicatioo-lines through the Aures, see P. Morizot, 'Le Reseau de communications de la IIIe legion de Lambese au Sah ara a travers l' Aures', in C. Lepelley (ed.), Actes du IVe colloque international sur l'histoire ef l'archeologie de l'Afrique du Nord (Strasbourg, 5-9 avril, 1988) (Paris, 199 I),409-26.


the legion was moved west from Theueste to Lambaesis where it remained until 2 38

8 (when it was temporarily disbanded', perhaps

for twenty years). 4 Probably around the same time a veteran colony was established at Diana Veteranorum, about 20 miles east of Zaral and north-west of Lambaesis.85

The expanded military frontier-line established in the time of TraJan seems to have been moved hardly at all under Hadrian. Instead, forts were built (along the line north of the Auros for example) to fiU gaps in the somewhat scattered Trajanic out;ostnetwork, wlth the result that it was transformed into what Charles Damels has called 'a regular frontier system,86 In Mauretania, the more or less open frontier-road that ran from Auzia to Chelif was protected by forts built west of Auzia at Rapidum and at Thanaram,usa Castra ,in AD 122, perhaps in response to continuing native reslstance, WhlCh seems to have led to actual fighting in 118 and agam m 122, and which appears to have been centred in the Kabylie mountains north of Auzia and in the forbidding Ouarsenis masslf south and west of Sufasar (what Benabou has called 'llots de resistance').87 A few miles south and west of Vescera, and just south of the Oued Djedi, a large mud-brick fort (it occupies 7.25 acres) was constructed at Gemellae (mod. EI Kasbat), probably in AD 125/6.88 The Batna mountains, which lie west and north of

84 Far the dates, see Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 362. Cr. R. P. DUl1canJones, Th~ Economyoft~e Roman Empire: Qu~ntitafiveStudies, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1982), 67: th; cons,trUC!10n ofthe first camp m AD 81 'may not imply transfer ofthe whole legIOn . J?amel~, The Frontiers: Africa', i. 240, takes a similar position. Cf. also Raver:, l!0me In Alnca, 68-9: the legion was moved by Trajan 'ar his successor H~~nan . M~r:ton, Ron:~n N~rth ~jr~'ca, 86, is wrong in dating the transfer to AD 128:

The ealhest survlVlng l11SCnptlOn from Diana Veteranorum (eIL 8. 458 ) dat~s to AD I4I; the Trajanic date is suggested by Broughton, Romanization ~f Afl'lca, 134-5 n. 75.

:~ '~he Fron~iers: Afric~', i. 242; see also Raven, Rome in Africa, 9I. . Be.nabou: ~es Rom~ms', 85. See also DanieIs, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 246.

It IS ~ntlr.eIy posslble that It was the construction ofthe camps which touched off the fi~ht.mg 111 AD 122,. on which see Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 121-34. For R<lpld~m,.see ~spe~tally J-P. Laporte, Rapidum: Le Camp de la cohorte des Sardes en A!auretal1le Cesartel.me (Sassari, 1989); the second cohort Sardorum occupied the slte from AD 122 ~ntJ12,08, when it was moved to Altava; the town was walled in 167; see also ~. SpeI deI, The Roman Army in North Africa', JRA 5 (1992) 4°1' MacKendnck, North Al'rican Stones 250 ' ,

88 , , v:. ,. ... ~or .the d,at~, s,ee Fe~nel~ Approc~les du. M~ghreb r?main, i. III; Daniels, 'The

FlOntlers .. Afr~~a: 1. 244, cr. Blr~ey,. Hadna111c frontler Policy', 29 (the fort 'is shown by l?SClIptlOns to be Hadna111c'); Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie 322 (AD 128)' MacKendnck, North African Stones, 243 (AD 12617). On the fort: see Fentress:


Lambaesis, were surrounded by several forts and settlements, Lamasba and Lamsorta on their western flank, Lamiggiga to the north, and Lambiridi (mod. Kherbet ouled Arif) to the south. 89

But the development that is most conspicuously Hadrianic-in so far as it seems to symbolize a policy of retrenchment-is the construction of the Jossatum.

The fossatum (a word little used in antiquity) is easily the most puzzling of the Roman frontier fortifications in the region. Jean Baradez, who in 1949 published what is still the most comprehensive survey of its several parts (Fossa/um Africae: Recherehes aeriennes sur l' organisation des confins sahariens a l' epoque romaine), was convinced that its purpose (which is discussed below) was to protect agriculturallands against the depredations of nomadic raiders from the desert, to create, in his words, a 'zonetampon'.90 It was remarked earlier that his views, which were adopted by many of his contemporaries, are today widely rejected, in large measure because it is now dear that the Jossatum never formed a continuous barrier or really much of a barrier at alL"

Baradez dated the system-the ditch itself and its associated walls, towers, and gateways-to the time of Hadrian, on several grounds: that the watch-towers which were part of the fossatum just sonth of Gemellae are similar in design to those at the fort, which is securely dated to the mid-120S; that they also resemble the turrets at Hadrian's wall; tbat the ditch south of Gemellae is very much like the one at Hadrian's wall; that the principal finds, including coins and pottery, are consistent with a date in the 120S; and that linear barriers are characteristic of Hadrian's way of thinking about fron tier defence9 ' His position has occasionally

Numidia, 83 (with bibliography). Pace Benabou, La Resistance afi'icaine, 73, there is no reason to suppose that the Romans aimed at 'occupying' the Aures.

89 Broughton, Romanization oI Africa, 136. On 'Lam-' in Algerian pIace~names, see Shaw, 'Lamasba', 64-5 n. 2, who suggests that it may be derived from a paIaeoberber term for 'spring'.

9° Fossatum Afi'icae, 358. On Baradez, see especially D. Williams, The Reach 01 Rome: A History 01 the Roman Imperial Frontier Ist-5th Centuries AD (New York, 1996), 136-46.

9' See especially Maxfield, 'Frontiers', 343; Isaac, Limits 01 Empire, 414, 9" 'Complements inedits au Fossatum Africae', in Studien zu den Mililärgrenzen

Roms: Vorträge des 6 internationalen Limeskongresses in Süd-Deutschland (Cologne, 1966),200-10.

\ , , I

"" ...... --, \

The Roman Frontier-Zone 47 been challenged, but it seems now to be generally agreed tbat be had it right: tbefossatum is almost certainly 'Hadrianic'.93

It is divided into three parts (what Baradez identified as a fourth, easternmost sector extending east from Ad Maiores towards the Chott Djerid has been shown by Pol Trousset to be a road):'4 one section of it, the Seguia Bent el Krass, is located just south of the Oued Djedi and the Hadrianic fort at Gemellae; a second section runs 28 or so miles from Mesarfelta to Thubunae, cutting across south-western access-routes to the Aures mountains; a third, which is both the longest (approximately 87 miles) and least studied of the three, encircles the eastern end ofthe Hodna mountains (see Fig. 2-4).

The Seguia Bent el Krass seclion has been described briefly already: about 37 miles in length, with its eastern end intersecting the Oued Djedi, it consisted of a mud-brick wall fronted by a Vshaped ditch95 Baradez concluded that the wall was also dissected by narrow gateways at mile intervals, and that it was provided with towers placed singly about half-way between each set of gates. 96 It has been suggested recently that the arrangement of the gateways and towers may have been a good deal less regular than Baradez supposed: there are, for example, far more towers than his scheme would allow; some of them are grouped; and while some are on or very close to the wall, others are located some distance away from it.97 But it may be that in its original (Hadrianic) form the Seguia Bent el Krass was much as Baradez described it, and that its irregularities are a product of post-Hadrianic modifications.98

The configuration of the other two sections of the fossatum seems to be much the same: a ditch of varying dimensions; a narrow wall that in places gives way to a mound; gateways and watch-towers.99

93 D. 1. Mattingly and G. D. B. Jones, 'A New Clausura in Western Tripolitania: Wadi Skiffa South', üb. Stud. I7 (1986), 94. So, too, Birley, 'Hadrianic Prontier Poliey', 29; Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 244; Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 371; Raven, Rome in Africa, 76-7; Whittaker, Frontiers, 48, correcting an earlier view ('Trade and Frontiers' , I I 2) that the Jossatum was 'Trajanie or Hadrianie'. See also the diseussion in Fentress, Numidia, 98-101.

94 Baradez: Fossatum AJricae, 109-11, 146. Trousset: 'Signification d'une frontiere'. 95 See also WjJJiams, Reach, 135-6, 144-5.

96 Fossatum Africae, 93-108. The Seguia Bent el Krass sector is described also in Lesehi, Etudes d'epigraphie, 37-8; Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 370; there is a good photo in Leschi (at 36). The gateways are diseussed also in Fentress, Numidia, 114. 97 Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Afriea', i. 244.

98 See Maxfield, 'Frontiers', 343.

99 See also Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Afriea', i. 244-6.


In their component parts, the sections of the fossatum are broadly similar to the somewhat better preserved, and probably somewhat later, linear barriers that have been recovered in Roman Tripolitania (mainly in southern Tunisia)-the so-ealled clausurae, most of whieh (twelve have now been identified) eonsisted of a diteh, wall, wateh-towers, and gates, wo The Gebel Tebaga c/ausura south-west of Capsa (mod, Gafsa), for example, whieh was built across about 10 miles ofplain-Iand between the Gebe! Tebaga and the Gebel Ma.tmata, consisted of a stone bank fronted by a ditch and accompanied by watch-towers, with a single gate near its south-east end. '0' The best preserved of the c/ausurae is at Bir Oum Ali, a narrow defile in the Cherb mountains about 35 miles south-east of Capsa. An imposing mortared wall with two-faced masonry, about 4.5 feet wide and almost 20 feet high, dated, it seems, by its associated pottery sherds to the late second or early third century AD, it looks remarkably like Hadrian's wall. M

The Developed Frontier (ta AD 235)

The Hadrianic frontier-system was changed very little in the sixty or so years that separate Hadrian's death from the accession of Septimius Severus in AD 197. Under Antoninus Pius, in AD 145, the road that linked Thamugadi to Lambaesis seems to have been extended to Vescera, completing the encirclement of the Auros mountains begun under Trajan. 1

0 3 Two mid-century inscriptions attest other military operations in the region. One (CIL 8. 2465 = 17953), from Mena'a, in a valley ofthe central Auros that was horne to a much-used transhumant route, records that a detachment of

100 See especially Mattingly and Jones, 'A New Clausura'; see also O. Brogan, 'Radd Rajar, a "Clausura" in the Tripolitanian Gebel Garian South of Asabaa' Lib. Stud. Ir (1980),45-52, on the easternmost of thc clausurae. Mattingly, Tripo~ Utania, 79, 115, argues that at least some of them are pre-Severan. They are mappcd in Whittaker, Frontiers, 80. 101 Mattingly and Jones, 'A New Clausura', 89.

102 See also Mattingly, Tripolitania, 108; Mattingly and Jones, 'A New Clausura', 88-9, 95· Photograph in MacKendrick, North African Stones, 60. It appears that most of the other clausurae were originally not much more than 6---9 feet high: Mattingly, Tripolitania, 113.

103 Construction of the road from Lambaesis to Vescera is thought to be

attested by CIL 8. 10230, which records the presence of a detachment of the Sixth legion Ferrata: Fentress, Numidia, 114; see also Raven, Rome in Airica, 68. Rowever, the inscription may refer instead to local surveillance operations; see below, p. 56.


the Third Augustan legion was morans in procinctu C'waiting in readiness').'04 The second (CIL 8. 4322), from Casae, just north of Lambaesis, mentions a vexillation of legionaries morantes ad fenurn sec(andum) ('waiting to mow the hay'). It has been suggested that the soldiers may have been protecting local agricultural labourers (but against what?), or, and what is more likely in my view, that they themselves were harvesting hay or overseeing its collection. lOs Later in the second century, under Commodus, a military observation-post (burgus speculatorius) was established on the route between Calceus Hereulis and Mesarfelta. w6 To the west, in Mauretania, a fort was constructed in AD 148/9 near Medjedel, on the northern slopes ofthe Ouled Nail mountains, about 70 miles due south of Auzia, and almost 180 miles west of Lambaesis. W7 Its purpose is not readily apparent; perhaps it was intended to serve as a forward survey post for the frontier-road that lay far to the north beyond the High Plains and the Titteri mountains. 108 Later, under Commodus, the road itself was provided with wateh-towers (between Auzia and Rapidum). W9

It appears, then, that much of what was aecomplished under the Antonine emperors was in the nature of housekeeping (the exception is the fort built near Medjedel). The Hadrianic fron tier was not restructured in any significant way until after the accession of Septimius Severus, when the !ine of Roman fortifications was pressed to the very edge of the deser!. 'w

A ehain offorts, including EI-Gara and Aln Rich, was built west of Gemellae at least as far as Castellum Dimmidi, where a fort,

104 On Mena'a, see P. Morizot, 'Vues nouvelles sur I'Aures antique', CRAI

(197~), 309. 105 See also Fentress, Nwnidia, 109.

10 CIL 8. 2495; Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 250. 10

7 See Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 248. lOS Three previously unpublished forts which are described briefl-y in P. Salama,

'Quelques incursions dans la zone occidentale du limes de Numidie', Ant. afr. 27 (1991),93-105, and which are located in the region east ofMedjedel, appear also to date to the time of Antoninus Pius.

109 Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 250.

110 At about the same time, the frontier in Tripolitania was also advanced to the desert with forts established at Ghadames, Gheria el Garbia, and Bu Njem: see P. Trous~et, 'De la montagne au desert Limes et maitrise de l'eau', ROMM 4.1,-2

(I986), 93; on the Tripolitanian frontier in general, see Rebuffat, 'La Frontlere romaine', 225-47; R. G. Goodchild, 'Oasis Forts of Legio III Augusta on the Routes to the Fezzan', Papers ofthe British School ai Rome, 22 (1954), 56-65; the frontier is mapped in Fevrier, Approches du Maghreb romain, i. I63. See also Isaac, Limits of Empire, 126, on Severan expansion in Arabia.

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half a hectare in size and designed to house 500 cavalrymen, was constructed in AD 198 at the direction of the legionary commander, Q. Anicius Faustus.''' lt has been suggested that the frontier-line may have been extended even further to the south and west to Laghouat, south-east of the Djebel Amour (see Fig. 2.5). m But nothing identifiably Roman has been recovered there.

There is no indication either that the Romans systematically explored the desert beyond Castellum Dimmidi. Only two Roman armies are known to have penetrated the western Sahara. In AD 41

or 42, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, pro-praetorian commander in Mauretania, led his troops into the desert in pursuit of some Moorish insurgents; the Romans turned back after ten days' march through 'deserts covered with black dust' (solitudines nigri pulveris) and 'places uninhabitable by their heat' (loca inhabitabilia jervore).' '3 Around the same time, his colleague, Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, pursued the Moorish chieftain Sabalus into the deser!. "4

There are no reports of subsequent Roman expeditions into the region. The record is probably incomplete. But it can safely be said that the Romans had very little interest in the deser!.

A second Severan network of forts was constructed along a line that runs north ofthe Ouled Nail mountains, at el Guelaa and Bou Saada in the region east of the Antonine fort near Medjedel, and, west of it, at Korirein, Aiu el Hammam, and Zenina. Roman remains have been found even further to the south-west, at Agneb, el Bayadh, and el Khadra."5

lt is difficult to discern a military purpose in all this construction, the effect of which was to encircle the Ouled Nail mountains.

111 On EI-Gara, see Fentress, Numidia, 87 (with bibliography). The date of the construction of Castellum Dimmidi is attested by AE (I948), 214; see also Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie, 322; cf. Raven, Rome in Africa, 78. On the fort, see especially G.e. Picard, Castellum Dimmidi (Paris, 1957). Jt was occupied until AD 238: MacKendrick, North African Stones, 246. 112 Fentress, Numidia, 114, 122 n. 23·

113 Pliny, HN 5. 14-15. J 14 Cassius Dio 60. 9. 1-5. On Roman exploration of the central Sahara, which

was in part a by-product of punitive measures directed against the Garamantes, see Raven, Rome in Africa, 62-3; on trans-Saharan trade in the Roman era, see especially 1. T. Swanson, 'The Myth of Trans-Saharan Trade during the Roman Era', International Journal of African Historical Studies, 8 (I975), 583-600; M. Milburn, 'Romans and Garamantes: An Enquiry inta Contacts', in D. 1. Buck and D. 1. Mattingly (eds.), Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania: Papers in Honour of Olwen Hacket! (Oxfard, 1985), 241-61.

115 See Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 253·


Perhaps we are to understand that the mountains were a source of indigenous resistance (there is no evidence for it). "6 The arrangements cannot be said to have had a strategie purpose, at least not one that can be interpreted as having been directed against an extern al threat (from the south-west?), for their effect was greatly to lengthen both the frontier-line and the salient that was formed of the High Plains where they were squeezed between the forts that ran along the northern slopes of the Ouled Nail and, to the north, the line ofSeveran forts (described below) that followed the southern edge of the Tell Atlas. It might be conjectured that the Romans intended to encircle the High Plains by driving a line of fortifications across them, from el Khadra, say, to Cohors Breucorum, and that their plans were, for one reason or another, never realized (it is less likely, I think, that there are undiscovered forts in the western reaches of the High Plains).

A third network of Severan forts (including Aln Grimidi) was constructed along a line that ran parallel to the northern edge of the High Plains, south of the Biban and Titteri mountains in the east, and of the Ouarsenis massif and Frenda mountains in the west. At about the same time, the frontier-road west of Auzia was extended all the way to the region of the Oued Tafna, where forts were established at Altava (in AD 202) and at Numerus Syrorum, just 40 miles from the present-day border with Morocco. "7

The effect of the Severan arrangements in Mauretania was to create a 'double fron tier', in which the Trajanic frontier-road west of Auzia, which coincided with the 400 millimetre isohyet-the theoretical southern limit of profitable cereal culture without irrigation-and which continued to be thought of as the main fortified line (praetentura), was now complemented by a second array of fortifications well to the south in the steppe-land of the High Plains (what milestones in the region call the 'new frontierline', nova praetentura). Ir8 Much the same can be said of the frontier-system in east-central Algeria: an inner (northern) line of fortifications, which connected Theueste in the east to Zarai

I!6 cr. P. Leveau, 'L'üpposition de la montagne et de la plaine dans l'historiogr~phie de,l' A~rique du ~ord anti9ue'" Annales de geographie, 86 (1977), 201-5.

7 Damels, The Frontters: Afnca', 1. 254. 118 P. Salama, 'Les Deplacements successifs du limes en Mauretanie Cesarienne'

in Fitz (ed.), Akten des XI internationalen Limeskongresses, 578; Trousset, 'De 1~ montagne an desert', 93; Whittaker, Frontiers, 81.


and Auzia, tracked, in Susan Raven's words, 'pretty exact1y', ~he 400 millimetre isohyet; an outer (southern) system of forts, whlCh extended from Castellum Dimmidi in the west through Gemellae and Ad Maiores to Tripolitania, followed a line that ran between the 100 and 150 millimetre isohyets, where the semi-arid lands that can support the dry-farming cultivation of cereals glve way to the desert. II9

The Military Presence

It seems now to be widely agreed that the Roman frontier in north Africa was usually 'one of low priority'. 120 The e:idence ~s the relatively small size of its occupying army. Only a smgle leglOnthe Third Augustan-of perhaps 5,000 men was permanently stationed in the Maghreb over the whole of the Roman era. On the generous assumption of a complementary force, of about 15,000-20,000 auxiliary soldiers, Roman north Afnca s. approxlmately I 10,000 square miles can be said to have been garnsoned by

f . I2r an army ° Just 20,000-25,000 men.

119 Raven: Rome in Africa, 78; cf. Trousset, 'De la montagne a~ ,~esert'; ?3; MacKendrick, North Ajhcan Stones, ~4I. See also, Le Bohee, ~a T':01slCm~ LelflO,n Auguste, 578, who distinguishes four dlserete ~rontJer-systems ~ s~ste!nes ?efenslf~ ~ in north Afriea not inc1uding the Mauretaman double-frontwr. a systeme aU,r~ sien' consisting' of the legionary base at Lambaesis, garrisons at Mena'a, VaZalVI, Mas~ula, Casae, Zarai, Caleeus Hereulis, Gemellae, ,and the m?dern EI-Arou~ and Hr. Sellaouine, two police-posts (burgi speculatorii) 111 the Aures, two ea,mps 111 ~he

. [ El-Outaya and the Mesarfelta-Thubunae segment of the jossatum, a reglOno, " h'h' IddG He 'systeme saharien' in (what was to beeome) .NUt?l?ta, w IC me,u e ,eme a ~ Ad Maiores, EI-Gara, A'in Rieh, Castellum Dlmmldl, an? the SegU1a ~ent el Kra~s: a 'systeme saharien' in western Tripolitania, e~mpnsed of garr,lsons at .,Sldl Mohamed ben A'issa, Ksar Rhelane, Remada, and SI Aoun, and four hnear-?arIl,ers, at Djebel Tebaga, Djebel Melab, Oued Skiffa, and Oued Zrala; .and a system,e saharien' in eastern Tripolitania, which inc1uded forts at Zel~a, Bu NJem, Gasr Zerzl, Gheria el Gharbia, Gheria el Sehergia, Aln Wif" Aln el-Aven.la, and Ghadan:es. I find it hard to believe that Roman military strategy 111 north Afnca was as eoheslve as Le Bohee's seheme makes it out to be. .. ", .

120 The quotation is from Daniels, 'The Frontlers: Afnea, 1. 235, see also Raven, Rome in Africa, 58. ',.

121 Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Afriea', i. 235-6, puts the .slze of the army at 3°,500, his estimate of 24 500 auxiliaries is, in my view, tao hIgh, The figure for squar~ miles, a grass esti:nate of ~he pl~nar or 'fiat-map: area of the Rom~n-co~trolle. territory in north Afriea, IS denved from ~haw, ~u~onomy and !nbute , ,68 ~lt eombines his figures for Africa Proeollsulans, NumldIa, Mauret~ll1a Cae,s~n~nsl~, and Mauretania Tingitana). The distribution of the north Afncan auxIlmnes IS plotted in Le Bohee, Les Unites auxiliaires, 194-5·


Almost half of the soldiers were stationed m Mauretania Tingitana (one of the most heavily armed of all the Roman provinees), '" Most of the rest appear to have been eoncentrated in the region around Lambaesis and in the relatively narrow fron tier-zone of Mauretania Caesariensis. In the absence of any kind of data, it is impossible now even to estimate the size of the indigenous population of the fron tier-zone, But it may safely be eonjeetured that the 10,000- I 5,000 Roman soldiers who were posted there were a signifieant proportion of the loeal population,

r tappears, too, that their distribution was ehanged very Iittle in the period after the legion was moved from Theueste to Lambaesis (AD

II 5/17?), Many, perhaps a small majority, of the soldiers were stationed at ornear Lambaesis, Most oftherest, it seems, were posted to the fortified frontier-Iine in Mauretania, to its advanee line of southern outposts, or to one of the two series of forts that lay north and south ofthe Ouled Nail mountains, It is not unlikely either that small legionary garrisons were established in the Aun,s mountains, perhaps espeeially at what Michel Janon has called their 'points ou des zones de passage', >23 The idea has been ehallenged by Elizabeth Fentress, mainly on the grounds that only a single legionary post has ever been identified in the mountains-a garrison, probably smalI, at Ain el Aouad, whose presence is attested by a legionary stamp on a water-pipe (fistula), "4 But it needs also to be remarked that there has been little systematic exploration of the Aures,

It might be supposed that the veteran colonies scattered aeross the frontier-zone (Thamugadi, Diana Veteranorum, Sitifis) were meant to assist the legionary and auxiliary soldiers in providing for the region's seeurity or that they functioned as strategie reserves ofmanpower which could be ealled up in emergencies, "5 So Robert Broughton imagined that their purpose was to 'watch' the natives, '26 It is hard to believe, however, that the veteran settlements

]22 See E. Fn':zouls, 'Rome et la Mauretanie Tingitane: Un constat d'echec?', Ant. aj;', 16 (1980), 65-93; Shaw, 'Autonomyand Tribute', esp. at 68.

U3 Janon: 'Recherehes a Lambese', 199. 12

4 Fentress: 'Forever Berber?', Opus, 211 (1983), 167. For the water-pipe, AE (I976), 716.

/25 See e.g. Manton, Roman North Alrica, 86-7; W S. Hanson, 'Administration, Urbanisation and Acculturation in the Roman West', in D. Braund (ed.), The Administration althe Roman Empire (241 BC-AD 193) (Exeter, 1988),53-4. On Sitifis (mod. Setif), see Broughton, Romanization 0/ A/rica, 126; Garnsey, 'Rome's African Empire', 231. 126 Romanization 0/ Africa, II7.


could have been intended to achieve any of thhese purtPloseds, {~~ , r h th wIll not ave ou Ive

~~~~~a~~Pt~~%se~~e~c~~7:~;who~~re likely t~,~ave been in their

mi~~~~s I~~~e O~~~?i~~e~ t~:~e~~~e t~;c~:~~e~~utine ofhthe ~ost;. . . the two centunes from teen 0 conquest frontIer army m h . ation of Severus

T f rinas' rebellion in AD 24 to t e assassm. .' ac a d ' eriod in which there was liltle senous fightmg,

Alexan er m 235, a p , '" f h 'us army , f to think that the responslbIlItles 0 t e vano

lt I,St temaPy Ibnegl'ndicated by their location, But if the inscnptlOn that

um sm, deI suspeet records its list of tariffs had not been dlscovere , no on , t cl Id have imagined that the unit stationed at Zaral was expec e wau . I28

to colleet customs dutJes, "d t' t from I ' I'k I too that the role of many umts vane , no JUS t IS I e y, , , "9 What IS reasonably area to another but also over tIme. .

~~:r from its wide~pread distribution across the frlonlIer-Zt~:~ and ~t several siles weil to the north of the fronlIer- me, IS , I

m was never intended solely to defend the provmcla s :~:i:;t e':,ternal attack. lt functioned also, a~d per;aps pn:~r~~f as an internal security force; it was, in Isaac s wor s, an ar

t nd occupation'. 130 • .

conques ab 't d on the basis of duty-rosters and slmIlar It may e conJec ure , E that a

~~~~~d;e:~c~;~~:ds~:d~!~:,r t~:~;e~i~~~~::7~~~~;: t~~~E~:;:~~: ities of camp-hfe; secunnt

g foo w' the h' ay'?)' rebnilding structures; . Casae waItmg 0 mo . ,

anes near , t 131 lt is likely also that many soldiers, and repairing eqmpmen .

127 A similar point is made in Isa.ac, Limits 0/ Empire, at 312-13.

128 See also Isaac, Limits 0/ Empire, 1.~4, 4d

09N 'die' in Maxtield and Dobson 129 M. Janon, 'Remarques sur la fronttere e uml ,

(eds.), Roman Frontie~ Stu~ies 1989, 484i<. dd h L'Algerie dans I'Antiquite, 2nd 13° Isaae: Limits o} Emplre'd 2. Cf:bM, 't aas aane 'i~strument of domination'.

1 ' 8 ) 137 who esen es 1 d D edn. (A glers, 19.

2, , '.11 R W Davies Service in the Roman Army, ~. .

131

On camp-hfe, see espeCJa y .. '. L J F Keppie 'Armies on Breeze and V. A. Maxfiel? C~e~ ~~~fie~~8;~iriob~0~ (~ds.), Ro'man Frontier Frontiers: Myth and ReahtJes, m British Museum Papyrus 2851 ('Hunt's Studies 19

89, 455-7· Casae: eIL 8. 43

22. iers stationed at Stobi in Moesia in AD

Pridianum') re.cords th~t som~ of the( s~~~ablY on military land). For the papyrus, 100/5 were asslgned to de~~~ ero~s Preis on Papyrus (Cleveland, 1971), no. 63; see R. O. Fink, Roman lltar~ e~ k 'Hunt's Pridianum: British Museum Elton, Frontiers, 1 15- I 6; see a so m, Papyrus 2851', JRS 48 (1958), 102-16.


perhaps espeeially the auxiliaries, were routinely employed in patrolling and policing the countryside, and in the Roman equivalent of ~immigration contro!'. 13

2 At a fork between two roads near the southern end of the gorge of the Djebel Selloum on the route between Calceus Herculis and MesarfeIta, a policepost (burgus speculatorius) was established in the time of Commodus; commanded by a centurion and manned by a numerus Hemesenorum, it is said to have provided 'new protection for the safety of travellers' (ad salutem commeantium nova tutela). '33 It is not unlikely that similar posts were set up across the whole of the frontier-zone.

Soldiers of the Sixth legion Ferrata, whose presence in the gorges of Tighamine in the Aures mountains is attested by an mscnptlOn (CIL 8. 10230), are likeIy to have been engaged in police or surveillance operations. '34 The recently published ostraka found at Golas (mod. Bu Njem) in Tripolitania, which consist mainly of daily duty-reports and personalletters written by the members of an unidentified unit of numeri that was stationed at several pre-desert outposts in the period AD 253-9, refer to surveillance operations and to what might be called 'passport' checks. '35 Fentress bas suggested that an inscription from Agneb (CIL 8. 1567), south-west of Castellum Dimmidi, which attests the presenee of legionary vexillations and two auxiliary cohorts in AD

I7 4, can be taken to indicate that the units were engaged in patrollmg the northern reaches of the Saharan Atlas. '36 Regular

1}2 Davies.' Service, 56-8; on north Africa, see especially Rebuffat, 'Au-deli des camps romalUs' , 490-2. On the functions of the auxiliaries, see also N. Benseddik Les Troupes auxiliaires de ['armee romaine eil Mauretanie Cesariellne sous le Haut~ Empire (Algiers, 1982); Le Bohec, Les Unites auxiliaires

1}3 CIL 8. 2495; see also 2494 (::: ILS 2636); AE (1926), 145; (1933), 45 (revising eIL 8. 2496~; (1933), 46. The site is described in Fentress, Numidia, 90-1; see also 114· <?f. Davles, Service, 60, who concludes that it was part of a network of similar ~urveIllance-posts whose purpose was to 'control movement and communications' lU the area.

134 Cf. Fentress, 'Forever Berber?', 167, who believes instead that they were probably there to build a road.

13~ The ,ostraka are published in Marichal, Les Ostraca; earlier notice in Mancha!, ~es Ostraca. d~ Bu Njem', CRAI (1979), 436-52; discussion in J. N. Adams, Lahn and PUllIC.lU Contact? The Case ofthe Bu Njem Ostraca', JRS 84 (I994), 87-112. On surveJilance operations, see Mariehai, 'Les Ostraca', 450; Les Ostraca, 106-14.

136 Numidia, 114. The inscription may be thought to indicate also that there was a fort at the sire: Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', i. 253.


soldiers might also be employed to guard private estates (against bandits?). '37 They were sometimes used also to police marketplaces: in the civilian settlement at Lambaesis, two standardbearers (signiferi) and their assistants supervised the operation of the local market. '38

Judging from what seems to have been the experience of other provineial armies, it might be expected that the soldiers stationed on the Algerian fron tier were routinely engaged in eivilian engineering and construction projects. '39 The orthogonal plan of the civilian settlement at GemelIae has been said to indicate that the army was responsible for its construetion or planning (or both). '40

But there is no real evidence of direct military involvement. Its plan shows only that those who built it may have been infiuenced by military styles of town-planning and construetion.

Mueh the same can be said of the similar eivilian settlement at Ad Maiores. '4' And while legionary bases, like those at Theueste and Lambaesis, invariably attracted indigenous merchants and suppliers, at least some of whom eleeted to take up residenee nearby, at first in the so-called tent-towns (canabae) which sprang up around the camps, and later in the more permanent settlements which grew out of thern, 14

2 there is no indication that the army actively assisted in their planning or construction.

My impression then is that the Roman army in north Africa built mainly for itself. '43 It will be remarked that the concIusion is

137 CIL 8. 14603 (= ILS 2305), the saltus Philomusianus, mid-Ist cent. AO; see also Garnsey, 'Rome's African Empire', 347 n. 48.

138 eIL 8. 18219 (= ILS 2415); see also R. MacMullen, Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 1963),59,92; B. D. Shaw, 'Rural Periodic Markets in Roman North Africa as Mechanisms of Social Integration and Contra!', Research in Economic Anthropology, 2 (1979), 103; 'Rural Markets in North Africa and the Political Economy ofthe Roman Empire', Ant. afr. 17 (1981),56.

139 Davies, Service, esp. at 64. On the army's role in the planning and construction of towns in post-conquest Britain, see B. C. Burnham, 'Pre-Roman and RomanoBritish Urbanism? Problems and Possibilities', in B. C. Burnham and H. B. Johnson (eds.), Invasion and Response: The Case 0/ Roman Britain (Oxford, 1979), 255-72, esp. at 267; 'The Origins of Romano-British Small Towns', Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 5 (1986),185-2°5; Hanson, 'Administration', 62; M. Todd, 'The Early Cities', in Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain, 87; Wilson, JRS 82 (1992),292; for Gaul, see E. M. Wightman, 'Military Arrangements, Native Settlements and Related Developments in Early Roman Gaul', Helinium, 17 (1977),105-26.

'4° Fentress, Numidia, 134. '4' Cf. Le Bohec, Les Unites auxiliaires, 17I. '42 See Broughton, Romanization 0/ Africa, 120; Raven, Rome in Afric~, IO~-I. 143 All of the 'military constructions' which Fentress, Numidia, 165, IdentIfies

were built either for military purposes or at military sites Iike Lambaesis.


constructed on mostly negative evidence But 't . . . the I' . I IS eonslstent wlth h arger plcture that will be described over the next several

c apters, m WhICh the army of the fron tier-zone may fairl be descnbed as Isolated from the local population. '44 y

THE PURPOSE OF THE FRONTIER-SYSTEM145

That part of Roman-era Algeria which lay between the inner and outer (that IS, northern and southern) frontier-lines is what lean DespOIS and, after hirn, Whittaker have called 'the Waiting Zone' ~here, :11 Whlttaker's view, the Romans aimed at controIlin' nomadlc a~d sem~-nomadic movements between early summe;

:hen there IS suffiCIent grazing in the zone to support flocks whil~ . aIvest labour filters northwards, and about JUDO to August whe It becomes essentIal to get the flocks and herds northw;rds t~

IPastujre on the stubble'. The main funetion of the inner frontier-me, le goes on to say 't "Wai . " , was 0 control the pastoralists in the . . tmg Zone and regulate the very important matter of the

tJmmg of then entrance and exit from the zone-not too earl (especlally m bad years) to trample the crops with their herds b ~ early enough to provide the harvest labour that was hired i~ th

U

. southern marche ' I46 A d' e ~ . Ccor mg to this reconstruction of the UT-

pose of the frontIer, then, the principal objective of Roman p~iey m north Afnea was to regulate the timing of the movements of pastorahsts and their animals.147

'44 S ee also B. D. Shaw, 'Soldiers and Society- The Arm iN' . ,

(1983),144. Cf. Elton, Frontiers 74' 'the high d' f" y n. umldm, Opus, 21I and the population of the area 'is o~e of th d ~r~e 0 ~ntegrah.o~ between the army ,145,Modern opinion is reviewed in e e llmg c ara:tensttcs o~.the frontier.'

d ~~nque~, CRAI, (1990),565-80. M. Euzennat, La FrontIere romaine

Whlttaker: Land and Labour in N th Af·' . Whittaker, 'Trade and Frontiers' 11' o,r nea, Kh~, 60 (1978), 349-50. Cf. labourers aeross the borders befor~ th/ha:areful regulatIOn? to allow seasonal to enter only after the erops had b th vest, but to permlt transhumant herds system'. A similar purpose is attri~~~:; toe~~d, .. p:ObfblY ~xplain the d~uble frontier Tripalitania,37-8 79 225 221' D J M tf ~ npo ltaman. c!ausurae m Mattingly, An Arehaeologic;l R~vie~' JJ?S 8" ( a )mg y and R" ~. Hltehner, 'Roman Africa:

147 Whittak F: .' 5 1995,174; cf. Manchal, 'Les üstraea' 448-51 er, rontzers, 91" see also A Berth" 'N·· ' "

Nomades ou sedentaires?' Buil,r" d' h,'1 " le:-, leIbes et Suburbures: Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Afriea'~ t 2 arcz eo agle "algerienne, 3 ~I968), 293-300; Rame in Africa, 78" Trousset 'Sign"fi 3;~ 44d~ 246, Elt?,n, FrontIers, 103; Raven, tiere', 62" ' ,I ca lOn une frontIere', 935; 'L'Idee de fron-


The theory is a seductive one, in part because it coincides neatly with what is known of indigenous uses of the land in the Roman era: it cannot be disputed, for example, that such an arrangement would have benefited both the transhumant tribes, who could hire out their labour at the grain and olive harvests, and the sedentarists of the Tell, whose harvested fields would receive needed manure [rom the pastoralists' animals" I48 But it is not, I think, a compelling explanation of the Roman frontier-system, for it fails to answer an important question: how was it in the army's or, for that matter, the emperor's interest to regulate the seasonal movements of the transhumant tribes? It seems to me that any explanation of the purpose of the frontier-system must be deemed unsatisfactory if it cannot be demonstrated that the execution of that purpose will have served the interests of those who built and maintained the fortifications, the army or the imperial government. The idea that the frontier was designed to regulate the interrelationship of transhumance and agriculture rests on an implicit assumption, which is neither demonstrably eorrect nor inherently likely to be true, that the emperors (or more broadly, the Roman government) believed that they had a duty to protect the interests of provincial, and in this case north African, agriculturalists, or, more widely, to regulate the economic and ecological interdependence of sedentarists and pastoralists. '49

There is a second objection. All of our surviving evidence indicates that the pre-Roman indigenous population of Algeria praetised both agriculture and transhumance (sometimes, it seems, side by side). '5° 1s it reasonable to suppose that they were unable to regulate pastoralism before the coming of the Romans, that is, before the Roman army intervened with its complex network of roads, barriers, and fortifications? If we start with the assumption that thejossatum (or the clausurae) was essential to the regulating of the interrelationship of agrieulture and transhumance, we must inevitably find ourselves in the position of arguing that the native population could not easily have managed without it. The 'double frontier' may have had the practical effect of controlling seasonal

148 See Fentress, Numidia, 186; Raven, Rame in Africa, 77· 149 Cf. Isaac, Limits of Empire, 334, on imperial building. IS° Fentress, Numidia, 19.


transhumance, hut it is hard to believe that it was eonstrueted for that purpose,

For mueh the same reasons, it is unlikely that the fron tier-system was deslgned to protect agncultural lands (in the words of one study, 'proteger I' Afrique utile') either from the damage that might be done to them by ammals or against raiders from the Sahara. '5' But the notIOn seems not to be easily abandoned. A survey of recent work on the Roman fron tiers concludes that the linear barners of north Africa played 'a localised role in the control of populatIOn movement (of seasonal transhumance, for example) and In the protection 0/ areas 0/ cultivation'. 152

The idea has been given what may be its fullest expression by Ene Blrley, aceording to whom the Hadrianic fron tier was mtended to mark 'the limit up to whieh economic development was to be permitted and indeed encouraged'. '53 Three objectives, he suggests, mlght be met: first, and most importantly, the development of farms along the frontier would produce 'food far the frontter garnsons and also recruits for military service" second the farms 'would encourage some at least of the nomads t~ adopt ~ settled agncultural life'; and third, the 'fron tier farmers could be encouraged to act as part-time frontier guards'.

15 1 Th '. f . . e quotatlOn l~ rom Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 578. The idea

that thejos~atUl~ was mten?ed to war.d off raiders from the desert goes back at least to J. p~ey, FOUllIes su~ le lImes romam de Numidie (dans la region de Bordj Saada ep fevne,r.-~ars, ~938) '. CRAI C.1~38), 357--9; it is neatly summarized by Leschi: E.!udes ~ eplg:aphle, 71 : en Numldle, des mesures militaires ont, des le debut du IIe sJec~e,. mt~rdl! ~ux Nomades, pa: u~e solide barriere, Je libre acces des terres cultlvables. Slmllarly, Baradez mamtamed (Fossatum Ajdcae 148) that the S . Bent ~l ~ras,s section of thc jossatum was meant to block acc~ss ro~tes to 'zon~~u~: co!olllsatlOn; c~ Fentres~, Numidia, 1 r I: 'the Gemellae segment circumscribes all the usable lan~ m the ~egl?n ~f the Oued Djedi' (my italics); Williams, Reach, 122. See als~ Mattmgly, Tnpohtama, 37, and the excellent discussion in B D Shaw 'The Camel m ,Roman .North, Africa and thc Sahara: History, Biology a~d 'thc H~lman Economy , Bulletm de l Institut Fondamental d'Ajrique Noire 41 ('979) 663-esp. at 674-5. ' ,721,

I~2 M~xfield, 'Front~ers', 343 (my italics). See also Raven, Rome in Ajrica, 91

;

~pcl~el, Roman Arm~ , 406 (the fossa near Sala in south~west Mauretania Tin i~ tana I?rot~cte? the agnculturally valuable territory'). For a similar argument abogut th~5rr~poht~m~n fronti~r, see .Re~uffat, 'La Frontiere romaine', esp. at 233.

. ,H:'ldnamc FrontIer Pohcy, esp. at 29-32. So, too, Daniels 'The Frontiers' Afnca , 1.. 250: 'Hadrianic fron tier policy had been to encourage 'economic devel~ opment nght up to the actual limes.' See also G A "\Hebster " N t N U . V' . . . H' , rt 0 e on ew lsco~e:les ~t .1roC~01~~1 ~Wroxeter) Which May Have a Bearing on Hadrian's

FrontleI POb~Y.lll Bntam, m Hanson and Keppie (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies /979, 295; WIihams, Reach, p. xix.


The argument fails for at least two reasons. It assurnes that the imperial government set out to populate the frontier-zone witb Italian immigrant-farmers; in Birley's words, 'tbe frontier region reeeived a eonsiderable eivilian population, and in the Biskra region that cannot weil have come about without direct support from the emperor, as an aet of imperial poliey'. But there is no evidence of extensive immigration to the Algerian frontier-zone; the expansion of (mostly olive) cultivation in the area that was aehieved in the period of tbe Roman oecupation is very likely to have been a native accomplishment. 154 The argument also assurnes what is demonstrably incorrect, that the frontier-line eoincided with the intersection of agriculture and pastoralism: the forts and barriers of the frontier in fact cut across the traditionallands of some tribes (like the Musulamii) who praetised seasonal transhumance. '55 There are no grounds far thinking that the fron tier was ever intended to be a barrier between sedentarists and nomads. I56

A somewhat different explanation has been advanced by Brent Shaw, who argues that the several segments of the fossatum were meant to protect settlements, not, as has generally been thought, in the northern plains, but in the exploitable 'belts' of land that run along tbe bases of the Saharan mountain massifs; their purpose, be suggests, was to ward off 'low intensity' threats from pastoral tribesmen, neighbouring communities or 'the inhabitants of the mountains above'. r 57 I suggested earlier that the Roman army is unlikely to have built linear barriers whose sole (ar even main) purpose was to protect civilian settlements and that tbe fossatum was probably not intended to protect agriculturalists (or, for that matter, anyone else) against raiding activities: the Romans must have known that determined bandits could easily cross it. And while it is entirely possible that the Hodna mountain segment of the fossatum was designed, at least in part, to ward off threats (of

154 See B. D. Shaw, 'Water and Society in the Ancient Maghrib: Technology, Property and Development', Ant. afr. 20 (1984), T21-73, esp. at 163.

155 See Le Bohec, La TroisiCme Legion Auguste, 541; Whittaker, 'Trade and Frontiers' , 112; 'Supplying thc System', 66.

156 P. Leveau, 'Le Pastoralisme dans I'Afrique antique', in C. R. Whittaker (ed.), Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 1988), 181: 'Il est demontre qu'au Maghreb le limes n'est pas la limite entre vies nomade et sedentai~e.' The point is made also in Shaw, 'Camel in North Africa', 676; 'Fear and Loathmg', 41.

J 57 'F ear and Loathing', 42.


some kind) from the upland tribes, the same eannot be said of its other seetions. The Seguia Bent el Krass segment south of Gemellae, for example, was located, not between the mountains (in this case, the Zab and Aures) and the communities that ean be assumed to have dotted their southern reaches, but beyond (that is, south of) the agrieulturally valuable land; it must have been intended therefore to deal, in some fashion, with people headed north from the area of the Chott Melrihr (see Fig. 2.6).

My own position is that the Roman fron tier in Algeria and its various fortifications had two main funetions: to provide for the security of the soldiers themselves; and to enable the army, and, by extension, the imperial government, to tax the products of pastoralism. There is a tendency in modern thinking about the north African fron tier-system, observable in virtually every piece of serious writing about it that has been published in the last twenty years or so, including Edward Luttwak's influential study of Roman imperial strategy (The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire fi'om the First Century A. D. to the Third), to assurne that the various parts of the system were designed to accomplish a single purpose. So when it is concluded, as it inevitably must be, that the fossatum cannot have been intended to function as a military barrier, the entire system is treated as having had no defensive application. The historian is led inexorably to the rather ludicrous position of arguing (usually implieitly) that the Roman army built forts which had no real military purpose.

The obvious solution is to admit that the different parts of the system are likely to have had different funetions. '58 The network of Roman military roads and forts must neeessarily have been constructed, at least in part, to counter a perceived threat to the seeurity ofthe soldiers or oftheir lines of eommunication and resupply. '59 In this eontext, it matters little whether the threat was real or imagined. What seems to be shaping up as today's orthodoxy, in whieh it is denied implicitly that Roman military strategies on the desert frontiers may have been determined by perceptions whieh we know to be false, is methodologically indefensible.

We know now that Saharan nomads eould never have seriously threatened the Roman order; Louis Lesehi's vision of

IS8 Cf. Wheeler, 'Methodological Limits', IO-II.

'59 cr. Isaac, Limits 0/ Empire, 69, on the eastern frootier.


camel-mounted raiders swooping out of the desert to pillage 'Roman' farms and settlements is, in hindsight, folly. ,60 But we have no reason to believe that the Roman army knew that. It was remarked earlier that the Romans appear to have had very httle information of any kind about the peoples who lived beyond the frontiers. Only two Roman expeditions (thos.e of Gams Suetomus Paulinus and Gnaeus Hosidius Geta) are sald ever to have penetrated the western Sahara, and then only, in asense, madvertently (in pursuit of rebels). So while it may be agreed that the Saharan nomads posed no serious threat to the frontier in the penod before b t AD 250 ,6, it eannot also be said that the Romans dld not a ou , , 162

consider them to be 'a major seeurity problem. . It is not unlikely either that some parts of the front~er-system

were intended to counter internal threats to the army s secunty (again, in this context, it matters little whether they were genuine).'63 Perhaps the clearest example is the TraJame constructlOn of roads and forts south and west of the Aures mountams, whleh, it is generally agreed, was designed to encircle them. We ~annot expeet ever to know whether the Aures really were, as B

6enabou

believes a continuing source of resistance to Roman rule. I 4 What counts ;s that the Roman army evidently thought that they were.

Other parts of the frontier-system, and most espeemlly lls hnear barriers were obviously not intended to serve a defensIve purpose. It may be agreed that thefossatum was designed instead to 'contral and direct transhumant tribes'. J65 The nature of the barner 18

160 Leschi: Etudes d'epigraphie, 65-74. " 16! So Fentress, Numidia, 117; Isaac, Limits oj EmpIre, 4~4. 162 The quotation is from Is~ac, L.imfts, 01 Empire, 99 (smd of eastem nomads).

See also Wheeler, 'Methodologlcal Llmtts , 33, 35· . .. th 163 Cf. Shaw, 'Soldiers and Society', 138: the Roman ~mear b~rne~s 1ll nor

Africa may have been 'multifunctional', directed, at least 1ll part, to hlghly local,

and internal threats'. . Wh'te 'Geo-16

4 Benabou: La Resistance africaine, 73· So, too, A. N. Sherwm~ h1'B b . Al' • JRS 34 (1944) 5' 'as a whoie teer er graphical Factors m Roman germ, , .', ... t d

o ulation of the Aures remained undisturbed and h?sttle " The no.tlO';11S reJe~ e byPMorizot 'Vues nouvelles', esp. at 3II, 337; cf. Thebert, Romall1S~tlOnhe~ ~er~manisation" 75. See also Shaw, 'Autonomy and Tribute', 69, suggestmg t a ecnological li~itations impeded the Romans' ability to 'impose an adequate control over mountain frontiers' . b 6' F

165 Whittaker, Frontiers, 147-8; see also Brett and Fentress, Ber ers, 7, entress Numidia II2' Williams, Reach, IS0. It has been suggested, too, th~t the distribution of Rom'an troops across the Algerian fron tier-zone, at. Lambaesls and at many smaller legionary garrisons, was designed to control tnbal movements


Zarai

Zab Mts.

~ Gernellae

~ ,

Vescera

Fossatum

~ Transhumants

Diana Veteranorum

Lambaesis

Aures Mts.

Thabudeos

Fig. 2.6. Linear barriers and transhumant routes in the jrontier-zone

d:cisive~while people could have traversed the ditch and wall at t e Segma Bent el Krass generally without much difficulty, it would ,~~ve been alm ost Impossible to get, say, a flock of sheep across. The real questIOn then is why the Roman army built

('deplacements de populations') . 11 1 'Recherches a Lambe'se' , especra y a ong transhumant routes: lanon

, 199· ' 166 Th

the same e f~~~:iz;;:;e ~:e~~o~~~;~P~lit:i~ are ~nderst~od to have performed mueh controls on shepherds and herds!e~ Wh~t~a~~t. Fro~tlers, 81: they were 'internal Ws as made first (as far as I ean tell) in Trouss;: ~;~~:rche~~verr1 them'. The point

ee also P. Trousset 'Note sur un t d' '.,. ur e l»leS, esp_ at 140-1. (1984), 183-98- Ma~tingly T. - l"iP~ ouvrage !meaIre du limes d'Afrique', BCTH ~7, 94. ' , npo lama, 79; Mattmgly and Iones, 'A. New Clausura',


barriers to canalize the movements of pastoralists and their animals. I argued earlier that it is doubtful, for a number of reasons, that its purpose was to regulate the interrelationship of agriculture and seasonal transhumance. It may be said again that tbe army is unlikely to have constructed and maintained the fossatum other than in the expectation that in so doing it would acquire some material or other advantage.

What I suspect to be the fossatum's real purpose was remarked long ago, in a somewhat elliptical way, by Birley, who, after arguing at length that the fron tier was intended to foster agricultural settlement, went on to say that the 'Iife of a Hadrianic frontier centred more in customs and passport control'. r67 There are, it seems to me, several reasons for thinking that the different segments of the fossatum were designed to direct transhumant traffk towards places where it could more readily be taxed. ,68

Pastoralists heading north from the region of the Chott Melrihr toward the Tell are likely to have run into the Seguia Bent el Krass segment of the fossatum; any who tried to get around it to the west will have run up against the southern reaches ofthe Zab mountains, where they will have been turned north-east towards Gemellae and Vescera; likewise, those who went east to get around it will then have had little choice but to proceed north toward Thabudeos and Vescera (see Fig. 2.6).'69

In much the same way, transhumants from the Zab mountains headed towards the EI Kantara pass of the Aur!:s will have been stopped short by the Mesarfelta-Thubunae section of the fossatum, and diverted, either north towards Thubunae or south to Mesarfelta. A similar purpose may be attributed to the sec!ion of the fossatum that appears almost to have encircled the eastern end of the Hodna mountains. The many pastoralists who wintered their animals in the grazing land of the Hodna basin and who were accustomed, if modern transhumant routes are a reliable guide, to drive their animals north in the early summer over the eastern reaches.of the Hodna mountains, will have been turned first east by the Hodna section of the fossatum, and then north or north-

r67 'Hadrianic Frontier Policy', 33-168 Cf. Raven, Rome in Ajrica, 77-8; WeHs, 'Problems of Desert Frontiers' ,478:

the soldiers stationed in north Africa 'might be intended primarily to carry out administrative or tax functions, especially in the fertile aases'.

169 For this and what follows, see especially Fentress, Numidia, II2, 167_


east by the Aur"s, with the resul! that they will have had to pass through or near Zarai, Diana Veteranorum, or Lambaesis,

The purpose of these various arrangements is indieated I beheve, by two early third-eentury AD inseriptions whieh ree~rd the eustoms dutJes that soldiers were expeeted to eolleet on goods transported across the frontier-zone. 170 One, from the civilian settlement at La~baesis (AE (1914), 234), is ineomplete; enough survlves to mdICate that soldiers from the legionary fortress were used to supervIse the eolleetion of tolls and tariffs in aeeordanee wlth a lex, portar;;, '7' The other (eIL 8, 4508), unearthed at Zarai m 1858, IS more instruetive, Tariffs are listed for a number of prod~ets, many of which may be assoeiated with pastoralism: they mclude woollen goods (tunies, blankets, and cloaks), a variety of ammals (horses, mules, asses, eows, bulls, pigs, sheep, goats), leatber, hldes (of various kinds), dates, figs, peas, nuts, 'glue, resin plteh, wme, fish-sauee (garum), sponges, and slaves, '7' We migh; suppose that there were similar tariff-lists at Vescera Mesarfelta Thubu?ae, and Diana Veteranorum. That they ha~e not bee~ found IS not, of course, proof that they never existed (there has been no systematie excavation at any of the sites).

My eoncluslOn then is that the Romans built the fossatum mamly to faeIlltate the eolleetion of taxes on goods brought north towards the Tell. '73 The real objeetive, I imagine, was to enable the army to help pay for Itself. At various times, the Romans have been smd to have had, other purpose,s i~ the frontier-zone. They may be s~m;nanze~ as. RomamzatlOll, urbamzation', and 'sedentarizalIon . My vlew IS that there is no real evidenee for any of them.

Romanization

It was Benabou's understanding that the Romans set out aggresslvely . to Impose their values and eustoms on their north Afflean sub]eets, msplred, it seems, by a belief iu their eultural

:~~ See especial13:' Darmon, 'Note sur le tarif', '72 ~~e also Davle~, Service, 61-2; Janon, 'Remarques sur la frontiere' 483

, . MacKendnc~, North African Stones, 248-9; Raven Rame in Afric~ 78-Sh~'i' !ear .a~~ Loathmg', 42-3. The tariff-rates were gener~lIy less than 3%.' ' . . f: Wtllrams, Reaeh, ISO. Fentress, Numidia, 116, suggests that Castellum

Dlmmldl may have beel~ built to control and tax a trade route from the Niger rive to .Laghou~t. But t~ere IS, as she admits, no evidence to show that such a route eve~ eXlsted. It IS more hkely, I think, that the fort was intended to be a forward sur post. vey


superiority.'74 Graham Webster takes a more eharitable view of Roman motives, but is no less eonvineed of their objeetive: the 'frontier provineials must be made to feel they were Roman and so in developing their way of life in peaee and prosperity, to defend it against the barbarians'. '75 Webster at least understood the Romans to be self-interested. Not so Eadie, who eriticizes 'revisionists' for portraying the Romans as 'insatiable plunderers'; their error, he believes, is a produet of their failure adequately to appreciate 'the Romau attempt, fundamental to the development of their fron tier polieies, to establish the regions on both sides of the border as zones of acculturation' . I 76

This relentlessly optimistie view of the aims and effects of the Roman occupation overlooks an important truth: there is no evidence, of any kind, for a deliberate poliey of Romanization in north Africa or in any of the other provinees of the empire. '77 Those who would have us believe otherwise ean point to only a single passage in the whole of Latin literature, Tacitus' now-famous description (Agr. 21) of his father-in-Iaw's programme, when governor of Britain in the late 70S AD, that arranged for the sons of the leading Britons to be taught Latin, and that eneouraged the natives to build 'temples, fora, houses','78 Agrieola's programme cannot be

174 'Les Romains', esp. at 87. 175 'Note on New Discoveries', 295. 176 'Civitates and Clients', 57; cf. 'Peripheral Vision in Roman History', in 1.

D'Arms and 1. Eadie (eds.), Ancient and Modern Essays in Honor 0/ Gerald F. Else (Ann Arbor, 1977), 222: 'the objective of Roman fron tier policy' was 'the acculturation of barbarian groups'. See also Birley, 'Roman Frontiers' , 18, who thinks that a policy of Romanization may be implied in Aristides' speech 'To Rome'. I do not understand why Dyson, ereation, 116, describes road-building as an 'instrument' of Romanization.

I77 See D. B. Saddington, 'The Parameters of Romanization', in Maxfield and Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies I989, .413. Cf. Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontiers, I28: the Roman imperial government had 'little intention' of making a 'major effort' to acculturate the fron tier populations; P. 0rsted, Roman Imperial Economy and Romanization (Copenhagen, 1985), 20: Romanization was a 'deliberate policy with economic goals'. Millett, Romanization oi Britain, 10I,

concludes that in some parts of Britain, Romanization was 'stimulated by passive encouragement'. But cf. Millett, 'Romanization: Historical Issues and Archaeological Interpretations', 37, where he suggests that we must question 'any idea that Rome had any real policy of Romanizing its conquered territories beyond ensuring an effident administration'.

178 cr. D. 1. Breeze, 'Demand and Supply on the Northern Frontier', in R. Miket and C. Burgess (eds.), Between and beyond the Walls: Essays on the Prehistory and History oi North Britain in Honour oi George Jobey (Edinburgh, 1984), 282: 'it would be hard to find a parallel in ancient literature for the encouragement by central government of Romanisation in this way'.


shown ever to have been duplicated in Britain or in any of the other provinces. '79 There was, as Ramsay MacMullen has put it, no policy behind Agrieola, 'not even a tendency'.' 80

An alternative model is proposed: Romanization, it is said, 'was never really a policy of raising native peoples to the level of Roman culture'; the Romans tried only 'to convert the loeal elites to a Roman way of life'. ,8, The mistake here is to confuse a Roman strategy that aimed at co-opting local elites to share in the costs and responsibilities of administering tbe empire-wh at Peter Garnsey has called a 'traditional' programme of 'building up a network of families, groups and communities with vested interests in the prolongation of Roman rule'-with a policy of acculturating provincial aristocracies. ,82 The point has been made forcibly of Roman policy in Tripolitania: the Romans' real purpose there, in David Mattingly's view, was 'to create stable conditions of local government'; at a 'far lower level', the Romans hoped that tribaI elites within and beyond the frentier might be 'reconciled' to Roman authority; the goal was not to turn Libyans into Romans, but to persuade potential enemies 'to identify just a little with Roman civilisation,.'83 In north Africa at least, the process of

179 See also Th6bert, 'Romanisation et deromanisation', 72 .

180 MacMullen: Changes, 57; cf. Hanson, 'Nature and Function', 59. 181 Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontiers, I91 (it may be remarked, in

passing, that J know of DO objective criteria according to which the 'level' of ancient cultures can be ral1ked). On Roman efforts to acculturate Ioeal eIites, see also N. J. Higham, 'Roman and Native in England North of the Tees: Acculturation and its Limitations', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macillnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 154: 'thc process of acculturation', a 'conscious cornponent of Roman imperial policy in Western Europe', was 'aimed at the aristocracy'. Eadie, 'Civitates and Clients', 65, takes it a step further: the Romans attempted to acculturate both dient kinfs and native civitates.

1 2 Garnsey: 'Rome's African Empire', 235. See also D. Braund, 'Ideology, Subsidies and Trade: The King on the Northern Frontier Revisited', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, I4-26; P. A. Brunt, 'The Romanization of the Local Ruling Classes in the Roman Empire', in D. M. Pippidi (ed.), Assimilation et resistance a la culture gr(!Co-romaine dans le monde ancien: Travaux de Vle Congres International d'Etudes Classiques (Madrid, Sept. 1974) (Bucharest and Paris, 1976), 161-73. A case could be made, too, pace MacKendrick, North African Stones, 148, that Roman efforts to encourage emperor-worship in the provinces were designed, not so much to facilitate the acculturation of local elites, as to disseminate a highly visible symbol of the political and economic stake which th~r had a~quire~ i? the continuatiol~ of Roman rule. .. . .

3 Mattmgly: LIbyans and the Limes: Culture and SocIety 111 Roman Tnpohtania', Ant. afr. 23 (1987), 80; cf. 72: 'the Romans were not trying to enforce a complete cultural complex on their subject peoples'; see also Tripolitania, 166.


acculturation was, as Broughton remarked long ago, 'too gradual ffi 'l ,,84 to have been the result of 0 CJa pressure . ..

It has sometimes been suggested, too, that tbe Roman Impenal government planted colonies of veteran~ in the frontier-zo~es to 'assist' in their Romanizatic)fl. 185 Accordmg to Fentress, the m~r~duction of veterans into the settlements (vici) of soutbern NumldJa that had been formed out of pre-existing communities will have 'facilitated their organisation and romanisation,.'86 The idea cannot be shown to be [alse-no Roman source discusses the purpose of tbe veteran colonies. But it must surely be the case that their main function was to provide the veterans with land. ,87

Even if they were intended to serve also as 'cent~rs of Romamzation' tbey are unlikely to have been very effeclIve-most of the vete:ans will have been of provincial origin. 188

Urbanization

It is no more likely that the Roman imperial government tried to urbanize the frontier-zones. It has been said of north Afnea that 'those of the natives who were still nomads or semi-nom~ds' we~e 'encouraged to develop urban communities'. 18

9 How mlght thiS have been accomplished? Are we to imagine that the emperors

184 Romanization 01 Africa, 113; see also 134, 141 ('Romanization was not a

Roman policy'), 224· . 'Ad .. _ 185 Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontzers, 140; see also ~an~on, mmlS

tration' 53-4 (they were 'models of the Roman lifestyle for the mdlge~o.us popu-. " 186 Numzdw, I40-I. latIOn ). . 187 Cf. Breeze, 'Demand and Supply', 282: 'the settlement of veterallS Ir: m.any

regions in frontier areas, freque~tly cit~d as support f?r a policy of RomamsatlOn, is of course connected with entlrely dIfferent factors. . .

' 188 'Cent~rs of Romanization': P. MacKendrick, 'Roman CololllzatIOn an~ t~e Frontier Hypothesis' , in W. D. Wyman and C. B. K.roe?er (eds.), . The Frontzer 111

Perspective (Madison, 1957), 13. Broughton, RomanzzatlOn .01 ~/flca, 117, argue~ that the function of the veteran colonies was to 'w~tch the lOdlge~ous tnbesmen , the were not, he suggested, 'an attempt to Romatllze tbe country. .. .

1~9 1. A. Ilevbare, 'Some Aspects of Sodat Change in ,North Afnca l,n. PUUlC and Roman Times', Museum Alricum, 2 (1973), 32. Benabou, La ,:eszst~nce alricaine, 30, takes a similar position. See also J. R. F. Blo~m~rs~ RelatIOns between Romans and Natives: Concepts of Comparatlve StudIes, 111 ~axfiel~ and Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989, 453 (on Lower Gelma~y)~ Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontiers, 127; ·A. T. Fear, Rome and Baeyca. Urbanization in Southern Spain c. 50 BC-AD 150 (Oxford, 1996), 15; MIllett, 'Romanization: Historical Issues', 39·


considered it to be their responsibility to pay for the construction of towns m the frontier-zone?190

. It cannot be denied that the number of urbanized settlements mcreased, perhaps dramatically, over much of north Africa in the penod of R~!?an ?ccupation, and especially, it seems, in the second century AD. It IS not, however, a development that the Romans can. be shown to have directed. '9' The army of the post-conquest penod may be sald to have supplied the necessary conditions, of secunty and repose'.'93 But the urbanization that is attested in north Afnca was pnmanly a native development, originating in and fuelled by competItlOn among Romanizing local elites. '94

Sedentarization

It has sometimes also been said that the Romans had a policy of sedentanzmg the north Afncan pastoralists. According to Paul Mac~endnck, the 'central aim' of the Roman military system was to make the nomads sedentary'. '95 J. A. Ilevbare was equally certam that the nomads were 'systematically compelled

::~ The point is made in Isaac, Limits of Empire, at 334. ~'. P Duncan-Jones, 'Wealth and Munificence in Roman Africa' Pa ers of

the Bnflsh School at Rome JI (196J) 170' B D Sh 'CI' E' . 'P d H' " ,.. aw, lmate nVlronment an lstory: The Case of Rom~n North Africa', in T. M. L. 'Wigley, M. 1. I~g.r.a~, and G. Farmer (eds.), ~hmate and History: Studies in Past Climates and ~ eU

t ,~pact on Man (Cambndge, 1981), 392; Sherwin-White, 'Geographieal

ae ors, 9. 192 Se I R e a so Bro~ghton, Romanization of Africa, who repeatedly denies that the o~ans had a pO!ley.of urbanization in north Afriea, e.g. at 226: 'urbanization

pal tlcularly urballizatlon on the Roman model was not a Ro " '1 poliey'; cf. 127,224. ,man or an lmpena

. 193.This is pr~su~ably what .Strabo meant when he declared (3. 3. 8) that Tlbenus, by statlOnmg three l~glOns in Cantabria, n:tade the region 'fit not onl f~r p~ace but even for urban Irfe'. R. I. Lawless, 'L'Evolution du eu lement d~ I habitat et des paysages agraires du Maghreb', Anna/es de geogra%hie

P 81 (I ' 2

457, 459, ma~es a similar point about 3rd-cent. AD frontier-zone s;ttlem 91)' ~estern.Al~en.a; cf. 1. Mertens, 'The Military Origins of Some Roman Settle:en~~ 111 B~lgl~~, In B. Hartley and 1. S. Wacher (eds.), Rome and her Northern ~;eov~~e~. l}:pzrs Pr~sented to Sheppard Frere in Honour of his Retirement from GI wr 0) t e Archaeol?gy of the Roman Empire, University of Oxford 1983

( ouc~ster, 1983), 164; Millett, Romanization ofBritain 99' see also Isaac 'L' " of EmpIre, 420. ' , , Iml s

194 C R Wh' k' . .. ltta er, Do Theones of the Ancient City Matter?', in T. 1. Cornell an~r· K: Lom~s (eds.), Urban Society in Roman Italy (London, 1993), 8.

. dNOlth A[r.Ic~n Stones; 329. S~e also Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 7I: the noma s were vlctImes de I enterpnse romaine'.


to settled life'. '96 The Jossatum itself, it has been suggested, was designed to blockade the pastoralist tribes and thereby to force them to adopt an agricultural economy. '97 The Romans' purpose in all this is generally understood to have been either the extension of cereal culture and arboriculture, or the expropriation of tribaI lands. '98

lt is undeniable that the characterization of nomadic life which survives in Roman sources is uniformly hostile. 199 The real issue is whether the Roman army, as a matter of policy, set out systematically to confine the pastoralists to designated regions (what Benabou, among others, calls a policy of 'cantonnement,).200

The bulk of the evidence that is thought to demonstrate the existence of such a policy is epigraphic: boundary-stones (cippi) that the Romans erected in many parts of north Africa, usually, it seems, in the course of cadastrating tribai lands. 2or The earliest surviving examples are from the area that lies south of the Tacapae-Ammaedara road and north of the Chott el Fedjedj; dated to the late 20S AD (perhaps to 29-30), they were set up by the Third Augustan legion on the orders of C. Vibius Marsus. One (eIL 8. 22786) is inscribed with the letters NYBG, which undoubtedly refer to the Nybgenii, and which are often interpreted to mean that the tribe had been assigned land (a

196 'Aspects of SociaJ Change', 32. So, too, M. K. Abdelalim, 'Libyan Nationalism and Foreign Rule in Graeco-Roman Times', in Libya Antiqua: Report and Papers ofthe Symposium Organized by UNESCO in Paris, 18 to 19 January, 1984 (Paris, 1986), 156 (on Libyan nomads).

197 Leschi, Etudesd' epigraphie, 65~74; Rachet, Rome el fes Berberes, 79-80, 164-73. 198 Extension of cereal culture: Rachet, Rome et fes Berberes, 68. Expropriation

of tri baI lands: Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 431 . 199 See B. D. Shaw, 'Eaters of Flesh, Drinkers of Milk: The Ancient Mediterra

nean Ideology ofthe Pastoral Nomad', Ancient Society, 13-14 (1982~3), 5-31, esp. at 5. There are excellent discussions ofnomadism in 1. Despois, Le Hodna (Algerie) (Paris, 1953),265-91, and in S. Lancel, 'Suburbures et Nicives: Une inscription de Tigisis', Libyca, 3 (1955), 289-98. See also P. M. E. Lorcin, Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial Algeria (London and New York, 1995), 51, I90, on French colonialist attitudes to Algerian (semi-)nomadism.

200 Benabou: La Resistance africaine, 429-45; so, too, Brett and Fentress, Berbers, 62; Leveau, 'Le Pastoralisme', 178. Broughton, Romanization of Africa, JI6, maintains that the army forced the (semi-)nomadic tribes to 'settle on limited territories' (cf. 96, 121, 126-7)·

20) The arrangements are described in A. Marcone, 'Note sulla sedentarizzazione forzata delle tribli nomadi in Africa aBa .luce di a1cune iscrizioni', in A. Mastino (ed.), DAfrica Romana: Auf dei IX convegno di studio, Sassari (Sassari, 1992), 104-14.


'reserve') in the region. 202 Inscriptions of the early 80S are said to show that similar arrangements were made in the territory of the Suppenses and Vofricenses, and of the Suburbures and Nicives (in the plain of Ain Abid, south-east of Cirta). 203 Trajanic boundary-stones (CIL 8. 22787-8) set up in the territory of the Nybgenii are taken to indicate that they were henceforth 'limited to the zone of the Chott el Fedjedj'.204 A number of inscriptions record cadastration in the territory of the Musulamii in the time of Trajan and Hadrian. 205 Other Trajanic boundary-stones (ILS 9380-1, AD II6-17:ji.nes adsignati) are understood to be evidence that the Suburbures, or apart of the tribe, were assigned land in the region of tbe Chott Beida. An unidentified 'Numidian' tribe (gens Numidarum) is attested near Bordj Bou Arreridj (southwest of Sitifis) in the time of Hadrian.,06 A Severan-era inscription (BCTH (1917), 342-3) seems to show that at least some of the Suburbures (res publica gentis Suburburum colonorum) had taken up residence in the region of Azziz ben-Tellis' the Romans it has been suggested, were now forcing the transhumant tribe~ south and west towards the desert.'07 Another Severan inscription (AE (1946), 38), from the region south of the Chott el Hodna records that a three-man commission, acting on the orders of th~ legionary commander, assigned 'fields and pastures and springs' (agri et pascua et fontes) to persons who are unidentified but likely to have been indigenous pastoralists. '08 ' . What is missing in the various epigraphic reports is any indica

tlOn of the Romans' purpose. It is necessary to insist that the

~o~ s~~ e.g. R.aven, Rome in Africa, 88; cf. Fentress, Numidia, 68, 73. For the Nybgenn, see Phny, HN 4. 27.

20

3 S~ppenses and Vofricenses: AE (1942-3),. 35: termini repositi inter Suppenses et V~fi.·lc:nses; ~uburbu~es a~d Nicives: AE (1957), 175; AE (1969-70), 669: agri pU~i!CZ Czrt(enszum) .a~slgnatl. See al~o Garnsey, 'Rome's African Empire', 232.

205 Fentress, Numldza, 73; cf. Mattmgly, Tripolitania, 77.

~1 AD 100/3: CIL 8. 10667 (:::: 16692 :::: ILS 5959). In 104/S: CIL 8. 4676 (= 2807] - ILS 5958a); AE (r907), r9, 2r; AE (r92J), 26. In r r6: CIL 8. 2807]b (= ILS 5958b); AE (I9~7), 20; ILAIg I. 2939bis. In 138: CIL 8. 270 (= 11451 :::: 23246). See also the table 1ll Fentress, Numidia, 74-5, and the discussion in Benabou La Resistance africaine, 438. '

~06 CIL 8. 8813-14; see also Broughton, Romanization of Africa, 125. ~07 See Garnsey, 'Rome's Afriean Empire', 232. 208 See also Trousset, 'De la montagne au desert', 100-1. The evidence for 'land

delimitation' in Trip~1itania is ~xami~ed in Mattingly, 'Libyans and the Limes', 83, who conc1udes that It was deslgned to transfer the title of some lands from the whole tribe to individuals'.


inscriptions do not demonstrate that the pastoralist tribes were d " C • , I d '°9 compelled to become farmers or confine to 1ll1enOr an s.

They show only that parts of some tribes were (or became) sedentary in agriculturally productive regions; the bo~~~arystones may have been intended to define thelr terntones. . The cadastration of tribally controlled regions was probably deslgned either to prepare the land for immigrant settlement or, more likely in my view, to establish the tax liability of the tnbal seden tarists. 21 I

The Romans in fact had a number of good reasons not 10 sedentarize the semi-nomads: the products which they brought north (leather, wo ollen goods, etc.) could be taxed; their labour was needed in the Tell at the time of the harvest; and thelr ammals, as was noted earlier, helped to fertilize the fields planted for cereal culture. 212

CONCLUSION: ROMAN OBJECTIVES IN THE FRONTIER-ZONE

Putting even the best face on the Romans' actions in the region: it is hard not to conclude, with Broughton, that thelr only ldenllfiable policy in the fron tier-zone is one of 'exploitation'. 213 The characteristics of Roman rule in Algeria would seem to conform closely to tbe model of 'imperialistic' frontier policy that has been developed by B. Barte!: little immigration mto the fronller-zone; hardly any change in native economic structures; hmlted mteraction between the intrusive and indigenous cultures.214

;209 See Graf, JRS 82 (1992), 278; Lancel, 'Suburbures et Nieives'; Shaw, 'Fear and Loathing', 44. Garnsey, 'Rome's African Empire', 232, also eonc1udes that 'there was no question of suppressing nomadism'; ~u~ cf.. ?33, where he dec1a~es that 'the participation of at least the trib~lleadershlp 111 eitles su~h as Thuburs.~eu Numidarurn Gigthis and Turris Tamellem ... suggests that a poltcy 0/ sedentarz",a-tion had achieved some success' (my italies). .,

;210 See especially Berthier, 'Nieibes et Suburbures'; Whlttaker, Lan~ and Labour', 345-6. 21 I Wh~tta~er, 'Land and Labo~r , 34~.

~I~ See also WeHs, 'Problems of Desert Frontlers, 478; cf. <?arnsey, RO,me s African Empire', 232-3; P. Leveau, 'Oceupation d"';l sol, geosystemes et sys~eme,s sociaux: Rome et ses ennemis des montagnes et du desert dans Je Maghreb antJque, Ann. ESC 41 (1986), 1345-58; Raven, Rome in Ajrica, 77·

U3 Broughton: Romanization of Africa, esp. atA4· ;214 Bartel: 'Colonialism and Cultural Responses: Problems Rela~ed to. Ro~an

Provineial Analysis', WAreh. I2/1 (1980), II-26; 'ComparatJve Hlstoncal


There IS no basis for believing that the Romans' purpose in Algena was to defend the loeal population or the land it eultivated against ineursions by (semi-)nomadic peoples who lived beyond the frontIer. There IS no reason to suppose either that they consldered It to be their duty to manage the interdependence of agnculture and pastoralism. And there is no good evidenee of any kInd to show that their intention was to make north Afrieans lilto Romans, or pastorahsts wto sedentarists.

My own view is that the imperial government's real purpose in Algena was to generate tax revenue, and to provide for the seeurity of ItS agents (soldlers and administrators). The arrangement of forts, roads, and lInear barriers in the frontier-zone strongly suggests that the soldiers stationed there were meant to function ~nmanlY as an army of oceupation. In this sense, at least, it may

e agreed wI~h MacMullen that the Romans' main objective was to monopohze the force of arms'. 2IS

Archaeology and Archaeological Theor ' in S L D . in the Archaeology 0/ Colonialism (Oxf;rd 198 ) /son ~ed')'l Comparallve Studies

;:u~~~I:I~:!::a~~~~:ssY: (~~~~~~~oation' in t~; E~~l; ;~':aS: ~~~ie~~~;f~~ Zl5 MacMulJen: Changes, 57.

3

Measuring Romanization

Historians and archaeologists have long debated the nature and extent of the acculturation of the Roman provinces, perhaps more precisely, since the movement is usually understood to have been largely one-way, the Romanization of their indigenous peoples.' But there is little agreement abou! how Romaniza!ion is

I Acculturation: I use the working definition ofR. L. Bee, Patterns and Processes: An Introduction to Anthropological Strategies Jor the Study of Sociocultural Change (New York, 1974), 96: 'modifications within cultures resulting from contacts with alien life ways'; see also H. G. Barnett et aI., 'Aeculturation', American Anthl'opologist, 56 (1954), 973-1000; 1. H. F. Bloemers, 'Acculturation in the RhineJMeuse Basin in the Roman Period: Demographie Considerations', in J. e. Barrett, A. P. Fitzpatrick, and L. Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans in North-West Europe: Fl'om the Later Republic to Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1989), 178 (a 'continuous process of interaction between two or more autonomous culture systems and the resulting change'). For current thinking about Romanization, see especially M. Millett, The Romanization 0/ Britain: An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation (Cambridge, 1990), with the review by P. W. M. Freeman, "'Romanisation" and Roman Material Culture', JRA 6 (1993), 438-45. A number of important essays are coJlected in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Bal'barians and Romans; T. F. e. Blagg and M. Millett (eds.), The Early Roman Empire in fhe West (Oxford, 1990); R. Brandt and J. Slofstra (eds.), Roman and Native in the Low Countries: Spheres of Interaction (Oxford, 1983); see also A. T. Fear, Rome and Baetica: Urbanization in Southern Spain c. jO Be-AD IjO (Oxford, 1996); M. L. Okun, The Early Roman Frontier in the Upper Rhine Al'ea: Assimilation and Acculturation on a Roman Frontier (Oxford, 1989); the section entitled 'Roman and Native' in V. A. Maxfield and M. J. Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989: Proceedings 0/ the XVth International Congress of Roman Fl'ontier Studies (Exeter, 1991); G. Woolf, 'The Unity and Diversity ofRomanisation', JRA 5 (1992), 349-52; 'Beyond Romans and Natives', W. Arch. 28/3 (1997), 339-50. On the Romanization of north Africa, see especially M. Bimabou, La Resistance africaine ci la romanisation (Paris, 1976); 'Les Romains ont-ils conquis I'Afrique?', Ann. ESC 33 (1978), 83-8; T. R. S. Broughton, The Romanization of Africa Proconsularis (BaItimore, 1929); T. Kotula, 'Les Afri~ cains et la domination de Rome', Annales litteraires de [' Universite de Besam;on, 186 (1976),337-52; P. Leveau, 'La Situation coloniale de l'Afrique romaine', An11. ESC 33 (1978), 89-92; H.~G. Pflaum, 'La Romanisation de I' Afrique', Vestigia, 17 (1973), 55-72; Y. Thebert, 'Romanisation et deromanisation en Afrique: Histoire decolo~ nisee ou histoire inversee?', Ann. ESC 33 (I978), 64-82.

M easuring Romanization

to be recognized,2 or even about what it means. 3 The process seems generally to be understood to describe the adoption or imitation of Roman ways of thought, behaviour, construction, and manufacture4 Characterization is perhaps necessarily inexact. The inadequacy of the historical record impedes analysis of indigenous practice or sentiment, especially outside the literate and mostly urban, native 61ites who wanted to advertise their connections with the governing power, and for whom Roman material culture represen ted a means of maintaining or of enhancing the prestige of their own positions. 5

lt might even be questioned whether Romanization can properly be said to be a function of cultural change. J. F. Gilliam onee remarked that being a Roman (like being an American) was largely a 'matter of law, not of culture' 6 He was correct, I think, at least at one level-the requirements of the Roman citizenship were narrowly and alm ost wholly juridical in nature. lt is likely, too, that Roman cultural attributes were gradually modified, in ways that are now probably unrecoverable, as more provincials were admitted

2 Cf. D. 1. Breeze, 'The Impact of the Roman Army on North Britain' in Barrett Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 232: 'we ne~d to defin~ bettel' what we meall by "Romanisation" and how it might be expected to manifest itself archaeologically'.

3 See also P. 0rsted, Roman Imperial Economy and Romanization (Copellhagen, 1985),16; G. Woolf, 'Monumental Writing and the Expansion ofRoman Society in the Early Empire', JRS 86 (1996), 37; 'Beyond Romans and Natives', 339.

4 Cf. 1. C. E.dmondson, 'Romanization and Urban Development in Lusitania', in Blag~ ~nd MI.llett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 153; 'a gradual change affecting provillclal soclety, caused by the adoption (at least at an elite level) of the main strands of Roman practices of government, law, language, dress and culture'; W. S. Hanson, 'The Nature and Function of Roman Frontiers' , in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 58: 'the acceptance and adoption of Roman civilization and its values'; N. Mackie, 'Urban Munificence and the Growth ofUrban Consciousness in Roman Spain', in Blagg and MilIett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 179; 'the assimilation ofthe Latin Ianguage, of Roman political, legal, social and economic practices, of Roman architecture, artifacts and technological skilIs'.

5 Cf. Millett, Romanization 0/ Britain, 2J2: the Romanization of Britain's provincial eIites was 'largely indigenous in its motivations, with emulation of Roman w~ys and styles being first a means of obtaining or retaining social dominance, then bemg used to express and define it'; see also T. F. C. Blagg and M. MilIett 'Introduction', in Blagg and Millett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 3; Fear, Rom~ and Ba~tica,. 28; A. P. Fitzpatrick, 'The Uses of Roman Imperialism by the Celtic Barbanans 111 the Later Republic', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 31. Advertising connections: S. L. Dyson, The Creation 0/ the Roman Frontier (Princeton, 1985), 86.

6 'Romanization of the Greek East The Role of the Army', Bulletin 0/ the American Society 0/ Papyrologists, 2 (1965), 66.

Measuring Romanization 77

to the Roman citizenship and, over time, to the inner circles of the governing elite. The end-product, it may be supposed, will have been what David Mattingly has called a 'cultural cocktail', whose 'specific ingredients and proportions are now difficult to distinguish'.7 At the same time, however, it cannot be denied that there was an identifiable Roman cultural matrix, at least through the first and part of the second eenturies AD, defined by language and custom, perhaps also by artifacts and architectural forms8

It has been objected, too, that the very term 'Romanization' is misleading, in so far as it implies a unilateral absorption of Roman culture9 I should not want to deny that it may sometimes be necessary to speak also of, say, 'Africanization' (perhaps especially from the third century AD). W But it must be admitted that the crosscultural adoption of material and other cultural attributes in north Africa was mostly one-sided, unequal both in degree and in kind.

What is far less certain is whether historians can solve the methodological and inferential problems inherent in measuring the extent and effect of Romanization. The main obstacle is the virtual absence of evidence for the aspirations and intentions of the acculturated; put another way, we cannot know (or expect ever to know) the motives of the Romanized non-elites. n It is because

7 Mattingly: Tripolitania (Ann Arbor, I994), 38. Cr. P. van Dommelen, 'Colonial Constructs: Colonialism and ArchaeoJogy in the Mediterranean' , W. Arch. 28/3 (1997), 309, 319-20 (on 'hybridization'); Fear, Rome and Baetica, 269; Woolf, 'Be~ond Romans and Natives', 341.

See also D. Braund, 'Introductioll: The Growth ofthe Roman Empire (241 BCAD 193)', in D. Braund (ed.), The Administration o/the Roman Empire (241 BC-AD

193) (Exeter, 1988), 10-II. 9 1. H. F. Bloemers, 'Acculturation in the Rhine/Meuse Basin in the Roman

Period: A Preliminary Survey', in Brandt and Slofstra (eds.), Roman and Native, 161. For acculturation as a reciprocal process, see especially H. 1. M. Claessen, 'Kinship, Chiefdom and Reciprocity; On the Use of Anthropological Concepts in Archaeology', in Brandt and Slofstra (eds.), Roman and Native, 217; Millett, Romanization 0/ Britain, 2; 'Romanization; Historical Issues and Archaeological Interpretations', in Blagg and Millett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 37. I do not agree wirh 1. C. Barrett ('Afterword: Render Unto Caesar', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 236) that we ought to abandon the study of acculturation (even more generally of the relations between Roman alld native), on the grounds that it requires 'evolutionary assumptions'.

JO Cf. Fear, Rome and Baetica, J03 ('Iberianization'). I I R. MacMullen, Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary (Princeton,

1990),63-4; see also Millett, 'Romanization: Historical Issues', 38. Stilliess survives to describe the purposes of those who, it may be assumed, rejected 01' resisted the Romanization of their culture.


ofthewant of a written record that almost all ofthe models that have been developed to assess Romanization (in general if not quantifiable ways), like Ramsay MacMullen's 'odd little list' of 'gods, pots and Latin', are, in a broad sense, archaeological in nature, both in the materials and in the methods they employ." Most of them, it will be suggested, are, for one reason or another, inadequate.

My position, which is elaborated below, is that a model of Romanization should, first, describe the aceulturation (or imitation) of ideas or artifaets that are, in anthropologieal terms, 'embedded' in the intrusive (that is, Roman) culture, and therefore not readily acculturated, or, alternatively, the substitution of Roman ways or artifaets for concepts or objects that are 'embedded' in the indigenous culture; seeond, it should measure the aeeulturation of those ideas and/or artifacts across a broad social range of the indigenous eulture (that is, not just among the literate elites); and, third, it should describe their aceulturation in ways that are quantifiable aeross large sampIes. '3

SOURCES AND METHons

The evidence that survives to illustrate the nature of indigenous cultures in the western provinces of the empire is, in the words of Fergus Miliar, 'relatively slight, disparate and ambiguous'.'4 And what little there is describes almost exclusively the habits of the wealthy and mainly urban provincial elites, who are likely to have absorbed Roman eultural attributes most readily, if for no other reason than that they possessed a greater capacity to aequire the products of Roman material eulture. '5 The culturallife and appetites of ordinary provincials are virtually undocumented. '6

12 MacMullen: Changes, 61. '3 On 'embedding', see S. E. van der Leeuw, 'Acculturation as Information

Processing', in Brandt and Slofstra (eds.), Roman and Native, JI-41, esp. at 32 .

J4 MilIar: 'Local Cultures in the Roman Empire: Libyan, Punic and Latin in Roman Africa', JRS 58 (1968), 126.

15 Cf. Fear, Rome and Baetica, 275; MacMullen, Changes, 42, 46, 59 ('what natives could not afford could never become apart of their lives').

16 Cf. 1. F. Drinkwater, 'For Better 01' Worse? Towards an Assessment of the Economic and Social Consequences ofthe Roman Conquest ofGaul', in Blagg and Millett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 214, on Roman Gaul. It may be remarked, too, that the little evidence we possess for the cultural life even of provincial elites


It is impossible therefore to reconstruet now mueh of what Gr~~ Woolf has called 'the human experience' of Roman Impenahsm. Gaps in the historical reeord are likely to co~eeal a eomplex eultural reality, according to which the tYPlcal mdlgenous response to eonquest and oecupation may be loeated at some llldefinable point along a continuum bounded by the extremes of those who eagerly embraced Roman values and those who rejected them. ,8 In other words, it is diffieult to deseribe perfeetly those who were, III

varying degrees, 'partially' Romanized. It may even be suspeeted, 'th MacMullen that there existed a seeond world beneath the WI, .. ) wholly one deseribed in our Roman (and Romamzlllg sourees, . unclassieal in nature, perhaps an aetual majority of the populatIOn of the provinces. '9 It is, it might be added, a world of whleh we are afforded only an occasional glimpse, in north Afnean lllvocatIOns of the dU Mauri, for example, perhaps also in the eunous httle Arvernian statuettes of 'wet-nurses' .20 The ~rocess tha~ we call Romanization is readily identified in the matenal r~eord, III deposits of Roman-made dinnerware beyond the Rhllle, III badly wntten Latin inscriptions at the edges of the empire. But It IS far from eertain that we possess the tools that might accurately measure It.

lt is in the absence of any real evidence, then-perhaps because of it-that it seems now to have become fashionable to argue, or really to assert, that ordinary provincials are likelyto have emulated the recorded values and practiees of the ehtes; as Cohn Haselgrove has put it, 'gradual emulation of elite behavIOur by

describes the views and sentiments only of male society. In other and somewhat better documented societies (e.g. in the American West), cross-cultu~aI ~~n~cI~s appear often to have been monopolized by indigenous. males: R. . ttc:, 'Introduction: Revisionism and Regionalism', in R. D. ~Itchell.(ed.), Appa!achwn Frontiers: Settlement, Society and Development in fhe Premdustrtal Era (Lexmgton, Mass., 1991), 9. Perhaps the same can be assumed of the Roman world.

17 Woolf 'Unity and Diversity', 350. , ,. 18 Cf F~ar, Rome and Baetica, 61; Y. Le Bohec, La Troisiem~ Left.lOn Auguste

(P . . 989) 28 518' B D Shaw 'The Structure of Local Soclety m the Early ans, I , , ,.. ,

Maghrib: The Elders', The Maghrib Review, 16 (1991), 18. 19 MacMullen: Changes, 62. . 1 zo DU Mauri: see Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 3°9-30, esp. at 320-1, see ~ s~

G Camps 'Quisontles Dii Mauri?', Ant. afr. 26(1990), 131-53; E. w. B. Fen~resf? ~1l Mauri and Dii Patrii' Latomus, 27 (1978), 5°7-16. Statuettes: H. Verte.t, Re 19~O?

opulaire et rapport ~u pouvoir d'apn!s les statue~tes d'argile sous l'~mplre rom~m : in A. Daubigney (ed.), Archeologie ef rapports SOClaUX en C.au1e (Pans, 1984), ~8. 97, see also 1. Webster, 'Necessary Comparisons: A Post-Colomal Approach to RehglOus Syncretism in the Roman Provinces', W. Arch. 28/3 (1997), 332-4.

80 Measuring Romanization

other sections .of the population, especially the upwardly mobile elements, provlded the motor for the more widespread changes in archllectural fashIOn and material culture which we conceive of as Romanization':" The model, which has been given perhaps its fullest expressIon by Martin Millett, may be summarized as follows: because the Romans preferred not to administer the provmces dl;ectly (mainly as a way ofreducing costs), they empowered native ehtes to govern their own societies, provided that they dld so broadly m accordance with Roman principles and with a Roman-style constitution that provided, at the very least, for the handmg over of tax revenues to the central government; the local ehtes were happy to be co-opted and eager both to acquire and to dIsplay the material symbols of Roman culture because their identification with Roman military and political authority served to stre~gthen then already privileged position; 'progressive emulatIon of their acqnired values at lower levels of the social hierarchy was 'self-generating'. 22

It is necessary to insist, however, that there is no real evidence for 'self-generating' or any other sort of emulation of the behaVlOur or tastes of the provincial elites. It cannot be assumed that ordmary provincials shared broadly in the aspirations of the literate . class. What is needed is a standard of measurement that descnbes the acculturation of Roman valnes and artifacts across a wlde ra,nge of the social structure of indigenous culture.

. MIllett s model may be said to be inadequate for other reasons. FIrst, II cannot really be said to measure Romanization, because it provldes no tool of quantitative analysis. MacMullen has remarked that it is 'self-evident' that there was some acculturation in each of the provinces of the empire: the real question is how much. '3

Second, hke many others, Millet!'s model aims at identifying the

21 Haselgrove: 'T.he Romanization of Belgic Gau!', in Blagg and Millett (eds.), Early Ron;.an. /fn:P1re, 45; see also I. Ferris, 'Shopper's Paradise: Consumers in Roman Bntal.n, In P. Rush (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology: Second Confer~nce Proceedmgs ~Aldershot an~ Brookfield, Vt., 1995), 137. Cf. B. D. Shaw, Autonomy and Tnbute: Mountam and Plain in Mauretania Tingitana', ROMM 41~2 (198?), 82 n. 3, wh<;, notes that the co-option oflocaI elites is often understood to be the normal paradI.gl~ of pr~vjncial integration into the Roman system', and sU~fest? th~t ,the mo~ei ~s sure!y lll. need of some iconoclastic revision'.

M~lIett. RomaOlzatlOn: Hlston.cal Issues', 38. See also B. Kurehin, 'Romans and Bnton~ on th~ ~orthern FrontIer: A Theoretical Evaluation of the Archaeology of Reslstance , III Rush (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology 125

23 MacMullen: Changes, 61. ' .


assimilation only of Roman material culture: Roman techniques of production and/or Roman-made or Roman-style goods. It seems to me that the process of Romanization cannot be descnbed adequately other than by distinguishing rigorously between the acculturation, on the one hand, of things, and, on the other, of the Ideas that go with them. It has been said recently that Romanization is 'archaeologically demonstrable'.'4 But some at least of what we might like to know about its effects is archaeologically untraceable: post-conquest changes in patterns of land ownershlp, for example, or in education and in the use of native languages.25 And archaeology can tell us nothing at all about the reasans why some provincials adopted Roman ways. ,6

It seems often to be taken for gran ted that provincials will have appropriated as many characteristics ofRoman cuIture as they could afford. But adoption of a conqueror's way oflife is hardly a umversal feature of pre-industrial empires. '7 In fact, it could be argued that there was little about Roman culture that was inherently desirable, perhaps only, in MacMullen's eslimation, 'hot baths, central heating, softer beds, and the ple~sures of wine'." It h~s been su~gested recently that north Afncans may have found much that was attraclive' in Roman culture, for example, 'in technology and sepulchral architecture'.29 What sort of superior technology did the Romans have to offer to the peasants and pastoralists of the Maghreb?

Roman habits and ideas cannot be said to have been adopted because they were self-evidently snperior to the indigenous. A Roman-style name and clothes, at least a rudimentary knowledge of Latin-these were among the prerequisites of advancement, m army life or in the bureaucracy. It was Tacitus' understanding (Agr. 21) that Britons who adopted Roman ways dld so because they were eager to be promoted (hanoris aemulatio). It may be questioned whether those who embraced Roman custom merely because it was expedient to do so (that is, to enhance thelr own position) can really be said to have been acculturated.

24 Barrett, 'Afterword', 235. 25 Breeze, 'Impact of the Roman Army', 227· 26 Cf. MacMullen, Changes, 63, 295 n. 3I. 27 Woolf, 'Unity and Diversity', 352. 28 MacMullen: Changes, 63· 29 D. B. Saddington, 'The Parameters ofRomanization', in Maxfield ~nd Dobs?n

(eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989, 416; cf. P. G~rnsey, 'Rome's Afn~a~ EI?-Plre under the Principate', in P. Garnsey and C. R. Whlttaker (eds.), Impenahsm In the Ancient World (Cambridge, 1978), 253·


It seems to me that what we ought to be trying to identify is the acculturation of ideas or values that were rooted or, in anthropologleal terms, 'embedded' in Roman culture. A Roman artifact that carried with it some religious significance, for example, will have been more difficult to acculturate than, say, a pot30 Put another way, the most acculturated among the indigenous will have been those who deviated furthest from the norms of what anthropologists would call 'the most exclusive orders of structured activity' in their own cuhure (so, conversely, the least aceulturated will have been those who eonformed most closely to the same norms)3'

It is my position that many of the techniques which have been employed to assess the aeculturation of indigenous societies in the provinces are imperfect, because they da not measure, in ways that are quantifiable aeross a wide range of provincial soeiety, either the acculturation cf values Cf concepts that were rooted in Roman culture, or their displaeement of beliefs and ideas that were embedded in the indigenous eulture.

UNWORKABLE MODELS

The provineial adoption of Roman arehitectural forms is often taken to be an index of aeculturation. So the Romanization of Britain is said to be 'demonstrated more obviously and more permanently by its arehiteeture than by any other aspect of its material eulture' 3 2 We are told that 'the most charaeteristie phenomenon' of Romanization is tbe provineial town that was organized on astreet grid and equipped with 'substantial Roman-style publie buildings', includingjora, basilicae, baths, tempIes, amphitheatres, and theatres. 33 The Romanization of Britain is

3° van der Leeuw, 'Acculturation', 32. 3' See B. P. Dohrenwend and R. 1. Smith, 'Toward a Theory of Acculturation'

Southwestern Journal 0/ Anthropo!ogy, 19 (1962), 35-6. ' 3

2 T. F. C. BJagg, 'Art and Architecture', in M. Todd (ed.), Research on Roman

Britain /960-89 (Londan, 1989), 210.

33 Millett, Romanization oi Britain, 69. Cf. Thebert, 'Romanisation et deromanisation', 69. on th~ bu.ilding of rural ~at~-complexes in north Africa. For fora, baths, and theatres as mdlces of RomamzatlOn, see also P. MacKendrick, The 'North A/rica? Stones Sp~ak (Chapel Bill, NC, 1980), 216-17; M. SpeideI, 'The Roman Armym North Afnca', JRA 5 (1992), 404 (it was the 'highly romanized' provincials not the 'country bumpkins', who built amphitheatres, capitoIia, circuses, and the~ atres); cf. H. Elton, Frontiers o/the Roman Empire (Bloomington, Ind., 1996),41.


said to be indicated also by the construetion of heated hornes and of reetangular timber and clay buildings that functioned as both house and ShOp.34 So, too, the building of Roman-style residences in the eountryside is thought to be 'an important index of Romanization', or at least of the Roman aspirations of their owners. 35

Aeeording to Keith Branigan, the construction of Roman-style villas indicates 'a reasonable degree of Romanisation'; their owners, he suggests, ean be understood tohave adopted 'to some degree a Roman life-style'36 What, it might be asked, is a 'reasonable' degree of Romanization?

The real question is whether Roman styles of arehiteeture were adopted (or imitated) for any reason other than ease, eomfort, or expediency. Put anotber way, can the adoption of Roman arehiteetural forms be assumed to indicate 'the aeeeptance of a set of Roman values'?37 What provineial would not have preferred to live in a heated horne? The urban elites who paid for the eonstruetion of Roman-style publie buildings did so both as a way of advertising their own importance and in the expectation that they would thereby win the favour of the governing power. 38 In the case of

34 Heated homes: K. Branigan, 'Celtic Farm to Roman Villa', in D. Miles (ed.), The Romano-British Countryside: Studies in Rural Settlement and Economy (Oxford, 1982), i. 95. Timber and day buildings: Millet~, Romanizatio~ 0/ Britain? 107. Cf. Blagg 'Art and Architecture', 206: the five- or slx-roomed corndor house Illustrates the 'g~owth of a more broadly based Romanized rural society'. ,

35 MilIett, Romanization 0/ Britain, 195; cf. 117-19. See also M. Fulford, The Economy of Roman Britain', in Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain,. 187; N .. 1. Higham, 'Roman and Native in England North of the Tees: Acculturatlon and 11s Limitations', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbaria~s ~nd Romans, 154; R. Hingley, 'Roman Britain: The Structure of Roman !mpenahsm .and, t~e Consequences of Imperialism on the De~elo1?ment of a Penpheral, Provl~ce, m Miles (ed.), The Romano-British Countryslde, 1. 32; A. H. A. Hogg, InvaSIon and Response: The Problems in Wales', in B. C. Burnham and B. B. Johnson (eds.), Invasion and Response: The Case 01 Roman Britain (Oxford, 1979), 285; S. D. Trow, 'By the Northern Shores of Ocean: So:ne Observations .on Acculturation Process at the Edge of the Roman World', In Blagg and MllIett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 112-13. Romano-British villas are surveyed i~ I. Hodd~~ and M MilIett 'Romano-British Villas and Towns: A Systematlc AnalysIs, W Ar~h. 12 (1980), 69-76. 3

6 Branigan: :Cel.tic Farm', i. 81. 37 R. F. 1. Jones, 'A False Start? The Roman UrbamzatlOn of Western

Europe', WAreh. 19 (1987), 50: the building of Roman-style towns in Britain shows 'the acceptance 01 a set 01 Roman va/ues, which ex.t~n.ded beyond the construction of grand public buildings to paying for the actlVltles that went on inside them, like games in the amphitheater' (my italics). See also Fear, Rome and Baetica, 170. . . .

38 Cf. Fear, Rome und Baetica, 268 (on Roman-style pubhc works 10 Spam).


public buildings, it is sometimes impossible even to distinguish between what is Roman and what is not. It has been suggested that the pre-Roman public buildings at Leptis Magna, which have not been preserved, were probably 'already very largely classical' in style.

39 At the very least, it must be admitted that the building of

large pnvate houses and villas teils us nothing about the aspiratlOns of those who were not of the landed elite40

Art, too, is an inadequate standard of measurement, and for much the same reason. It cannot be disputed that the use of stone as a medium of expression in Roman Britain is evidence of 'the weight ofRoman fashion', or that the new figurative style that was adopted at Maktar from the time of Trajan was broadly of Roman . . . 4' '. lllsp,ratlOn. The problem, as Mdlett saw, IS that the material record cannot distinguish between the tastes of artists and craftsmen and those of their patronsY All that is really indicated is exactly . what we might have expected to find, that weaIthy provlllcml patrons wanted to express themselves publicly in ways that were identifiably Roman.

Urbanization is also sometimes made to serve as a model of Romanization. It seems to be widely agreed that 'towns, and the monumentalization of towns, are a potentially revealing index to the spread of Romanization in a particular area of the Roman Empire'.43 It is a view that can be challenged on at least two grounds. 44 First, if urbanization is understood to mean the con-

391. B. Ward-Perkins, 'Pre-Roman Elements in the Architecture of Roman Tr~~olitania', Jn F. ,E G~dallah ,(e.d.), Liby~ i~ History CBen?h~zi, 1971), 104.

Cf. ~ramgan, Celh.c Farm, 1. 95; the thmly-spread bUlldmg of a thousand or tW? .fashlOnable, Romamsed, bungalows' does not indicate 'profound change in the Bntlsh landscape' .

4) Stone; P. Salway, The Frontier People 01 Roman Britain (Cambridge, 1965),27. Maktar: A. M'Charek, Aspects de revolution demographique et sociale d Mactaris aux lIe et IIIe siecles ap. J C (Tunis, 1982), 57-8 . . 4

Z, MilJett: Romanization 01 Britain, 112-13, 1 I 7. See also Freeman, 'Romanisa

hon,441.

43 Edmondson, 'Romanization', 151; cf. 152; urbanization can be a 'useful index to the extent to which the various parts ofthe province [Lusitania] were affected by Romanization'. Less explicitly, Trow, 'Northern Shores', 103.

44 I can make even less sense of the theory that the Romans plan ted or encouraged settlements as an 'instrument' of Romanization: so Dyson, Creation, 116; see also 0rsted, Roman Imperial Economy, 357 Ca 'means' of Romanization). Are we to understand that the Romans b~i~t towns explicitly for the purpose of providing exemplars of Rom~n ways of hvmg? Or does Romanization here (as often elsewhere) serve as a kmd of euphemism for 'pacification'?


struction of urban (or urbanized) centres, it cannot be taken to be evidence of Romanization unless it can be shown-and this is precisely what is often not demonstrable-that Roman-era towns were constructed where there were no pre-existing (that is, indigenous), proto-urban or nucleated settlements. The problem may be expressed another way: how are we to distinguish in the archaeological record (either of western Europe or of north Africa) between town-building that was a direct consequence of Roman conquest or contact, and that which may have been a result of larger, that is, not specifically Roman, trends toward urbanization?45 It has been said of the frontier-zone in Romanera Algeria, for example, that 'the city, and by extension, ~rban civilisation' are not attested before the second century AD4 But there is, as C. R. Whittaker has pointed out, a 'strong likelihood' that many of the small towns of Roman-era north Africa-va.riously identified in the sources as castella, turres, pyrgOl-were III fact either indigenous settlements or Romanized towns built on indigenous sites.47 Second, in so far as urbanization seems often to be taken loosely to mean the development of Roman-style towns it ought to be admitted that what is really being measured is the' adoption of urban architectural forms, not urbanization.

It is no more likely that the acculturation of the provinces is indicated by the spread of what is now often called 'the epigraphie habit'. It has been said of north Africa that the. 'habit of inscription' which is attested in its smaller commumtles lS

evidence of the adoption of Roman 'urban cultural forms'.48 It may be agreed that the practice of inscription (and perhaps especially of commemoration on stone) was a chiefly Roman

45 The idea is borrowed from R. Reece, 'Romanization: A Point of View', in Blagg and MilIett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 31-3; see also ~aselgrove, 'R?n~anization', 53. On the Iron Age origins of nudeated settlements m Roman Bntam, see Jones, 'A False Start?', 47; Trow, 'Northern Shores', 110-11. For Lower Germany, see 1. H. F. Bloemers, 'Lower Germany: Plura consilio quam vi.: .Pr?t?Urban Settlement Developments and the Integration of Native Commumtles , m Blaiig and MilIett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 72-86, esp. at 84·

4 E. W. B. Fentress, 'Forever Berber?', Opus, 2/J (1983), 162-3. 47 Whittaker: 'Land and Labour in North Africa', Klio, 60 (1978),352-3. See also

Leveau 'La Situation coloniale', 91; Mattingly, Tripolitania, 41; S. Raven, Rome in Alrica, '3rd edn. (London and New York, 199.3), !OO-I. Mattingly: Tripolitani~, 160, concludes that the foundation for the urbamzatlOn of north Afnca was PUDle, not Roman. 4

8 Fentress, 'Forever Berber?', 163.

86 M easuring Romanization

habit. But the survival of 'Libyan' inscriptions indicates that it was not exclusively Roman.49

Another model of Romanization makes the adoption of Roman or Roman-style names an index of acculturation. In that names are culturally determined, it cannot be disputed that the substitution of Roman für native farms is indicative of Romanization. 50 It is undoubtedly true that Latin translations of north African names (Donatus for Muthun, for example) demonstrate a 'Romanizing and assimilationist spirit'5' The virtual disappearance of north African nomenclature at Maktar in the second century AD is undeniable evidence ofits acculturationY And the adoption ofRomanstyle names in the provinces is one ofthe very few indices ofRomanization that is recorded across large sampIes. But there is no way to determine how many provincials took Roman-style names (in any of the provinces), because it is impossible to distinguish systematically between Roman (or Italian) immigrants and Romanized indigenes on Latin inscriptions,53 Was the Iulius Saturninus who was commemorated at Lambaesis (eIL 8.3741), for example, an Italian immigrant, or a north African who had adopted Roman-style names, or perhaps the Africanized son of a Roman immigrant?54 H.-G. Pflaum once calculated that ofthe 1,269 free-born men and women recorded on the inscriptions of Castellum Celtianum, fully 96.7 per cent (1,227) had Roman or Romanized names. 55 But all that can

49 'Libyan' inscriptions are collected in 1. B. Chabot, Recueil des inscriptions libyques (Paris, I940).

5° MacMullen, Changes, 60; see also D. 1. Buck, 'Prontier Processes in Roman Tri'pol~tan~a', in D. 1., Buck and D. 1. Mattingly (eds.), Town and Country in Roman Tr!foiltama: Papers m Ifonour ofOlwe~ Rackelt (Oxford, 1985), r86.

L. A. Thompson, Same ObservatlOns on Personal Nomenc1ature in Roman Af~ica', Nigeria and the Classics, IO (1967-8), 57. On the name Donatus see 1. KaJanto, The Latin Cognomina (Helsinki, 1965), 18. '

5~ ~'Charek, Aspects de l'evolution, 59, 169: 'une romanisation poussee'. See also Ma~tJ~gly, Tripolitania, 58: the substitution of Roman for Punic names in Tripolitama IS attested from the last quarter of the Ist cent. AD.

53 MacMullen, Changes, 60; see also M. Brett and E. W B. Fentress, The Berbers (05~ford: 1996), 53~ Whittaker, 'Land an~ Labour', 343 n. 65.

D(IS) . M( antbus) . S( acrum) I IulIUS' Sa / turninus· Vi I xi! . An[n Jis. XL . U / nus· Sextic: / Fusänila· Co(niunx). For Saturninus as a popular cognomen am~mg Romamzed north Africans, see Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 502; KaJanto, Latin Cognomina, 18, 55.

55 'Remarques sur l'onomastique de Castellum Celtianum', in E. Swoboda et al. (ed.s.), Carnuntina: Ergebnisse der Forschung über die Grenzprovinzen des römischen ReIches: Vorträge beim internationalen Kongress der Altertumsforscher Carnuntum 1955 (Graz and Cologne, I956), 134.


really be said ofhis figures is that the un-Romanized proportion of the population at Castellum Celtianum cannot be proven to have risen above 3 per cent. 56

It has long been recognized that the adoption of Roman religious practices is evidence of the assimilation of ideas that w~re culturally determined. 57 Romano-British cults, for example, wlth 'their dear fusion of Roman and Celtic', can be said to provide 'a measure of just how Romanized Britain became' 58 Alternatively, evidence of the continued worship of native deities may indicate resistance to Romanization, or its weakness. 59

In north Africa, a number of indigenous gods were at least partly Romanized. Shadrapa, for example, came to be identified with Bacehus, Melkart with Hereules:o The loeal, mostly urban elites seem generally to have been eager to embrace Roman rehgious ideas and practices6

' Tbe eult of the Capitoline triad, the emperors, and the city of Rome is attested even at Mena'a, in the heart of the Aures mountains." But there is good evidenee also of an abiding attachment to indigenous beliefs. So Saturn, a rather transparent disguise for Punic Baal, appears to have been enormously papular, especially among soldiers and the (rural) poor63

Other indigenous (perhaps ethnie) gods like the dii Mauri, dU Magifae, and dii Macni continued to be worshipped well into the period of the Roman occupation, and, it may be suspected, long after64

56 Cf. MacMullen, Changes, 60. 57 For the model, see Blagg and Millett, 'Introduction' , esp. at 3; Saddington,

'Parameters of Romanization', 414. 58 R. 1. A. Wilson, JRS 82 (1992), 291; cf. Bloemers, 'Acculturation: Preliminary

Survey', 170, on the Romanization of indigenous gods in Lo,;er Gert?an'y., . 59 Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 331-76; Edmondsoll, RomamzatlOn, 153,

MacMullell, Changes, 294 n. 24. 60 See also Ravell, Rome in Africa, 145. 61 P A Fevrier 'Religion et domination dans l' Afrique romaine', Dialogues .., 6~ S F 'F B b ?' 163 d'histoire ancienne, 2 (1976), 310. ee entress, orever er er.,. .'

63 On the popularity of Saturll, see especially M. Le Glay, Saturne afncam: Histoire (Paris, 1966); see also Benabou, La Resistance ufricaine, 370-6. :or soldiers, see Y. Le Bohec, Les Unites auxiliaires de ['armee romaine en Afnque Proconsulaire et Numidie sous le Haut-Empire (Paris, 1989), 180.

64 For the dii Mauri, see above, n. 20. The dii Magifae are attested at Tinfadil Hr. Metkides (CIL 8. 16749 = ILAlg I. 2977 = ILS 4493), the dii Macni at Rusicade (eIL 8.8023 = 19981 = ILS 4I36); see also B. D. Shaw? 'Rural Markets in North Africa and the Political Economy of the Roman EmpIre', Ant. afr. 17 (198!), 52 n. 6.


Some parts of these processes can be identified in the material record, in the changing forms of temple structures and ilf cult-images, for example, and in votive inscriptions, which occasionally record the public beliefs of a section of indigenous society that was below, though perhaps not much below, the urban elites (nothing can tell us about the sentiments of the chronically poor)65 But there are serious methodological obstacles to measuring the Romanization of indigenous religion. Cult-images, for example, are notoriously difficult to categorize systematically. And the inscriptions cannot be used to trace changes in religious practices or beliefs, because they are nowhere preserved in large numbers over the whole of the Roman era.

Coinage is sometimes also taken to be a standard of provincial acculturation.

66 It cannot be denied that the use, say in south

east Britain, of inscribed coinage of a type that is indisputably 'Romanizing' is indicative of at least some measure of 'material Romanization'.67 However, finds of Roman coinage at provincial sites cannot always be taken to be evidence of a change in local practices or habits, because they may indicate nothing more than the presence or proximity of Roman soldiers or traders. 68 It is far from certain, too, that monetization itself indicates that provincial societies-the Netherlands, for example-were 'more or less romanized':9 because it is neither attested nor inherently likely that not using coinage was an embedded characteristic of provincial culture. And even where it can be shown that indigenous societies began to use coinage in the Roman period, or dramatically

65 Temples and cult-images: A. C. King, 'The Emergence of Romano-Celtic Religion', in Blagg and Millett (eds.), Early Roman Empire, 222. On the underrepresentation of the poor on inscriptions, see especially 1. C. Mann, 'Epigraphic C~~sciousness', JRS 75 (1985), 204.

Für the model, see Fear, Rame and Baetica, 57; 0rsted, Roman Imperial Economy, 15-

67 C. HaseIgrove, 'The Later Iran Age in Southern Britain and Beyond', in Todd (ed~, Research on Roman Britain, 13.

6 Cf. M. L. Okun, 'Pluralism in Germania Superior', in Maxfield and Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989, 437; C. R. Whittaker, Frontiers 01 the Roman E11Jfire: A Social and ~conomic Study (BaItimore, 1994), 123.

R. Brandt, 'A Bnef Encounter along the Northern Frontier' , in Brandt and Slofstra (eds.), Roman and Native, 137. Cr. I L. Davies, 'Soldiers, Peasants and Markets in Wales and the Marches' , in T. F. C. Blagg and A. C. King (eds.), Military and Civilian in Roman Britain: Cuttural Relationships in a Frontier Province (Oxford 1984), 109, II2. '


increased their use of it, it can rarely be demonstrated that the coinage itself is unquestionably Roman (or Romanizing)70

Much the same can be said of the appearance of Roman-style graves and grave-monuments in the provinces7 ' MacMullen has suggested that the Romanization of north Africa is indicated. by what he considers to be a change in indigenous mortuary-practIce, according to which the dead were buried 'no longer under mere heaps of stones, doubtfully identifiable, but under shaped monuments that gradually came to be inscribed'7' However the steletype gravestones that were the predominant form of burialmonument in north Africa through much of the second century AD are not really so very different from the pre-Roman, undecorated, funerary steles-what MacMullen calls 'heaps of stones'that have been found at a number of sites in eastern Algena (most especially in the Aures and Hodna mountains, and in the region around Sitifis)73

Perhaps the most widely employed method of assessing Romanization attempts to track the provincial distribution of goods that were of Roman manufacture or style74 An example, which is widely paralleled: the incorporation of flat plates and footrings in locally produced wares in Upper Germany in the period

7° See N. Purcell, 'The Creation of Provineial Landscape: The Roman Impact on Cisalpine Gaul', in Blagg and Millett (eds.), Early Roman Empire,.20-I. ,

71 Cf. MaeMullen, Changes, SI; D. I Mattingly and R. B. Hlt.ehner, Roman Afriea: An Arehaeologieal Review', JRS 8S (199S), 186 (on erematIon).

72 Changes, 294 n. 29. Cf. M'Charek" 1-spects .de l'evolution, 193 (t?e ~n

Romanized at Maktar eontinued to prefer simples plerres tombales sans decor ). 73 Benabou, La Resistance alricaine, 494-S; see also P. A. Fevrier and R. Guery,

'Les Rites funeraires de la necropole orientale de Setif', An!. air. IS (1980), 91-124; R. F. 1. Jones, 'Burial Customs of Rome and the Provinces', in I S. Wacher, (ed.), The Roman World (London and New York, 1987), ii. 829. Cf. Haselgrove, Lat~r Iron Age', 17, on south-east Britain in the late Iron Age and Ist cent. AD; w.her~ 11 appears to have been only the loeal eIites who adopt~d what he calls a mlllon~y Romanising burial rite'. The typology of north Afnca.n fune,ra.l monum~.nts IS

described in I-M. Lassere, 'Recherehes sur la chronologie des epitaphes palennes de l'Africa', Ant. afr. 7 (1973), 120-2; Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 85; Les Unites auxiliaires, 14.

74 The model is neatly summarized in MacMullen, Changes, 292 n. 9; cf. M. Fulford 'Roman and Barbarian: The Economy of Roman Frontier Systems', in Barrett,' Fitzpatrick, and Maeinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Rorr:ans, 8S. For Rom.an goods as 'symbols' of Romanization, see R. Rebuffat, 'Au-dela des camps romams d'Afrique mineure: Renseignement, contröle, penetration', ANRW 21I01z (1982), S02, S09; see also Dyson, Creation, 220 (on pottery); Hingley, 'Roman Britain', i. 21; MacMullen, Changes, 42.


between 100 BC and AD 69 indicates that loeal potters had adopted Roman styles. 75

An important advantage of the model is that the goods found at provincial sites can be counted, and, in some cases, like that of pottery, dated (at least in a general way). The problem is that there is usually no way of determining whether the produets were adopted or imitated beeause they were thought to be culturally superior or prestigious (in so far as they were symbolic ofthe ruling power), or simply because they were cheaper, better made, or better adapted to the requirements of large-seale produetion. 76 The presenee of Roman-style button-and-Ioop fasteners and glass bangles at native sites in nortllern Britain may be evidence, not of cultural assimilation, but of 'fast sales talk'. 77 Finds of Roman pottery and brooehes in the so-ealled 'buffer zone' that lay beyond the Rhine may indieate nothing more than 'the presenee or proximity of the Romans'7' And because the objects may have been taken up without the eoncepts that aceompanied them, we must, as Whittaker has reeently put it, 'be careful not to exaggerate or to assurne that Roman artifaets turned transborder folk into Romans'79

A more sophistieated version of the same model maintains that the adoption or imitation of certain kinds of Roman artifacts

75 M. L. Okun, 'An Example of the Process of Acculturation in the Early Roman Frontier', Oxford Journal o[ Archaeology, 81I (1989),46--7_

76 MacMul!en, Changes, 42; so, tao, Freeman, 'Romanisation', 444. A modern analogy: OWllll1g, say, a Japanese-made car does not make one Japanese.

77 Breeze, 'Impact of the Roman Army', 230.

78 L. Hedeager, 'Empire, Frontier and the Barbarian Hinterland: Rome and Northern Europe from AD 1-400', in M. Rowlands, M. Larsen, and K. Kristiansen (eds.), Centre and Periphery in the Ancient Wor/d (Cambridge, 1987), 127. On the 'buffer zone', see also Hedeager, 'A Quantitative Analysis of Roman Imports in Europe North of the Limes (0-400 A.D.), and the Question of Roman~Germanic Exchange', in K. Kristiansen and C. Paluden~Müller (eds.), New Directions in Scandinavian Archaeology (Studies in Scandinavian Prehistory and Early History, I; Copenhagen, 1978), 191-216, esp. at 204-7.

79 Concepts: van der Leeuw, 'Acculturation', 29. Whittaker: Frontiers, 125. R. DeneIl, , '!he Hunter~Gatherer/Agricultural Frontier in Prehistoric Temperate Europe, m ~. W. Green and S. M. Perlman (eds.), The Archaeology 0/ Frontiers and Boundanes (Orlando, Fla., 1985), 113-40, argues that trade is not in itself su~fic!ent to p.roduce social. change. See also Higham, 'Roman and Native', Ij3-4: m mterpretmg the matenal remains of Roman provincial culture 'much can be explained without recourse to models of culture change'; C. M. WeHs, 'The Pro~ blems of Desert Frantiers', in Maxfield and Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989,480: Roman goods were 'superimposed, but without necessarily changing very much at the profaunder level of existence'.

M easuring Romanization 9 I

indicates change in indigenous customs that were eulturally specific, for example, in eating or drinking habits80 So the presence of sigillata in Upper Germany is said to be evidence of the reglOn's acculturation, because it implies the use of individual sets of dishes, where it had been, according to Poseidonius (Athenaeus 4. 15 I), La Tene custom to share drinking vessels and other items of tableware. " Similarly, the adoption of Gaulish, 'and thus essentially Roman', dietary preferences in south-east Eritain is thought to indieate the 'material Romanisation' of tbe region's elites." It is likely enough that the provincial elites of the empire wanted to emulate Roman fashion in the preparation and consumptIon of food and drink83 What cannot be demonstrated is that the importation of Roman products or their imitation had any effect on the habits of the mass of ordinary provincials, that is, in MacMullen's wards, 'of poorer people,.8.

The adoption of Latin, especially as a spoken language, or of Roman styles of dress, can also be said to describe the assimilation of attributes that were culturally determined. 85 Eut neither process is capable of being measured across large sampIes. A~d neither can be shown to have operated outside the provlllcial ehtes (hke the wealthy Carthaginians who donned togas or fixed their hair in the styles favoured by the women of the imperial family)86 So though

80 Okun, 'Example', 47, ja; see also P. Middleton, 'The Roman Army and ~on~Distance Trade' in P. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker (eds.), Trade and Famme In

Classical Antiqufty (Cambridge, 1983), 7j: 'the m~terjal ass.emblage of :'importe.d" fine ware pottery and wine amphorae' represents a potential body of ldea~ whl.ch flowed along the trade rautes'; M. Struck, 'Analysis of Social and Cultural Dlverslty on Rural Burial Sites in North~Eastern Raetia', in Rush (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology, 74.

8r Okun, 'Pluralism', 437. The indigenous population ap~ears als? to have adopted the use of Roman~style small bowls and cups (Okun, Example, 49)·

82 Haselgrove, 'Later Iran Age', 13. . . 83 See also Trow, 'Northern Shares', 103, describing how post~co~lques~ Br~tam

imported fine tablewares, mortaria, and ceramic and metal vessels (mc1udlllg Jugs, cups, and strainers). 84 MacMull~n: ,Cha.n~es, ~3; cf. 62.

Ss Latin: see Blagg and Millett, 'Introduction', 3; M. Hemg, RehglOn III Rom~n Britain', in Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain: 21.9; ?rsted, Roman Impenal Economy, Ij; Saddington, 'Parameters of RomamzatlOn, 414; cf. Edmondso.n, 'Romanization', Ij2, on the continued use of native langua~es. Dress: J.. EadJe, 'Peripheral Vision in Roman History', in J. D'Arms and J. Eadle (eds.), Ancl,ent and Modern Essays in Hanor 0/ Gerald F. Else (Ann Arbor, 1977), 232; Okun, Plural~ ism', 437 ('a strang indicator of cultu~e'). .. ., .

86 Raven, Rame in A/rica, 146. Pumc dress lS dlS.cuss~d III M. Charek, A~pec!s ~e !'evolution, 38-9. J. P. Wild, 'Roman and Native m Textde Technology, m


the Punic script seems to have disappeared from north African cities by the end of the second century AD, a bastardized form of the language ('neo-Punic') continued to be spoken in the countryside.87

The Romanization of provincial society is said to be indicated also by the adoption of Roman-style municipal government ( . d . 88 magIstrates an town-councIls), and by the development of the fiaminate, which Paul MacKendrick calls 'a potent instrument of R . t' , 89 I omamza IOn . t seems to me to be unlikely that many provmclals even of moderate means ever served as decurions Of

as priests of the imperial cult. For much the same reason I cannot agree with Peter 0rsted that the enfranchisement of p~ovincials was a 'means' of acculturating the provinces. 90 The main purpose (and effect) of the granting of the Roman citizenship was the cooption of local elites. Few ordinary provincials were given the citizenship, and then normally only as areward for conspicuous service to Rome, until after about AD 150, when its value was eroded by the wholesale enfranchisement of towns and even of entire regions. In fact, the principal benefits that accompanied the citizenship-the right of appeal and the right in Roman law to receive bequests from other Roman citizens-are unlikely to have been of much importance to most provincials in any period. MacMullen is surely right in thinking that the so-called Constitutio Antoniniana of AD 212, which gave the citizenship to virtually all of the empire's free-born inhabitants, is likely to have met with 'the absolute indifference of the masses'.9'

Another method that has been used to assess Romanization seems to have nothing at all to do with acculturation. It has

Burnham and Johnson (eds.), Invasion and Response, 127, concludes that Celtic styles of dress changed very little in Roman Britain.

:; See Raven,. R~me in Afri~a, 146. 88 Fentress, 'Forever Berber?', r63. ~~cKe~dnc~. Nort,h ,Alr/can Stones, 51; see also X. Dupuis, 'La Participation

des veterans a Ia Vle mumclpale en Numidie meridionale aux He et IIIe siecles' in C ~epe~ley (ed.), Actes du IVe colloque international sur l'histoire el l'archeolo~ie d~ 1 Alrtque d~ lY,0rd (Strasb~urg: 5-9 avril, 1988) (Paris, 1991), 34J-54; T. Kotula, Culte provmcml ~t ro~all1SatlOn: Le Cas des deux Mauretanies', Eos, 63 (1975), 3~9-4.07. M. Chnstol, Rome et les tribus indigenes en Mauretanie Tingitane', LAjI~lca roma~a.' 5 (1988), 316, maintains that the flaminate played an important role 1ll Romamzmg the Iocal elite at Gigthis.

9° 0rst~d: Roma~ Imperial Economy, 357. A similar argument is advanced in M. Dondm-Payre, Recherches sur un aspect de la romanisation de 1'Afrique du Nord: L'Expansion de la citoyenneU~ romainejusqu'a Hadrien', Ant. all'. 17 (1981), 93-132. 9

1 MacMullen: Changes, 60.

Measuring Romanizatian 93

sometimes been supposed, perhaps especially of north Africa, that the Romanization at least of its urban centres is indicated by their promotion to the status of, say, municipia or calaniae,9 2 But there is as Robert Broughton recognized long ago, no demonstrable c~nnection between the status of towns and the extent to which they were Romanized (or, it might be added, their size, wealth, or location)93

It has been suggested also that the recruitment of provincials into the Roman army functioned as a 'highly effective and rapid acculturation mechanism',94 According to Yann Le Bohec, the auxiliaries who served in north Africa adopted 'Ie genre de vie, les institutions et le droit de Rome'95 It might be questioned whether military service really made natives into Romans96

What is reasonably certain is that the number of provincials recruited into the Roman army was never more than a tiny proportion of the indigenous population.

Tables 3.1 and 3.2 describe the geographical origins of the soldiers of the Third Augustan legion whose birthplace (origo) is recorded. They indicate that as late as the time of Hadrian, less than one-fifth of the soldiers were from north Africa. And with the exception of those born 'in the camps' (castris), most of the African-born recruits were from the large urban centres of Africa Proconsularis (especially Carthage) or the first-century AD armytowns like Ammaedara and Theueste97 Excluding those born castris, not a single soldier appears to have been recruited from the frontier-zone over the whole of the period to AD 235 98 Table

9" So, at length, Pflaum, 'La Romanisation de l' Afrique'. 93 Broughton: Romanization 01 AjI-ica, 128. Size, etc.: B. D. Shaw, 'Archaeology

and Knowledge: The History of the African Provinces of the Roman Empire', Florilegium, 2 (1980), 36-7.

94 Bloemers, 'Acculturation: Preliminary Survey', 203. 95 Les Unites auxiliaires, 189. 96 See Gilliam, 'Romanization', 66. He concludes (67) that auxiliary soldiers were

'Roman in some degree' (my italies). See also Fear, Rome and Baetica, 266; Mattingly, Tripolitania, 168, on the 'Punicized' or 'Libyanized' Tripolitanian garrison of the 3rd cent. AD.

97 See also B. D. Shaw, 'Soldiers and Society: The Army in Numidia', Opus, 2/1

(1983), 144. The distribution of legionary origines at the end of t~e 2nd cen~. AD is mapped in Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 519. On cas~rzs, see espectally F. Vittinghoff, 'Die rechtliche Stellung der canabae legionis und dIe Herkunftsangabe castris', Chiron, 1 (1971), 299-318. .

98 Pace Brett and Fentress, Berbers, 55, who maintain that the soldters of the frontier-zone 'came from successful peasant families in the neighbourhood'.


Table 3· 1. The origins 0/ recruits 10 Ihe Third Augustan legion

DateIperiod Percentage of recruits

Africa, Castris: African All Africans Non-excluding army camps Africans cas/ris

Hadrian 15 4 19 81 Antoninus Pius 32 34 66 AD 225 64 36

34 100 0

~ourc:e:. Y Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste (Paris, 1989), 70. The main ll1SCnptIOos are eIL 8. 18084-5; AE (1906), 124.

Table 3.2 The origins 0/ African-born recruits 10 (he Third Augustan legion

Site Nurnber of recruits

AD I4-II5 AD 116-235 Total AD 14-235 % AD 14-235

Ammaedara 0 23 23 2.8 Carthage 12 108 120 14·8 Cillium 0 13 13 1.6 Cirta 3 45 48 Hadrurnetum 5·9

26 27 Lambaesis 3·3

0 322 322 39·8 Sicca Veneria 0 13 13 1.6 Thamugadi 0 31 31 3.8 Thelepte 0 12 12 1.5 Theueste 7 33 40 Thysdrus 4·9

0 I I I I Utica 3

1.4 9 12 1.5

Other 6 131 137 16·9 Total 32 777 809

;ourc~s: G. Forni, Ill'eclut~~~ento ~e~le legioni da Augusto a Diocleziano (Milan, 953)., y. Le Bohec, La TrOl:mme LegIOn Auguste (Paris 1989) 5'9-20' B D Sh 'Sold d S· Th ' , ,.. aw . ~ers ~n . o~lety: e Army in Numidia', Opus, 21I (1983), 144-6. The '

pnnclpal mscnptlOns are eIL 8. 2564-9, 18068, 18084-7.


3.1 indicates also that the proportion oflegionary recruits who are said to have come from the camps (castris) increased significantly over the course of the second century AD, from 4 per cent in the time of Hadrian, for example, to 34 per cent in the time of Antoninus Pius. Their absolute. number, however, is likely to have been very small-Iess than 100 recruits will have been needed in any given year to replace soldiers discharged from the legion.99 And because most of those who were born in the camps were probably legionaries' sons, they are likely, as Gilliam has put it, already to have been acculturated 'to some extent'. 100

Far less survives to describe recruitment to the auxiliary units stationed in north Africa. Mainly because Tacfarinas is known to have served in the auxilia, it has been suggested that they were recruited heavily from the Musulamii. IOI There is, however, no good evidence to show that even a majority of the north African auxiliaries were of African origin. Of the twenty-six auxiliary soldiers whose geographical origin is recorded, just three were from north Africa. 102

Much of the surviving evidence then points in the same direction: military service is unlikely to have had any significant effect on indigenous culture. The 20,000-25,000 soldiers stationed in north Africa (legionaries and auxiliaries) represented perhaps 0.3-0-4 per cent of the region's population (6-8 million?). <03 Similarly, the roughly 150,000 auxiliaries who were in active service in

99 See Shaw, 'Soldiers and Society', 138-40. 100 Gilliam: 'Romanization', 70. 101 Benabou, La Resistance africaine, 124; M. Rachet, Rome et les Berberes: Un

probleme militaire d'Auguste cl DiocIetien (Brussels, 1970), 161; see also J.-M. Lassere, 'Le Recrutement romain et les Musulames', in Lepelley (ed.), Actes du IVe colloque international, 299-31 I.

102 Le Bohec, Les Unites auxiliaires, 173. Cf. J.-M. Lassere, 'Remarques onomastiques sur la liste militaire de Vezereos', in W. S. Hanson and L. J. F. Keppie (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1979 (Oxford, 1980),955-75, whose analysis of the names of the soldiers reeorded as serving at Vezereos on the Tripolitanian fron tier in the period between AD 199 and 2II (R. Cagnat, A. Merlin, and L. Chatelain (eds.), Inscriptions latines d'Afrique (Tripolitaine, Tunisie, Maroc) (Paris, 1923), no. 27) suggests that most of them were of African origin; see also D. J. Mattingly, 'Libyans and the Limes: Culture and Society in Roman Tripolitania', Ant. afr. 23 (1987), 82.

103 6_8 million?: Raven, Rome in Africa, 88-9 (6-7 million); R. P. DuneanJones, 'Wealth and Munifieenee in Roman Africa', Papers of the British School al Rome, 31 (1963), 170 (8 million). The indigenous population of Aigeria at the time of the Freneh eonquest (1830s) was about 3 million: P. M. E. Lorein, Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial Algeria (London and New York, 1995), 2.


the provinces at any given time in the period befare Septimius Severus were only about 0.3 per cent of the estimated population of the provmces (44-54 million). '04 I suppose that there may have been a sort of 'multiplier effeet' according to which auxiliary soldiers' families will have absorbed at least some of their Romanizing tendencies. But the empire-wide effect is likely to have been negligible.

It might be supposed that the army itself played a role in :trans~itting the Roman way of life to the provinces', through bmldmg programmes', for example, or veteran colonies . .05 It

has been said recently that, exeept in Upper Moesia (where it was an 'alien and intrusive element among the native population'), the army served as a 'bridge' between the indigenous population and the 'administrators, artisans, merchants and farmers' who 'followed [it] to the frontier' . .06 Roy Davies concluded that the ordinary Roman soldier was, 'more than anyone else', responsible for 'the development of romanisation'. lO7

It is likely enough, I suppose, that the army disseminated some Roman ideas and practices in some parts of the empire (though probably not as a matter of policy). It has already been remarked, however, that the north African frontier-army appears to have bmlt alm ost entirely far itself. And there is no evidence of any kmd to show that It funetioned as a 'bridge' between the intrusive and indigenous populations. MacMullen has said of the western provinces that the amphorae and moulded red dishes that the army manufactured 'brought the Roman way of life into the natives' very hornes' . .08 But there is nothing to indicate that the north African ~nny was engaged in large-scale production of pottery for the clVlhan market. Like the army in Spain, Germany, and Bntam, It probably obtained much of the kitchen-ware it needed

10.

4

44-:-54 mi1Ji~n: .the figure iso deriv~d from K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves: SoclOl0fJ.1cal Studles in Roman HIstory, 1 (Cambridge, 1978), 1,68, who estimates the p°Po~latI.on of the ~mpire as a wh?le at 50-60 ~i11ion, ~nd t~at of Italy at 6 million.

Mlddleton, Roman Army, 75. The eVldence IS reVlewed in Y Le Bohec L'1::nee romaine sous le Haut~Empire (Paris, 1989), 531-72. '

S. K. Drummond and L. H. Nelson, The Western Frontiers 0/ Imperial Rome (Armonk and London, 1994), 67-8.

10

7 Service in Ihe Roman Army, ed. D. Breeze and V A. Maxfield (New York 1989), 68. 108 Changes, 58:


from loeal potters . .09 It can even be conjectured that Roman military rule, by usurping some of the traditional functions of native elites, may sometimes have eroded Iheir prestIge, and thereby impeded their acculturation.' .0

It might be supposed also that legionary and auxiliary veterans will have transmitted Roman ways and habits to the regions where they settled.'" So the veteran colonies of north Africa are saidto have been 'isolated cases of Roman influenee among the natIve communities'. II2 The veterans were undoubtedly more acculturated than soldiers still in service. But they are likely also to have been few in number.

Through much of the first and second centuries AD, there were usually twenty-five legions in the provinces, each of whleh eonsisted probably of about 5,000 men, who were normally reqmred to serve twenty years. If the mortality rate in service was, as Peter Brunt has suggested, approximately 40 per cent, the number of legionaries discharged annually will have been somewhere 111 the order of 3,750. "3 If we assume also, with one recent study, that the uniform annual death rate among veterans aged 40-60 was 5 per cent and that the average age at enlistment was 20, we may esti~ate that at any given time there were roughly 45,700 retired

h . 114 legionaries aeross the whole of t e empIre. . . . Aceording to Tacitus (Ann. 4. 5), the number of auxIlmry soldlers

in the provinces was roughly equal to the number of leglOuanes. If we assume a standard term of service of twenty-five years and a 40 per cent rate of mortality in service, we can estimate that the number

109 See K. Greene, 'Invasion and Response: Pottery and the Roman Army', in Burnham and Johnson (eds.), Invasion and Response, 99·

!IO Cf. MilleU, 'Romanization: Historical Issues', 39. !II SO Elton, Frontiers, 57. 112 C. R. Whittaker, 'Rural Labour in Three Roman Provinces', in P. Garnsey

(ed.), Non~Slave Labour in the Greco-Ron:an. World (Cambridge,. 198?), 75. See also W. S. Hanson, 'Administration, UrbamsatIOn and AcculturatIOn m the Roman West', in Braund (ed.), Administration 0/ the Roman Empire, 53-4·

113 Brunt: Italian Manpower 225 B.C.-A.D. 14 (Oxford, 1971), 339; see also Sh.aw, 'Soldiers and Society', 155 n. 28. 3,750: see B. Dobson, 'The Roman Arm~: Wart.n~e or Peacetime Army', in W. Eck and H. Wolff (eds.), Heer und Int~gratlOnspohflk: Die römischen Militärdiplome als historische Quelle (Cologne and "ylenna, 1986), 14 n. 16. The figure assurnes that each legion d~scharged 150 soldlers annually; cf. Shaw, 'Soldiers and Society', 138-40 (100 soldlers annually). .

!I4 Recent study: Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontiers, 188-9; the~ estl~ mate that 3.400 legionaries retired each year, and that there were 37.400 leglOnary veterans in all of the western provinces.

98 M easuring Romanization

of auxiliary veterans discharged annually was about 3,000. 05 If 5 per cent of the veterans aged 45-65 died each year, there will have been, at any given time, roughly 36,600 auxiliary veterans. o6 The total number of veterans in the empire then, at any given point in the penod between Augustus and Septimius Severus, is unlikely to have exceeded 82,300, or about 0.2 per cent ofthe whole ofthe provincial populatIOn (44-54 million).

About 630 legionary and auxiliary soldiers are likely to have been dlscharged annually in north Africa (assuming a 40 per cent mortahty rate,~;nong the 25,000 or so soldiers), perhaps 270 in the fronller-zone. If 5 per cent of them d!ed each year, there will have been, at any given time, roughly 7,700 veterans across the whole of north Africa.' '8 Expressed another way, there were about seven veterans for every 100 square miles. I 19 The veterans were not, of course, distributed evenly across the region. In fact, so many of them appear to have taken up residence in the civilian s.ettlements that grew up around army bases, or in veteran colonies hke Thamugadi and Diana Veteranorum, that there are likely to have been many parts of north Africa in which there were in some periods, no veterans at all. 120 '

It seems to be widely agreed that veterans usually settled in the areas where they had been stationed. '" It is hard to believe, however, that many north African veterans will have chosen to settle in the semi-arid lands of the frontier-zone. 122 Outside Lambaesis,

II5 See ~Iso Dobson, 'R?man Army', I4 n. 16 (his figure for legionaries with 25 years' servIce may be apphed to auxiliaries). . lT6 Cf. Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontiers, 188 (13,000 auxiliary veterans m the western provinees).

'" Cf G 'R' Af' , 118 • ar~sey, ?mes nean~mpire,346n.3I. Cf. Whlttaker, Rural Labour, 75 (he eoncludes that there were probably

2,000 north African veterans in each generation). 119 The 'flat-map' area of Roman north Afriea was about I ro,ooo square miles;

see above, Ch. 2 n. I2I.

, 120 Cf. ~. ~a,hbou?i: 'Le~ Elites municipales de la Numidie; deux groupes: etrr~~gers a la clte et veterans, ANRW 21IO/2 (1982), 673-81.

Se~ e.g. E. W ~. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army: Sodal, Militaryand Econo'!llc Aspects oj the Frontier Zone (Oxford, 1979), 125; 1. C. Mann, Legion01Y Recruttrnent and ':eteran S~tt~ement. during the Principate (London, 1983). There is absolutely no basIs for behevmg, wlth Dyson, Creation, 273, that 'in most fron tier area~, the largest group of rural settlers was probably the retired 01' discharged soIdlers.'

122 See also Sh.aw, 'Soldiers and Soeiety', I40, who eoncludes that the evidence for veteran-farmers m the area around Lamasba is 'most meager'.

M easuring Romanization 99

horne to weil over half of the region's attested veterans, very few are recorded: nine, for example, at Lamigigga; seven each at Theueste and Zarai; six (perhaps seven) at Casae; five at Diana Veteranorum; four at Lamasba and at Calceus Herculis; two at Mascula and perhaps also at Aquae Caesaris; just one at Ad Maiores, and at Lambiridi. "3 Some inscriptions that record veterans are no doubt undiscovered, especially in rural areas, and at sites like Diana Veteranorum, where there has been little or no excavation. And there will have been at least some veterans who, for one reason or another, were buried without an inscribed epitaph. But veterans seem also to be over-represented in the epigraphic record: they are attested on almost 7 per cent (182) of the 2,624 complete or mostly complete epitaphs that survive from the fron tier-zone of Roman-era Algeria.

INTERMARRIAGE

Still another model of Romanization makes the marriage of Roman and native an agent of"acculturation. 124 Intermarriage is understood to have functioned as a kind of bridge between the occupying and indigenous cultures, I25 at least in so far as any children that resulted will have been culturally 'half-Roman'. <26

The model carries with it two important advantages. First, it describes, in the case of north Africa, for example, both the Romanization of indigenous culture and the 'Africanization' of Roman provincial society. Second, the epitaphs and other inscriptions that record marriages (and other less formal unions) are

123 Lambaesis: Fentress, 'Forever Berber?', 168 (127/234). The other figures are

taken from Shaw, 'Soldiers and Soeiety', 155 n. 31. A complete list of the veterans recorded in the frontier-zone may be found in 1.-M. Lassere, Ubique populus: Peuplement et mouvements de population dans l'Afrique romaine de la .chute de Carthage ci la fin de Ia dynastie des Severes 046 av. C.-235 p. c.) (Pans, 1977), 174-89. The distribution of veterans in the region is mapped in Fentress, Numidia, 139·

124 See 1. A. Ilevbare, 'Family and Wornen in North Africa from the Fifth to the

First Century B.e.', Nigeria and the Classics, 10 (1967-8), 34; M'Charek, Aspects de !'evolution, 107.

125 See e.g. Okun, 'Example', 51: acculturation on the Rhine frontier may have

occurred 'through the rnarriage ofRoman soldiers and civilians (traders, merehants, etc.) to loeal women'.

126 'Half-Roman': Dyson, Creation, 273; see also GiIIiam, 'Romanization', 68.


preserved in large numbers. What has never been demonstrated IS that mtermarnage occurred often enough in any part of the empIre to have affected, in any significant degree, the acculturation of the mdlgenous (or of the Roman) population. "7

The real obstacle to measuring the frequency of intermarriage is methodologlcal. It was remarked earlier that on inscriptions it is often ImpossIble to distinguish between, on the one hand, Roman (or Itahan) Immlgrants and, on the other, provincials who adopted Roman-style names. One solution is to divide those attested I~stead mto two broad groups, which can, in most cases, be readily dlstmgUlshed: on the one hand, those who are demonstrably unRomamzed; on the other, those who may be categorized either as Roman cltlzens or as Romanized indigenes.

This scheme is used below (Chapter 4) to estimate how often Roman(lzed) married un-Romanized in the frontier-zone of Roman-era Algen~. What I am proposing to measure then, over the several generatIOns represented in the surviving north African mscnptIons, IS, not how often Roman married indigene (which is hlstoncally unrecoverable), but the incidence of intermarriage across cultural IdentItJes. My position is that the marriage of unRomamzed and. Roman(ized) defines acculturation almost as closely as the UnIon of, say, north African and Italian.

•

12

7 Cf. -!'1attingly a.nd Hitchner, 'Roman Africa', 173: 'more work on intermar~ nage ... IS an essential prerequisite to the study of acculturation processes' .

4

Husbands and Wives zn the Frontier-Zone

From at least the time of Claudius to that of Septimius Severus, soldiers were forbidden to marry or, it seems, to be married during their term of service.' The prohibition evidently did not apply to officers, however. 2 And it did not prevent soldiers from forming stable and, in at least some cases, long-lasting unions with women whom they treated as their wives. The evidence is mostly epigraphic~epitaphs, for example, on which a soldier

1 The ban is widely attested, expressly in BGU 114. I; see also P. Cattaoui 3-4 (text in L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde (Leipzig, 1912), ii. 372); O. Behrends, 'Die Rechtsregelungen der Militärdiplome und das die Soldaten des Prinzipats treffende Eheverbot' , in W. Eck and H. WoIfT (eds.), Heer und Integrationspo!itik: Die r6mischen Militärdiplome als historische Quelle (Cologne and Vienna, 1986), rr6-66. P. Garnsey, 'Septimius Severus and the Marriage of Soldiers', California Studies in Classical Anfiquity, 3 (1970), 46, argues that existing marriages were not dissolved by enlistment. But it is hard to imagine that there could have been two classes of soldiers, one with wives, the other denied the right to marry; see also S. Treggiari, Roman Marriage: fusti Coniuges /rom the Time oi Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford, 1991),44. For Claudius, see Cassius Dio 60. 24. 3 (AD 44). The introduction of the prohibition may go back to Augustus, perhaps to 13 BC, when he appears to have made a number of changes in the terms and conditions of military service: B. Campbell, 'The Man'iage of Sol~ diers under the Empire', JRS 68 (1978), 154; 1. E. G. Whitehorne, 'Ovid, A.A. I.

101-32, and Soldiers' Marriages', Liverpool Classical Monthly, 4 (1979),157-8; cf. E. Birley, 'Before Diplomas, and the Claudian Reform', in Eck and Wolff (eds.), Heer und fntegrationspolitik, 249. Its purpose is nowhere made explicit. But it may be inferred from a letter that Hadrian sent to Rammius, prefect of Egypt, in AD 119 (BGU 140) that the authorities considered marriage to be inimical to military discipline. For Septimius Severus, see Campbell, 'Marriage of Soldiers', esp. at 153; The Emperor and the Roman Army, 31 BC-AD 235 (Oxford, 1984), 302; R. MacMullen, Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 126; G. R. Watson, The Roman Soldier (London, 1969), I37; cf. Garnsey, 'Septimius Severus', 45.

2 Pliny, Ep. 6. 31. 4-6; Tacitus, H;st. I. 48, 4.5; cf. Epictetus, Ench. 3· 22. 79·

!02 Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone

commemorates 01' i8 commem t d b as his 'wife'. 3 ara e y a woman who is described

It seems now to be widely b r d stationed along the fron tier e ;eve that the soldiers who were indigenous women. G R v,( s 0 ten marned or eohabited with the 'Ioeal women with 'h atsohn, for example, has written that

w om t e soldlers formed permanent associations were usuall of '. more Of less status at least in the f t' y peregnne [I.e. non-Roman]

, fon ler afeas where mo t f h . stationed' 4 Loeal s 0 t e soldlers were

. wornen we are tald w ' canabae, and marriages b~tw h' ere attracted to the even if they were contrar to een sU(~ warnen and the soldiers, network of interrelations~ps bretgUlatlOns, so on began to weave a the loeal population'. 5 Of the SO~d~::n the men of the fortress and has been said reeently that 'b th s who served III north Afriea it usually contracted a eom IY e tJme they retrred they had

mOll- aw marn . h and settled down with her and th' age Wlt 6 a loeal woman, stationed at Lambaesis we ar el~ e~I!dren'. The legionaries the region'. 7 ,e assure , cohabited with wornen of

There is, however no evidence f k' (or the Roman eivili~ns who took ~ any llld, to show that soldiers rautinely married indi p resldenee III the frantier-zones)

genous women (lll north Af . . the other provinees) Th' nea or III any of ing epitaphs of the' AI e n:arr~age-patterns attested on the surviv

genan rantler-zone, which are exarnined

3 See also M. E. Snape 'Roman and Naf . Y . V. A. Maxfield and M. 1. DObson (eds) Ive. ICI o~ the North British Frontier', in th~ XVth International Congress 0/ R'o~~~m;n F~~~tler S.tudies J989: Proceedings of

Roman Soldier, 135; cf. Cam bell' ~?nflU Studle~ (Exeter, 1991),470. probably formed liaisons with wo~ell ~f ~arn~ge of Soldlers', 154 ('most soldiers veterans in M. Roxan 'Th D' t'b . p regnne status'). Much the same is said of h' h ' e IS n utlOn of Roman MTt

p ISC.: e Studien, 12 (1981), 270; A W van B.' 11 ~ry Diplomas', Epigra-Soldlers and Veterans', in M. Re~at:d (ed )Ul'iIn, Some F~mllies Formed by Roman 1962), 1565. ., ommages a Albert Grenier (Brussels

5 S. K. Drummond and L H NI' (A[~O~k and Londo.n, 1994), 130. e son, The Western Frontiers 01 Imperial Rome

. aven, Rome In Alric.·a 3rd edll (L d !'1allton, Roman North Alrica' (Londo~ 1 on on aI?-d ~e.w York, 1993), 75. E. L. ,entered into cornmoll-Iaw liaisons with 'th~~8), ~8~ IS ,sImIlar: .m~ny of the soldiers Romans alld Britons on the North F o~a gIrls. On Bntam, see B. Kurehin

Arch I f ern rontter A Theoret' I EI' aeo ogy 0 Resistance' in P R h d '. lca va nation of the ond Conjerence Proceedings' (Ald~rs~~t ;~(/B Theorellcal Roman Archaeology: SecThe Romanization 01 Britain: An Essa in Ar rookfie~d, Vt., 1995), 126; M. Millett, 1990),66 (many soldiers 'probably b Y .chaeologzcal InterpretaNon (Cambridge

7 T. R S Broughton Th R ecame mvolved with native wornen') , 1929), 137-8. ,e omanization 01 Alrica Proconsularis CBaltimore,

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone I03

be10w, wou1d seern to indieate that the opposite is more 1ike1y to have been true-few of the soldiers or Roman(ized) eivilians who are attested appear to have married indigenous women. About Lambaesis, for examp1e, it may be agreed with Brent Shaw that 'all discernible patterns point to a strang element of marriage between soldiers and other soldiers' daughters,8 The (se1firnposed?) segregation of the Roman(ized) population at Lambaesis is even more evident when its marriage-patterns are compared to those recorded on the surviving, mostly eivilian, tornbstones of Thubursieu Numidarum (mod. Khemissa), weil to the north ofthe fron tier-zone, where the intermarriage of Roman(ized) and unRomanized seems to have been much more common.

SOURCES AND METHODS

Almost nothing survives in the Iiterary sources to deseribe the intermarriage of Roman and north African. A single instanee wou1d seem to be indicated, in De Bello Africo 19, where the anti-Caesarian offieer T. Labienus is said to have eonseripted an indeterrninate number of north Afriean 'ha1f-breeds' (hybridae) in 46 Be: they were probab1y the offspring of Italian rnerchants who had married or eohabited with north Afriean wornen in the period before the eivil war9

Not mueh ean be aseertained either from the so-ealled dip10rnas that were issued, probably from the time of C1audius, to veterans of the auxilia, navy, Praetorian Guard, and equites singulares. TO

8 Shaw: 'Soldiers and Society: The Army in Numidia', Opus, 2/1 (1983), 148 (his italics). Much the same seems to be indicated by the experience of other historical frontiers: e.g. cavalrymen in the American West in the late 19th cent. rarely married native women (P. Y. Stallard, Glittering Misery: Dependents of the Indian Fighting Army (San Rafael, Calif., 1978), 69)·

9 Discussion in 1. A. Ilevbare, 'Family and Warnen in North Africa from the Fifth to the First Century RC.', Nigeria and the Classics, 10 (1967-8), 41-2; 'Some Aspects of Sodal Change in North Africa in Punic and Roman Times', Museum Alricum, 2 (1973), 31; see also L A. Thompson, 'Roman and Native in the Tripolitanian Cities in the Early Empire', in F. F. GadaJIah (ed.), Libya in History (Benghazi, 1971), 239.

10 They were apparently not given to legionaries; cf. Camp bell, Emperor and the Roman Army, 442. On fleet diplomas, see especially G. Forni, 'I diplomi militari dei c1assiari delle flotte pretorie (inc1usi quelli dei c1assiari"legionari)', in Eck and Wolff (eds.), Heer und Integrationspolitik, 293-321. The earliest extant diploma (eIL 16, uo. I) was awarded in AD 52 to a man named Spartacus, who had served in the fleet

1°4 Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone

Initially, it seems, areward for meritorious service to Rome, they came eventually (perhaps from the time of Titus) to be awarded to those who had completed the requisite term of service, twenty-five years, for example, m the case of auxiliaries," The distribution of their find-spots suggests that they may have been issued normally only to thoseveterans who intended to se!tle along the frontiers, " where they mlght be expected to take up with women who were not Roman citizens, '3 It may be, too, that they were given only to those who agreed to pay for them, '4

The diplomas awarded the Roman citizenship to the veterans and, until tbeir terms were altered about AD 140, to tbeir cbildren and descendants (liberis posterisque). Tbe men were also given conubium-tbe 'right of intermarriage'-with the 'wives' tbey bad at the tIme the citizenship was granted to them, or with the first women tbey married after they were discharged (conubium cum uxo~ibus, quas tune habuissent, cum est civitas iis data, aut, siqui caelzbes essent, cum iis, quas postea duxissent singuli singulas).I5

stationed at MisenuJ?; the, earliest s'!fviving auxiliary diploma (eIL 16, DO. 2) dates to AD 54; see also Blrley, Befate Dlplomas', 249.

!, See 1. C. Mann, 'The Development of Auxiliary and Fleet Diplomas' Epigra-phische Studien, 9 (1972), 234. '

12 .Most of ~he auxiliar~ diplom~s have been found in the Danubian provinces (I?acJa, ~oesIa, Pannoma, Raeha); see H.-J. Kellner, 'Die Möglichkeit von ~ucksc~l~ssen aus der Fundstatistik', in Eck and Wolff (eds.), Heer und IntegratlOnspolttlk, 246.

/3 Cf. V. A. Maxfield, 'Systems of Reward in Relation to Military Diplomas', in E.ck and Wolf~ (eds.), Hee~ und Integrationspolitik, 43. This might explain also why diplamas contlllued t~ b~ lssued (~o sailors, guardsmen, and the equites singulares) e~en after the COnstltutlO Antonmiana of AD 212 had made Roman citizens of ":lrt~aI~y all of the empire's inhabitants; see also M. Roxan, 'Women on the FrontIers,.lll ~axfield. a~d Dobson (e~s.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989, 466. On the Constl~u~1O 1ntonmwna, see especmlly F. Millar, 'The Date of the Constitutio Antommana, Journal oj Egyptian Archaeology, 48 (1962), 124-31" C. Sasse Die Constitutio Antoniniana (Wiesbaden, 1958); A. N. Sherwin-White, :The Tabula of Banas.a a~d the ~~nstitutio Antoniniana', JRS 63 (1973), 86--98; H. Wolff, Die Const!,utw Antommana und Papyrus Gissensis 40 I (Cologne, 1976), with the review by MIliar, JRS 67 (1977), 235· The Iatest surviving auxiliary diplama dates to AD 2°3; see WEck and H. Wolff, 'Ein Auxiliardiplom aus dem Jahre 203 n. Chr.', in EC1~ and Wolff (,eds.), He~r und Integrationspolitik, 556-75.

~. ~oxan, ??ServatlOns on the Reasons for the Changes in Formula in Diplom~~ CIrca AD 140. ' III Eck and Wolff (eds.), Heer und Integrationspolitik, 265-6.

. !he quotatlOns are from eIL 16, no. 55, a diploma issued in AD I I 7 to an auxlh~ry named. ~ogeti.ssa. It is not .entirely c1ear why the veterans' 'wives' were not also glven the cltJzenshlp; see H. LIeb, 'Die constitutiones für die stadtrömischen Truppen', in Ec~ and ~olff (eds.), Heer und Integraaonspolitik, 32 5; 1. C. Mann, 'A Note on Conubmm', IbId. 187-9.

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone 1°5

Consequently, veterans could contract lawful marriages with women who were not Roman citizens; even more remarkably, eXlsting unions with non-Roman women were transformed into fuHy

l'd . ,6 va 1 marnages. For some reason, tbe wording of auxiliary diplomas was later

altered (apparently from November/Decernber, AD 140), in such a way that veterans' existing children were no longer awarded the citizenship." It cannot be tbe case that, as K. Kraft bad It, the purpose was to discourage soldiers from formmg umons. wlth women who were not Roman citizens, for tbe dlplomas contmued to give veterans the rigbt to contract valid rnarriages with nonRoman wornen. ,8 It rnight be supposed instead that tbe new tenns were intended to promote auxiliary recruitment-perhaps a~xlharies' sons were henceforth given tbe citizenship when they enhsted (like legionaries' sons). '9

For reasons that are not at all clear, the number of diplomas recovered from nortb Africa is disappointingly smalI: just one, far example, from the wbole ofRoman~era Alger!: (another thirty-one bave been found in Mauretama Trngrtana). And Just SIX of the thirty-two north African diplomas (all from Mauretania Tingitana) record tbe names oftbe veterans' 'wives': CIL 16, no. 161, awarded in AD 109 to a man named Bargati(s?), tbe husband ofIulia Deisata; CIL 16, no. 169/73, given in AD 122 to M. Antomus MaxImus, wbo had married Valeria Messia; eIL 16, no. I71 (AD 124), Issued to an auxiliary whose name is now illegible; his wife's name is given as ( ... )a Sat( ... ); Roxan, Roman Military Dip/omas 1954-1977, no. I I (AD 100/7), awarded to Hiern( ... ), wbo bad marrled Iaphna; Roxan Roman Military Dip/omas 1954-1977, no. 18 (AD 114120), on whicb the veteran's name is illegible; bis wife is identified as

16 See Gaius, Inst. I. 57. . ' 17 For the date, see Roxan, 'Observations', 271, 274. (The earhest extant dlploma

with the new wording-M. Roxan, Roman Military Diplomas /954-1977 (London, 1978), no. 39-dates to 13 Dec., AD 140.) A little more than half ?f t~e ~ata.ble auxiliary diplomas (108/213) belong to the period AD 100--50. Thelr dlstnbutlOn over time is plotted in Roxan, 'Observations', 284. .

/8 Kraft: Zur Rekrutierung der Alen und Kohorten an Rhem und Donau (Berne, 1951), 117-2 1. .. , .

19 See 1. C. Mann, 'The Frontiers of the Pnnclpate, ANRW 21I (1974), 516 ..... 17, Roxan 'Observations', 278. I cannot explain why sailors' sons continued to be gIven the citizenship; cf. Roxan, 'Observations', 275 (,stran,ge').. '.

20 Cf. Y. Le Bohec, Les Unites auxiliaires de l'armee romatne en Ajrzque P,oconsulaire et Numidie sous le Haut-Empire (Paris, 1989), 8.

106 Husb'ands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone

( ... )a Rufina; and Roxan, Roman Military Diplomas 1978- 1984, no. 84 (AD 109), awarded to Sitalis, the husband of Iunia. It is impossible to determine from so small a sampIe whether the soldiers stationed in north Africa normally married indigenous women. What the diplomas can be said to demonstrate is that the authorities who issued them evidently expected that at least some auxiliary veterans would marry wornen who were not Roman citizens.2r

A great deal more information is supplied by the many hundreds of Latin epitaphs from north Africa which record the names of husbands and wives. Most of those which have been recovered from the Algerian frontier-zone (on which, see below) are published in volume 8 ofthe Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (1881- ). Some others which were unearthed subsequent to the publication of CIL 8, and which are included among the fron tier-zone epitaphs examined below, are published in volume 1 of Inscriptions latines de l'Algerie (1922), which collects inscriptions from the province of Africa P~oconsularis, including Theueste and its environs; in L. Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie, d'archeologie et d'histoire africaines (1957); and in P. Morizot, 'Inscriptions inedites de l'Aures', Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 22 (1976). It is unfortunate that volumes 3 and 4 of Inscriptions latines de l'Algerie, which were planned as far back as the 1950S, have yet to be published; they were meant to cover, respectively, the part of Roman-era Algeria that was governed by the legionary legate ('Numidie militaire'), and the province of Mauretania Caesariensis.22

Tbe epigraphic record of Roman north Africa is characterized by an unusually high rate of inscription-survival, in part because urban settlements were densely concentrated in the Roman era, partly also because post-Roman settlement was generally less extensive than in many other parts of the empire. '3 The bulk of

21 Cf. M. L. Okun, 'Pluralism in Germania Superior', in Maxfield and Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989, 435; P. Salway, The Frontfer People 0/ Roman Britain (Cambridge, 1965), 30-I.

22 See L. Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie, d'archeologie el d'histoire africaines (Paris, 1957), ~I-~. Val.. 2" whic~ ,:"as pu.biished in two parts, collects inscriptions from 'la confedera.tlOn Cirteenne (mc1udmg Rusicade and Cirta), Cuicul (mod. Djemila) an.d 'la tnbu des Suburbures'; none of the sites is in the frontier~zone. Vol. 3 was sald to be ready for publication io 1989 (P. A. Fevrier, Approches du Maghreb romain (Aix~en~Provence, 1989-90), i. 18).

23 R. P. Duncar:-~Jones, The Economy 0/ the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies, 2nd edn. (Cambndge, 1982), 63, 361; he estimates that the survival-rate of 000-funerary public monuments is in the order of 5%.

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone [07

the dated inscriptions, including epitaphs, appear to belong to the period AD 100-25°.24 It may be assumed that the distribution over time of the surviving epitaphs is representative of all epitaphs that were erected, because no kind of accident either ofpreservation orof excavation is likely to be specific to any given period. 25 Put another way, there is no reason why any one period should be more under- or over-represented than any other in the surviving record. .

Elizabeth Meyer has recently charted the distribution over tIme of the epitaphs recovered at several nortb African sites.26 Figure 4· 1 illustrates her methods by plotting the so-called 'epigraphic curve' of the 672 dated epitaphs that have been recovered from the Algerian fron tier-zone (they are listed in Appendix 4). Following a technique developed by Ramsay MacMullen, and adopted by Meyer, I have averaged over twenty-five-year periods the many epitaphs that cannot be dated to any specific twenty-five-year period (those, for example, which have been dated to the penod AD 100-300).'7

Meyer's explanation of the epigraphic curves that she constructs hinges on her understanding of the relationship between commemoration and the Roman citizenship. She appears to beheve that only Roman citizens entitled to make a will valid in Roman law were normally commemorated on Roman-style deceased-commemorator epitaphs.28 And so an apparent increase in the number

24 Duocan-Jones, Economy, 65; cf. L. A. Thompson, 'Some Observations on Personal Nomenc1ature in Roman Africa', Nigeria and the Classics, 10 (1967-8), 5 I.

25 On accidents ofpreservation, see Fevrier, Approches du Maghreb ror:zam, 1. 7?-7; N. Mackie, 'Urban Munificence and the Growth of Urban ConsclOusne~s I.n Roman Spain', in T. F. C. Blagg and M. Millett (eds.), The Early Roman Emprre In

the West (Oxford, 1990), 182. .. 26 'Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman En;pIre: T~e EVIdence of

Epitaphs', IRS 80 (1990), 74-96; on which, see D. Cherry, Re-figunng the Roman Epigraphic Habit', The Ancient History Bulletin, 9 (I995), 14~-50.

27 MacMullen: 'The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman ~mpIre', AlP 103 (I982!, 241; adopted in Meyer, 'Epigraphic Habit', 82 n. 43. EpItaphs not dated by thelr texts have been assigned the dates given to them in I-M. Lassere, 'Recherches sur la chronologie des epitaphes palennes de l'Africa', Ant. afr. 7 (1973), 7-152, and Y. Le Bohec La Troisieme Legion Auguste (Paris, 1989); see Appendix 4.

28 'Epigraphic Habit', 79: 'a Roman-type tombstone, in making manifest a Roman legal relationship [i.e. heirship] even if couched on~y in the language of the cornmernorator's affection, can also serve to make rna111fest the fact that the deceased has acquired the right to create that relationship and imp.ose it~ obligations-that the testator: in short, possesses the fight to make a WIll valid under Roman law'; cf. 83- So, too, 1. Morris, Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 1992), 168: the Roman citizenship was a 'necessary

108

" -" il" ·ä " ~ 0

" " .D a 0 Z

200

180

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone

Epitaphs dated to 25-year periods

• Average number of epitaphs

25 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300

AD 1-300

Fig 4. I. Dated epitaphs o[ the !rontier-zone

of epitaphs in north Africa in the second century AD is said to be a product of the extensIOn of the citizenship. '9 A sharp rise that she charts In the number of epitaphs at Theueste around AD 200, for example (cf. FIg. 4.2), IS made a consequence of its promotion to the status .of colony (colonia)3 D Similarly, what seems to be a reductlOn In the number of epitaphs erected in north Africa in the thlrd century AD is attributed to the issuing of the Constitutio

c~ndri~n for erecting these tombstones'. Meyer believes also (85 n. 53) that almost

Ra 0 t e. ~ommemorators recorded on the surviving north African epitaphs were

oman clhzens.

29 Meyer, 'Epigraphic Habit' 79 82 3° Ibid. 83-5. On the date or'Th~ue;te's promotion, see below, pp. 124-5_

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone 109

Antoniniana (AD 212), which she believes devalued the Roman citizenship by granting it to most of the empire's inhabitants, and in so doing made its pos session DO lünger worth announcing on tombstones. 3I

The argument fails for a n!lmber of reasons. First, it is necessary to insist that there was nothing to prevent non-Roman citizens from being commemorated on Roman-style epitaphs. And there is no good reason to believe that they were uniformly or even routinely excluded-how, in any event, could this have been accomplished? I believe, too, that the increase Meyer plots in the number of epitaphs at Theueste and other north African sites around AD

200 is in largo measure iIlusory, a product of the methods used to date them.

Figure 4.2 employs Meyer's techniques to chart the epitaphs of Theueste dated by Jean-Marie Lassere." Series I of Fig. 4.2 charts the distribution over time of the seventy-eight epitaphs which Lassere could not date to any specific twenty-five-year period, and which I have averaged over twenty-five-year periods. Most (fifty-nine; 76 per cent) of them can be dated no more dosely than to the period AD 100-300. Series 2 of Fig. 4.2, which is reproduced as Fig. 4.3, distributes the thirty-six epitaphs that Lassere assigned to twenty-five-year periods. I have no reason to believe that any of Lassere's dates are incorrect or that the technique of averaging widely dated epitaphs over twenty-five-year periods is in itself unsound. What I am certain is untenable, because it produces resulls that are misleading, is the practice of charting an epigraphie curve that lumps together closely dated epitaphs with those that can be assigned only to broadly defined periods. The effect is to conceal two important truths (iIlustrated in Fig. 4·3): first, that the number of epitaphs that can be dated to any given twenty-five-year period is very smalI, and second, that the apparent rise in the number of epitaphs erected at Theueste both at the beginning and at the end of tbe second century AD, and so also what seems to be a reduction in their numbers in the third century, is entirely a product of the methods according to which Lassere

31 'Epigraphic Habit', 89, 95.

32 Lassere: 'Recherehes sur la chronologie'. I have excluded epitaphs that are said to have been [auod 'in the vicinity' of Theueste.

IIO

" "' '" II 'fr ~ 0 , " "" E Z

30

25

20

15

10

5

o


~ Series 2: epitaphs dated to 25-year periods

• Series 1: average number of epitaphs

N= 114

25 50 75 IOD 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300

AD 1-300

Fig. 4.2 The epigraphic curve at Theueste

assigned all ofthe closely dated epitaphs to one oftwo twenty-fiveyear periods, AD 100-25 or 175-200. . Mainly on the grounds that Dis Manibus Sacrum (a formulaic InVOcatIOn of the gods of the underworld customarily abbreviated D . M . S) began to appear routinelyon epitaphs at Theueste sometime early in the second century AD ('debut du He siecle'), he systemallcally assigned stele-type monuments ('dalles') on which the formula is recorded to the period AD 100-25. And because he believed that steles were replaced at Theueste by cippus-style monuments ('autels') near the end of the second century AD ('fin du He siede'), and that they in turn were replaced by burial-vaults (cupulae; 'caissons') in the first half of the third century, he routinely

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone 11 I

25

N=36

20

.:'l 15

·i ~

~ 0 , " p a 0 10 Z

5

o -1-----,--,------,-----,-25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275 300

AD 1-300

Fig. 4.3 Epitaphs ai Theueste dated to 25-year periods

dated cippus-style epitaphs to the period 175-200.33 It may be said therefore that charts like the one that is Fig. 4.2 are actually plotting Lassere's methods. And because most of the dates he produced are conjectural, the effect of charling them in the aggregate is to pile one supposition upon another.

It is extremely doubtful, then, that a rise or fall in charts like Fig. 4.2 can be linked to any specific historical event. It is entirely possible that a change in policy (like the Co~stitutio Antoninian~) or in a community's status (like the promotIOn of Theueste) WIll

33 Lassere 'Recherehes sur la chronologie', 120-2. Cf. Le Bohec, La TroisiCme Legion Aug~ste, 85; Les Unites auxiliaires, 14-

I I2 Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone

have resulted in a change in the number of epitaphs erected. Local elites who were awarded the Roman citizenship are likely to have adopted Roman ways of thought and expression. And Italians sometimes took up residence in the region (though their numbers espe~ial1~ in t~e frontier-zones, seem never to have been very large: and ImmlgratlOn appears to have become decidedly less popular after about AD 100)34 It is at least as likely, however, that any mcrease m the number of epitaphs erected in north Africa was a consequence of indigenous adoption of the chiefly Roman habit. It may be, too, that a larger part of the population was able to afford the cost of a funeral monument.

l am not denying that there may be a connection between the extension of the Roman citizenship and what seems to have been an increase in the number of epitaphs erected in north Africa in the second century AD. It may even be true that the epigraphic habit subsided in the third century35 But none of this can be demonstrated by the charting of data that is really little more than informed guesswork. All that can safely be said about the distribution over time of the epitaphs at Theueste (and at many other north African sites), and really all that Lassere hirnself maintained, is that most of those that have been recovered date to the period AD 100-300, and that a majority of them may belong to the second century.

It must be admitted, too, that, for a number of reasons, epitaphs may mislead as to the incidence (absolute or relative) of a particular kind of activity or behaviour, either at a specific point In time or even over the whole of the Roman era. For one thing, they tell us, as John Mann has put it, only about people 'who used stone inscriptions', in the case of Roman north Africa, it

34 See P. Ga:nsey, 'Rome's African Empire under the Principate', in P. Garnsey and C. R. Whlttake!-" (eds), Imperialism in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 1978), 24

8. Cf.~. Romanelh, Slona ~elle pr.ovince romane dell'Africa (Rome, 1959), 109; L.

Teutsch, Gab es Doppelgememden 1m römischen Afrika?' Revue internationale de~ droits de l'antiquite, 8 (1961), 281-356; Das Städtewesen in Nordafrika in der Zei't von c.. Gr~cch~s bis zum Tode des Kaisers Augustus (BerIin, 1962). Immigration to the Tnpohtalllan frontier~zone is discussed in D. 1. Mattingly, Tripolitania (Ann Arbor, 1994), 143.

35 C~u~es .might be c?njectured: impoverishment? a shortage of suitable stone? the natlVlzatIOn of provmcial society? On stone, see 1. C. Mann, 'Epigraphic Con~ sciousness', JRS 75 (1985), 2°4-6.

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone I I3

seems, mainly, perhaps almost exclusively, ab out the Roman and Romanized populations.36

Epitaphs may be expected also to provide information only about that part of the stone-using population which both could afford a permanent memorial,37 and was thought, or consldered Itself, to deserve one. 38 It has been said of Roman Bntam that the habIt of commemoration 'went fairly far down in the social scale'. 39 It IS likely enough, l suppose, that in most areas 'memorial stones were within the reach ofmodest men'.40 But it would be foohsh to thmk that the poor are not massively under-represented in the epigraphic record; theyare, as MacMullen has remarked, 'hardly likely to have left their records upon stone'4' Tbe rank-and-file soldIers stationed at Lambaesis, for example, were seven times less likely tban their commanding officers to have an inscribed tombstone. 4'

Other biases in the record may be suspected. It is not unlikely, for example, that the incidence of commemoration varied locally according to the availability of suitable stone43 So the southern piedmont of the Algerian frontier-zone is under-represented m the epigraphic record probably because the Aur"s mountains are the most southerly source of large blocks of workable stone44 What lan Morris has called 'ritual selection' may have mfluenced the habit of commemoration in ways that are not now easIly controlled; the clearest example is the over-representation of ex-slaves on the epitaphs of the city of Rome in the period between about roo Be and AD roo.45 Morris maintains also that epItaphs cannot

36 Ibid. 206. On epitaphs as a guide to beh~viour, see, a.ls? 1. A.quile.lla. Almer !lnd

M. A. Lopez Cerda, 'Determination de la representatlVlte des mscnptt?ns, latmes gräce a la statistique inferentielle', Ant. afr. 9 (1975), 115-26; Mache, Urban Munificence', 182. . ,

37 Roxan, 'Observations', 278 n. 23; 'Wornen on the.Frontters, 462. 3

8 Morris, Death~Ritual, 158. 39 Salway, Frontler People.' 17. . . 4° R. P. Saller and B. D. Shaw, 'Tornbstones and Roman Family RelatlOns m the

Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves', JR.S 74 (1984!, 128.. . 4

1 MacMullen: Changes in the Roman Emplre: Essays m the Ordmary (Pnnceton,

1990),45· 'b ., 66 4

2 Saller and Shaw, 'Tornbstones' , 140 n. 63. See also Roxan, 0 servatlOns, 2 .-43 Mann, 'Epigraphic Consciousness', 204; A. Mocsy, Gesellschaft und Romant~

sation in der römischen Provinz Moesia Superior (Amsterdam.' 1970!,.166-7. 44 E. W B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army: Soc/al, Mtlltary and Eco~

nomic Aspects of the Frontier Zone (Oxford, 1979), 143. . 45 Morris: Death~Ritual, esp. at 166. On the over~representatlOn of ex~.slav:s, see

also G. Woolf, 'Monumental Writing and the Expansion of Roman Soclety m the Early Empire', JRS 86 (1996), 35-6.

114 Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone

be expected to describe social practice because they 'were created for funeral ntuals, and are really telling us about ritual structures'.4

6 I, too, might wish that more of the texts were not dis

socmted from their physical context, and that we might somehow reconstruct the various historical (not just ritual) processes that were apart of their creation. No one, I think, would claim that patterns of behaviour in any part of the Roman world are descnbed perfectly by its surviving epitaphs. It may be said of alm ost any past society that its dead were treated collectively accordmg to rules that are now largely unknowable; what is left behmd must always be understood to be an 'artificial set' 47

Tbe frontier-zone epitaphs of Roman-era Algeria that record marnages are mostly of two types: those on which a woman commemorates or is commemorated by a man who is identified as her husband (maritus, coniunx, ete.); and those on which a man commemorates or is commemorated by a woman who is identified as hIs wlfe (uxor, eoniunx, etc.). Together they account for 81.5 per cent (591/725) of the surviving frontier-zone marriage-epitaphs. Two other types of epitaphs can be understood to record husbands and Wlves, and are therefore included among the epitaphs exammed below: those on which a man and woman are identified as 'father' and 'mother' (pater ~nd mater, less often, parentes; they are 8·3 per cent of the fron her-zone marriage-epitaphs, 60/725); and those hke CIL 8. 3°70 (Lambaesis)-D(is) . M( anibus) . S(aerum) / CaellO' Ma / eedoni' Vet(erano) / Vix(it) . An(nis) . LX I Feelt . Cassl / a . Coneessa ('To the gods of the underworld: CassJa Concessa made [this] for Caelius Macedo veteran' he lived 60 years')-on which a woman commemorates' or is co~memorated by a man without indication of their relationship, where the man and woman have a different nomen (and are therefore unlikely to be father and daughter or sister and brother), and where the age of the deceased, If recorded, is said to have been at least 15 (10.2 per cent of the fronher-zone marriage-epitaphs, 74/725).48 .

46 Death-Ritual, I6I.

47 Se,e especially 1. Brown, 'On Mortuary Analysis-with Special Reference to the Saxe-Bmford Re~earch Program', in L. A. Beck (ed.), Regional Approaches to M~[tuary AnalY~ls (~e~ York a~d London, 1995), 17.

~wo other mscnptIons. are lllcluded among the marriage-epitaphs which are exammed bel~w: Olle on WhlCh an ex-slave woman is commemorated by her patron (eIL 8. 1925 -ILAlg I. 3228; Theueste); another on which a slave man and woman are commemorated by their owner (CIL 8. 2820; Lambaesis).

I .~

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone 11 5

It is generally impossible now to distinguish between Roman citizens and non-Roman citizens on inscriptions. The only really certain indications ofpossession of the citizenship are membership of a Roman tribe,49 and Roman-style filiation (for example, CIL 8. 3251, Lambaesis: C(aius)' Valerius I C(ai)' F(ilius)' Papiria I Castus)50 Unfortunately, the practice of recordmg tnbal n;embership and filiation, while fairly common on north Afncan mscnptions of the first century AD, seems almost to have dlsappeared m the second5' It is sometimes suggested that pos session of the Roman citizenship is indicated also by Roman-style names, and especially

d ) 5' by the so-called tria nomina (praenomen, nomen, an cognomen. But Roman names could be, and were, usurped53 At least some of those attested on inscriptions with Roman-style names will have been Junian Latins (improperly or informally manumitted slaves)54

49 P. A. Brunt, Italian ManpoIVer 225 B,G.-A,D, 14 (Oxford, 1~7~); 208; Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 528; R. Taubenschl~g, Clt~z~ns .and Non-Citizens in the Papyri', in Scritti di diritto romano in onore dl C. Femm (Milan, 1948), iii. 168. . ., .

50 A. M'Charek, Aspects de l'evolution demograplllque et socwle a Mactans aux Ile et fIle siecles apo J C. (Tunis, 1982),43·

5' See Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 54· . , 52 e.g. by H.-G. Pflaum, 'Remarques sur l'ono~astique de Castell~.m Ce~tJan~n~,

in E. Swoboda et al. (eds.), Carnuntina: Ergebnzsse der Forschung uber dIe Glen.,provinzen des römischen Reiches: Vorträge beim internationalen Kongress de: Altertumsforscher Carnuntum 1955 (Graz and Cologne, 1956), 134; 'O~omast1~ue de Cirta', in R. Laur-Belart (ed.), Limes-Studien: Vorträge des 3 I11tern,atlOnalen Limeskongresses in RheinfeIden/Basel (Basel, 1959), T13; 'Remarques sur 1 ?nom~stique de Castellum Tidditanorum', BCTH (1974-5),25; 1. M. Reynol~s, Inscnptions in the Pre-Desert of Tripolitania', in D. 1. Buck and D. 1. Mattmgly (eds.), Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania: Papers in Honour of Olwen Ha~kett (Oxford, 1985),24; see also Meyer, 'Epigraphic Habit', 88 and n. ?9; M .. ~pe1del, 'The Soldiers' Hornes', in Eck and Wolff (eds.), Heer und fntegratlOnspolmk, 478. Cf. Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 54; MacMullen, Chang~s, 6?; A. Mocsy, 'Das Namensverbot des Kaisers Claudius (Suet. Claud. 25, 3), KIlO, 52 (197°), 287--94; 1. Morris, 'Changing Fashions in Roman Nomenclature m the Early Empire', Listy Filologicke, I I (1963),46; H. Wo~f~, 'Zum Er~ennt~i~w~rt von ~amenstatistiken für die römische Bürgerrechtspobtlk der Ka1serzelt, m Studien zur antiken Sozialgeschichte: Festschrift F. Vittingho.tf (Cologne, T980),. 243-4·

53 Claudius is said to bave forbidden non-Romans to adopt Lahn na~e~ .(Su:tonius, Claud. 25. 3). Brunt, ftalian ManpOiFer, 708; remarks that th~ pro?1bttJOn 1S 'better evidence ofthe practice than of its cessatJOn . See also G. Alfoldy, Notes sur la relation entre le droit de cite et la nomenc1ature dans l'empire romain', Latomus, 25 (1966), 37-57; E. Seidl, Rechtsgeschichte Ägyptens als römische Provinz (Sankt Augustin, 1973), 130. .., .

54 Cf. C. R. Whittaker, 'Land and Labour 10 North Afnca, KIlO, 60 (1978),343 n. 65. There were probably a great many of them in the Roman world: P. R: C. Weaver, 'Where Have All the Junian Latins Gone?: Nomenc1ature and Status 10 the Early

1I6 Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone

For the same reasons, pos session oftwo Roman-style names (nomen and cognomen, for example) cannot be taken to indicate possession of the citizenship.

Conversely, it cannat be assumed that a man or woman recorded with one or more non-Roman names was not a Roman citizen because some provincials who possessed the citizenship chose no; to take Roman-style names55 It cannot be assumed either that those who are recorded with just a nomen or cognomen were not Roman citizens, for they may have had other names which have not been recorded, in some cases, perhaps, as a way of conserving space on the stone. 56 Praenomina, for example, were rarely recorded on north African inscriptions after about the time of Trajan57

It was remarked earlier that it is normally impossible also to distinguish between Roman (or Italian) immigrants and Romanized indigenes on inscriptions. The solution that I have adopted is to divide those attested on the marriage-epitaphs instead into two groups: those who are demonstrably un-Romanized; and those who may be categorized either as Roman citizens or as Romanized indigenes. Several criteria can be used to distinguish the unRomanized from the Roman(ized). Auxiliary soldiers,58 and those attested with one or more un-Latinized north African names (Mababme, for example), or with a single Latinized name of African origin (Muthunus, for example), can be categorized as unRomanized. 59 Among the Roman(ized), we may locate Roman

Empire', Chiron, 20 (1990), 275-305. For JUllian Latins with Roman-style names see e.g. Pliny, Ep. 10. I04. '

55 See Garnsey, 'Rome's African Empire', 250 (on Thubursicu Numidarurn). 56 Cf. M'Charek, Aspects de !'evolution, 44: 'ces elements trahissent sans doute

une condition sodale modeste et peut-etre aussi une condition de pen'!grins.' 57 Le Bohec, La Troisihne Legion Auguste, 54. 58 S~e 1.. F. Giiiiam, 'Romanization of the Greek East: The Role of the Army',

Buj:etm o} the American Society 0/ Papyro!ogists, 2 (1965), 66-7. Mab~bme: eIL 8. 3081 (:::: 18301). Muthunus: eIL 8. II250. Other examples of

north Afncan names (e.g. Dabar, Guddem, Izelta), and of Latinized names of African origin (e.g. Baricio, Giddaeus, Zabullus), are collected in M'Charek Aspects de !'evolution, 93, 101, 154, 184, 186; Pflaum, 'Onomastique de Cirta< II8; T~ompson, 'Observations', 48-9, 53, 57. The geographical distribution of the Afncan names attested in Roman-era Algeria is described in E. Frezouls 'Les Survivances i.ndigenes dans l'onomastique africaine', in A. Mastillo (ed.), L'A/rica Romana: Altl de! VII convegno di studio, Sassari (Sassari, 1990), 165; in the frontierzone, they are most commonly attested at Lambaesis, Thibilis, Tiddis, Thamugadi, and Verecunda.

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone I I7

officials, those who belonged to a Roman tribe, legionary soldiers and officers,60 auxiliary and legionary veterans, and those attested with one or more Latin names, or with two or more La~l~lzed names of African origin (Timinius Rogatus, for example). The union of Marau and Aufidia Silvana at Maktar (CIL 8. 23442) can be considered to be an example of the intermarriage of Roman(ized) and un-Romanized: Marau' Chubudis' F(ilius) / V(ixit) . A(nnis) . LXXXII· H(ic) . S(itus) . E(st) / Aufidw . Sllvana . V(ixit) / An(n)is CHere lies Marau, son ofChubud, [who]lrved 82 years; Aufidia Silvana lived [?] years,)62 .

The methods are crude, and no doubt imperfect. For one thmg, they cannot adequately describe the partially Roma11lzed. It IS certainly not the case that all auxiliary soldters were un-Romamzed right up to the very moment that they were discharged. And there is no way to distinguish between Roman clt1zen-women and l~dlgenes who may have taken Latin-style names when they marned. The scheme that I have proposed 111Ight also be expected to underreport the frequency of intermarriage, for if any Rom~ns are lrkely to have quit the chiefly Roman habt! of commemoratmg the dead on stone and therefore to have gone unrecorded, t! IS precisely those who married un-Romanized north Africans and parented 'half-African' children. And because the practice of setting up epitaphs was mainly a Roman custom, they cannot be expected to describe the marriage habits ofthe un-Romamzed populatlOnmany north Africans who married other north Afncans Will have gone unrecorded. ,

It can hardly be said then that the epitaphs of the Algenan fron tier-zone are a complete or perfect record of Its marnagepatterns. What really matters, however, is not whether the figures they generate are precisely accurate (I am reasonably certam that they are not), but whether they can serve at least to Identlfy orders of magnitude from which some valrd concluslOns mlght be drawn. 63 In what follows, the methods I have descnbed above

60 Though non-Romans are known to have s~rved.in ~he legions ~rom at least t~~ end ofthe Ist cent. AD, the large majority ofleglOnanes m every p~nod ,:",ere Ro~a citizens' see G. Forni, 11 reclutamento delle legioni da Augusto a DlOclezwno (MI1~n,

) , 61 Timinius Rogatus: eIL 8. 3708 (Lambaesls). 1953 , 103-5· . . , 62 Cf. M'Charek, Aspects de !'evolution, !07: 'un example de ma~Ia~e ml~te d un

pereg[r]in d'origine numide avec une romame dont les noms sont ltahqucs .. 63 A similar point is made in R. P. SaUer, Patriarchy, Property and Death m the

Roman Family (Cambridge, 1994), 10-II.

\ , , I ,-" ... - ... , ,

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone "9

are used to estimate the incidence of cross-cultural marriage first in the frontier-zone (defined below); second, at Lambaesis; then at Theueste and Auzia, the two fron tier-zone sites, besides Lambaesis, where more than fifty marriage-epitaphs have been recovered; and lastly, for the sake of comparison, at Thubursicu Numidarum, which lay well to the north of the frontier-zone

64

MARRIAGE-PATTERNS

The Frontier-Zone

The frontier-zone is defined here as the region that lay to the south of a line drawn from Numerus Syrorum east along the Mauretanian frontier-road to Auzia, then east and south to Theueste (see Fig. 2.1). A total of 3,436 epitaphs have been recovered from the region; 2,624 (76-4 per cent) are intact (or nearly so)65 There are 72 9 marriages recorded on 725 epitaphs (they are reproduced in Appendix 1),66 186 (25.7 per cent) of which are military6? The eighty-eight fron tier-zone sites where the marriage-epitaphs have been recovered are identified in Fig. 4-4; the number found at each site is indicated in parentheses in the accompanying legend. Table 4. land Fig. 4.5 indicate the status of the husbands and wives attested; they are categorized as Roman(ized) or un-Romanized according to the criteria described earlier. Twenty-two epitaphs which record the 'marriages' of slaves Of of non-Romans who were not of African origin (Greeks, for example) are excluded

68

Of the 186 Roman(ized) soldiers and veterans attested, just one

64 On the marriage-patterns attested at Lambaesis and Thubursicu Numidarum, see also D. Cherry, 'Marriage and Acculturation in Roman Algeria', Classical Philology, 92 (I997), 71- 83.

65 The figures count singly the many epitaphs that are published both in eIL 8 and in ILAlg:r; on duplication, see Meyer, 'Epigraphic Habit', 82 ll. 43·

66 Two marriages are recorded on each offour epitaphs: eIL 8. 3296, 9053, 9065, 9116. I have included among the marriage-epitaphs fOUf which attest betrothai (CIL 8.2857,3065,3485,4318), and one which records concubinage (CIL 8. 9100).

67 Epitaphs on which the deceased or the commemorator is identified as a soldier or veteran have been classified as 'military'. The attested rate of 'marriage' in the military population of the frontier-zone is 30.8% (186/604).

68 eIL 8.1898 (= ILAlg I. 3135). 1899 (= ILAlg I. 3140), 1931 (= ILAlg I. 3244), 2255, 2803a, 2820, 3290, 3292, 3463, 3521,3563, 3597, 3930, 3935,4046,4071,4152, 4372-3, 10628 (= ILAlg I. 3139), 16561 (= ILAlg I. 3134), 18392; Leschi, Etudes

d'epigraphie, 185.


Table 4· I. Husbands and wives on the fron tier-zone epitaphs

Roman(ized) husbands

Un-Romanized husbands

Military Civilian Military Civilian

Roman(ized) wives 185 Un-Romanized wives I

TOTAL 186

I

o 5 I

6

TOTAL

(0·5 per cent), a legionary soldier (mi/es) named C. Harnius Maccus, appears to have married an un-Romanized north African woman (Mababme).69 Much the same can be said of the civilian population. Ofthe 512 Roman(ized) Wornen attested, only five (1.0

per cent) appear to have married un-Romanized north Africans: Iulia Fortunata, who was commemorated by her husband, Hardalius; Hariana Rufilla, who was cornmemorated together with her sou's father, Themarsa; Aelia Fortunata, who was commemorated by her husband, Narnpamo; Victoria, who was comrnemorated by her husband, Numidi; and Sextilia Spica, who commemorated her husband, Muthune70 Similarly, just seven of the 514 Roman(ized) men (1.4 per cent) appear to have married un-Romanized women: Aelius Maarnon, who commemorated his wife, Thereba (perhaps Therefna); C. Iulius Victor, commemorated by his wife, Baricas; Ulpianus, commemorated by his wife, Siddina; Plotius Pequarius, commemorated by his wife, Mustel; Felix, who was commernorated together with his wife, Tsedden; C. Cornelius

69 Mababme: eIL 8. 3081 (= 1830I; Larnbaesis). The only auxiliary soldier attested, Abillahas, who served with the second cohort Sardorum at Rapidum (CIL 8. 9198), seems to have been married to a Roman(ized) woman (Sextia Prima). For the 185 soldiers and veterans with Roman(ized) wives, see Appendix 3 (i, a).

7° Iulia Fortunata: CIL 8. 1954 (= 16513 = ILAIg I. 3148; Theueste); on the name Hardalius, see CIL 8, p. 225 (aeeording to Orosius 7. 36, Ardalio was the name of a river in the region between Theueste and Ammaedara). Hariana Rufilla: CIL 8. 251I~12 (Caleeus Hereulis). Aelia Fortunata: CIL 8. 3347 (Lambaesis); for Nampamo as a north Afriean name, see Pflaum, 'Castellum Celtianum', 137; 'Onomastique de Cirta', II8; 'Castellum Tidditanorum', 27. Vietoria: CIL 8. 4151 (Lambaesis); on the name Numidi, see 1. Kajanto, The Latin Cognomina (Helsinki, 196 5), 206 ('Numida'). Sextilia Spiea: eIL 8. 17702 (Maseula); on the name Muthune, see Thompson, 'Observations', 50, 57 ('Muthun'). The 507 epitaphs that record Roman(ized) wives and husbands are identified in Appendix 3 Ci, b).


Military population: intermarri.age of Roman(ized) and un-Romal11zed ~

(0.3%)

N = 707

Civilian population: intermarri.age of

/ Roman(ized) and un-Romal11zed

(1.7%)

Military population: Roman(ized)

husband and wife (26.2%)

Civilian population: un

Romanized husband and wife

(0.1%)

Fig. 4.5. /ntermarriage in the Jrontier-zone

Saturninus, commemorated by his wif~, ~Icoforoi; and Aemilius

Niger, cornrnemorated by his wife, Bhang. Of the 700

Roman-Th data may be expressed anot er way. . I

C d)e rnen attested on the military and civilian epllaphs, on ~ eli~~t (LI per cent) appear to have married un-Romamzed nort

(- ILAI 1 3747' EI ma el Abi6d); the nam~ 7

1 Aeliu~ Maamon: eIL 8. 207

8 - C. ~ulius Vi'etor: eIL 8. 4501 (~r. Si~l

Therefna IS attested at ILAlg J. I?I3. e Pflaum 'Castellum Celtlanum, Khallef); for Baricas as a n~rth Afnc~n n,~~, ~; ('Baric'). Ulpianus: eIL 8. 9077 137 ('Barieus'); Thomp~on: Obser~~~~nsr' .'224. Plotius Pequarius: eIL ,8.9 152 (Auzia); on the name Slddm~, see pfl. g , 'tastellum Tidditanorum', 27 ( Muste(Auzia); for the ~ame,Mu.ste, see . a~mEtudes epigraphiques (Paris, 1978), 183 eus', 'Musteolus); L Afnque ro.maz?e. 'Mustus'). Felix: ILAlg I. 2947 (Aquae ('Musti-'); Thompson, 'Observatlon~i17 ( p 279 C Cornelius Saturninus: ILAlg Caesaris); on the .name T~e~den,. see. M -?z~t ;Insc~iptions inMites de l' Aures:' I 5~ I. 3784 (Hr. el GIS). Aemlhus ~lger. h on 'Barig see Thompson, 'ObservatIOns, (no. 8; Valley of the Oued Abdl); on t e name , 48, 57 ('Barie').


Africans. And just six of the 698 Roman(ized) women (0.9 per cent) had an un-Romanized husband.

lt may be said again that the epitaphs are not aperfect record of the marriage-patterns of the frontier-zone population. They probably under-report the frequency of intermarriage: it may be doubted that only I per cent (14/r,398) of all the Roman(ized) men and wornen in the frontier-zone married un-Romanized north Africans. The figures can therefore be taken to indicate only some very rough orders of magnitude. But it may be remarked also that they would have to be wrong by a factor of about 100 before it could be maintained that a majority even of the soldiers and veterans married un-Romanized wornen.

Lambaesis

Lambaesis was horne to the Third Augustan legion probably from about AD 115/r7 until 238, when the legion was temporarily disbanded (perhaps for twenty years)7' Three camps in all were constructed: the first, the so-called 'camp de l'est', seems to have been built in AD 81;13 another, the 'camp de l'ouest', was constructed probably between 81 and 129; the largest of the three, the 'Grand' camp, was completed in 129.74 The civilian settlement that grew up around the camps was given Latin rights sometime between AD 158 and 16 I, styled a municipium at least by tbe time of Caracalla, and made a colony (colonia) probably shortly after 238.75

The camps and civilian settlement at Lambaesis together have yielded alm ost 1,400 intact epitaphs76 Several cemeteries have

72 In ~eI?-eral, see H. D'Escurac Doisy, 'Lambese et les veterans de la Iegio tertia Augusta, In~. ~enard (ed.), Hommages ci Albert Grenier (Brussels, 1962), 57 1- 83; Fentress, Numldw, 94-6; M. Jano~, 'Recherehes a Lambese', An!. air. 7 (1973),193-254, and 21 (1985), 35-102; there 18 a good map ofthe region in Janon (at 253). AD IISIIT Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 362. • 73 For the date, see especially Fevrier, Approches du Maghreb romain, i. 111. There IS a plan of the camp in Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 363.

74 See Janon, 'Rech~~~hes a ,Lambese', 211-12. For a plan of the 'Grand' camp, see .Le Bohec, La TrOisleme Legion Auguste, 41 I.

7:> Latin !'ights: CIL 8. 18218 = ILS 6848. Municipium: CIL 8. 18247; see also P. MacKendnck, The North African Stones Speak (Chapel HiIl, NC, 1980), 221. Colony: see Broughton, Romanization 0/ A/rica, 138; cf. H.-G. Pflaum, 'La Romanisation de l'Afrique', Vestigia, 17 (1973), 64 (AD 210).

76 On the epitaphs, see especially Lassere, 'Recherches sur la chronologie', 96-I07·


been identified: one (I) was alongside the road that ran north from the 'Grand' camp; another (11) was located to the east of the 'Grand' camp, between the Oueds Necheb and Markouna; a third (111) was situated about 500-700 m. to the west of the forum near the Oued Tazzoult; what has sometimes been taken to be a fourth cemetery (IV), located south-west of the 'Grand' camp, may bave been merely a continuation of III (it has been entirely destroyed).77 .

About a quarter ofthe intact epitaphs (380) record marnages. A total of 762 husbands and wives are attested (eIL 8. 3296 records two marriages), induding 140 soldiers and veterans (36.7 per cent of the 381 husbands). Table 4.2 and Fig. 4.6 describe tbeir status, which is categorized as Roman(ized) or un-Romanized; fifteen epitaphs which record the 'marriages' of slaves or of non-Romans who were not of north African origin are excIuded. 78

Just one of the 364 Roman(ized) men recorded on the military and civilian epitapbs (0.3 per cent), the legionary, C. Harnius Maccus, seems to have married an un-Romanized wornan (Mababme)79 And only two of the 365 Roman(iz~d) women recorded (0.5 per cent) appear to have been marned to unRomanized north Africans: Aelia Fortunata, who was commemorated by ber husband, Nampamo; and Victoria, commemorated

Table 4.2. Husbands and wives on the epitaphs 0/ Lambaesis




Roman(ized) wives 139 Un-Romanized wives TOTAL 140

224 o

224

o o o

2

o 2

TOTAL

77 Le Bohec, La Troisieme Legion Auguste, 107-8 (with map); see also Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie, 36-5I.

7S CIL 8. 2803a, 2820, 3290, 3292, 3463, 3521, 3563, 3597, 3930, 3935, 4046, 4°7 1,

4152, 18392; Leschi, Etudes d'epigraphie, 185. . 79 C. Harnius Maccus: CIL 8.3081 (= 18301). For the 139 soldlers and veterans

who had Roman(ized) wives, see Appendix 3 (ii, a).

124

N~ 366


Military population: intermarriage of Roman(ized) alld un-Romanized (0.3%)

Military population: Roman(ized)

husband and wife (38.0%)

Civilian population: intermarriage of

Roman(ized) alld Ull

Romanized (0.5%)

Fig. 4.6. Intermarriage at Lambaesis

by her husband, Numidi. 80 The incidence of intermarriage attested across the whole of the population is just 0.8 per cent (3/366).

Theueste

Horne to the Third Augustan legion from AD 75 until about I 15/ 17, when the leglOn was moved to Lambaesis, Theueste (mod. Tebessa) was made a colony probably shortly after the legion left8 ' Meyer

80 Aelia Fort~nata: C:1L 8. 3347. Victoria: eIL 8. 4151. The civilian epitaphs that re~?rd RO~an(lz:d). WIV7S and hus~ands ar~ listed in Appendix 3 (il, b).

AD 75- C. Damels, The Frontlers: Afnca', in 1. S. Wacher (ed.), The Roman World(Lo,ndon and N~w York, 1987), i. 240. Colony: ibid. i. 242. The exact Ioeation of th,e leglOnary base 18 unknown: V. A. Maxfield, 'The Frontiers of the Roman Emplre: Same Recent Work', JRA 2 (1989), 343.

I I I


has recently dated its promotion instead to the time of Marcus Aurelius, on the grounds, first, that it would shorten the interval between its promotion and the earliest recorded mention of it on a surviving inscription, ILAlg I. 3°32, which belongs to the time of Commodus, and second, that the legion was at Lambaesis already by AD 8 I 8, It is indeed unlikely that Theueste's promotion went unrecorded for more than half a century. But an inscription cannot be assumed never to have existed because it has not been found. And Michel Janon has demonstrated that the building activity attested at Lambaesis in AD 81 ('le camp de 1'est') was not connected with the transferring of the whole legion.83

A total of 215 intact epitaphs have been recovered at Theueste. About a quarter of them (55) record marriages, including those of four soldiers (7.3 per cent of the husbands). The husbands and wives who are attested are categorized as Roman(ized) or unRomanized in Table 4.3 and Fig. 4.7; five epitaphs which record the 'marriages' of slaves or of non-Romans who were not of north African origin are excluded. 84

All four of the military husbands attested (two legionaries and two veterans) appear to have had Roman(ized) wives85 And only one of the fifty Roman(ized) women (2.0 per cent) seems to have married an un-Romanized uorth African: Iulia Fortunata, who

Table 4.3. Husbands and wives on the epitaphs 0/ Theueste


U n -Romanized husbands


Roman(ized) wives 4 U n -Romanized wives 0 TOTAL 4

45 o

45

o o o

o

TOTAL

50 o

50

R2 'EpigraphicHabit', 83-5 andn. 49. 83 Janon: 'Recherchesa Lambese', 21 2. 8, eIL 8. 1898 (~ILAlg I. 3135), 1899 (~ILAlg I. JI40), 1931 (~ILAlg I. 3244),

10628 (~ ILAlg I. 3139), 16561 (~ ILAlg I. 3134). 85 eIL 8. 16544 (:= ILAlg 1. 3I06), 16545 (= ILAlg I. 3107); ILAlg r. 3105, 3121.

126

N~50


Civilian population: intermarriage cf

Rornan(ized) and unRomanized (2.0%)

Military population: Roman(ized) husband and

wife (8.0%)

Fig 4.7. Intermarriage at Theueste

was commemorated by her husband, Hardalius (named probably for a nearby river),86

Auzia

In AD 24, according to Tacitus (Annals 4, 25), Tacfarinas' Musulamian warriors, having been forced to abandon tbeir siege of Thubursicu Numidarum, set up camp near the 'half-ruined' (sem irutum) native fort ( castellum) at Auzia (mod, Souk EI Ghoziane), which they themselves had burnt earlier, and where they were subsequently routed by the proconsular governor, P Cornelius Dolabella (Tacfarinas hirnself fell in the fighting), A Roman-style

86 Iulia Fortunata: eIL 8. 1954 (= r6513 :::: ILAlg I. 3148). For the 45 civilian epitaphs that record Roman(ized) wives and husbands, see Appendix 3 (iii, b).


Table 4-4. Husbands and wives on the epitaphs 0/ Auzia




Roman(ized) wives 6 Un-Romanized wives 0

TOTAL 6

o o o

o o o

TOTAL

75 2

77

127

town (municipium) was later established at the site; it was made a colony probably in the time of Septimius Severus87

The sile has yielded 133 intact epitaphs, most ofwhich appear to date to the period AD 225-5088 Seventy-fonr epitaphs record seventy-seven marriages, including those of six soldiers and veterans,89 Table 4A and Fig, 4,8 describe the statns-Roman(ized) or un-Romanized-of the 154 husbands and wives who are attested, The rate of intermarriage that is indicated, 2,6 per cent (2/77), is almost the same as at Theueste, Seventy-five of the seventy-seven Roman(ized) men (including the six soldiers and veterans) appear to have had Roman(ized) wives; two others seem to have married un-Romanized north African women; Ulpianus, who was commemorated by his wife, Siddina; and Plotius Pequarius, who was commemorated by his wife, MustePO

It might be supposed that inadequacies in the methods I have used to distinguish Roman(ized) and un-Romanized explain why intermarriage seems to have been so uncommon in the fron tierzone, It is unlikely, however, that methodological shortcomings alone can account for the patterns the epitaphs describe, for when the very same methods are used to categorize the marriages attested on the epitaphs of Thubnrsicu Numidarum, a significantly higher rate of intermarriage is indicated,

87 eIL 8, p, 769. 88 Thirteen epitaphs at Auzia are securely dated (eIL 8. 9065, 9077, 9085: 9086,

909°,9091,9109, 9IlI, 9II5, 9II6, 9133, 9158, 9162); aH belong to the penad AD 22'-50.

&"9 Three epitaphs each record two marriages: eIL 8. 9053, 9065, 9II ?" 9° Ulpianus: eIL 8. 9077. Platius Pequar~us: C:1L ~. 9152. T~e ep~taphs that

record Roman(ized) husbands and wives are Identtfied m AppendIx 3 (IV, a-b).


Civilian

N ~ 77

Fig. 4.8. Interman"iage at Auzia

Thubursicu Numidarum

Military population: Roman(ized) husbal1d and

wife (7.8%)

Long a tribaI centre of the Numidae, Thubursicu Numidarum was made a mumClplum (Ulpium Traianum Augustum Thubursicu) no later than AD ,11 3: and a colony sometime before 2709' It is Paul Ma~Kendnck s Vlew that the settlement was 'thoroughly RomanIzed

9; perhaps as early as the time of Tacfarinas' rebellion (AD 17-

24)· But there are several indications also of a sizeable and probably only parlIally Romanized, indigenous population: two Baal-Saturn temples; 173 Punic stelae; Latin inscriptions bristling wlth north Afncan names.

91 Mun~cipium: [LA/g. 1. ,I240; see also Garnsey, 'Rome's African Ern ire' 2 . B

~~1~hS~WGs!tte~!:~~s~~1(~!r~f~~:~~g~~r~rai91~Y~), Hisloria, 30 (1981), ~50;' i;~en~ 92 MKd'k ' . include~Ct:~lf~~~ :b":~~th African Stones, 216-17, citing its public buildings, which

date). ' a s, a monumental arch, and a theatre (probably of Severan


Table 4.5. Husbands and wives on (he epitaphs 0/ Thubursicu Numidarum


U n ~ Romanized husbands


Roman(ized) wives 3 Un-Romanized wives 0

TOTAL 3

133 12

145

o o o

9 2

II

TOTAL

145 14

159

In all, 529 epitaphs have been recovered at the site, 159 of whieh (30.1 per cent) record 162 marriages, including those of three veterans (1.9 per cent of the 162 husbands).93 Table 4·5 and Fig. 4.9 describe the status-Roman(ized) or un-Romanized-of the husbands and wives who are attested (three epitaphs which record the 'marriages' of non-Romans who were not of north African origin are excluded)94

Of the 148 Roman(ized) men attested on the epitaphs (including the three veterans), twelve (8. I per cent) appear to have been married to un-Romanized north Africans. Six were commemorated together with their wives: Iulius Primulus with Namfamina, C. Iunius Saturninus with Secchun, Paternus with Sesola, Felix with Sahnam, Helvius Saturninus with Thadir, Iunius Felix with Namgedde. Five others-Fronto Lepta, Florus, Gallus, Quirinius, and L. Aemilius Rogatus-were the husbands respectively of Beriet, Zabulla, Berecbal, Therefnat, and Namgedde. Arius Felix commemorated himself and his wife, Namgidde95 Of the 145

93 The marriage-epitaphs are reproduced in Appendix 2. Three epitaphs each record two marriages: eIL 8. 5064 (:=::: ILAlg I. 1810); 5II2 (= ILAlg I. 1590); ILAlg 1. 1976. I have inc1uded one epitaph that records betrothaI (lLAlg J. 1503). Among the marriage-epitaphs are 90 (56.6%) on which a woman commemorates or is commemorated by a man who is identified as her husband, or a man commemorates or is commemorated by a woman identified as his wife; 68 (42.8%) on which a woman commemorates or is commemorated by a man without indication of their relationship, where the man and woman have a different nomen, and where the age ofthe deceased, ifrecorded, is said to have been at least 15; and I (0.6%) on which a man and woman are identified as pater and mater.

94 eIL 8. 4953 (~ILAlg 1. 1839), 4999 (~ILAlg 1. 19°5), 5054 (~ILAlg 1. q81). 95 Namfamina: eIL 8.5°55 (::::: ILAlg J. 1666); for Namfamina as a north African

name, see M'Charek, Aspects de !'evolution, 186 ('Namphamina'). Secchun: eIL 8. 5099 (::::: ILAlg I. 1713). Sesola: eIL 8.5103 (= ILAlg 1. 1805). Sahnam: ILAlg I.

1541; variations of the name are attested at ILAlg I. 919, 1006 ('Sanam'), 1059


Civilian population: un-Romanized husband and wife (1.3%)

N ~ 159

Civilian population: intermarriage of Roman(ized)

un-Romanized (13.2%)

Military population:

Roman(ized) husband and wife (1.9%)

Fig. 4·9· Intermarriage al Thubursicu Numidarum

Roman(ized) women attested, nine (6,2 per cent) seem to have marned un-Romamzed north Africans: three were commemorated together wlth thelr husbands-Vivia Matrona wI'th B . h' A . r N r . anc 10, emlJa. ata IS wrth Bazabulus, Germana with lamascai; three more-

luha Honorata, Postuma, and Sextilia Villatica-are said to have been the wlves respectively of Zabo, Numida, and Nabor; three othe~s-Saturmna, Petronia Frontilla, and lulia Privata-were all marned to men named Mustiolus.96

}i~h!n~mt'), r~oI ('shahnaim'), 2315 ('Sanamt'). Thadir: ILAlg I. 1616. Namgedde' g . 1703, on t e name Namgedde (and N "dd b 1) , .

Aspects de !'evolution 186. Beriet' eIL 8 a~gl e, e ow , see M Charek, attested also at eIL 8 '62 . . 4924 (- ILAlg I. 1582); the name is Cirta' 118 ('R . t') . Z ~2'I12~499, 255°7, 27713; see also Pflaum, 'Onomastique de 'Puni;o-Lib a ~ne . a u a. CIL 8. 17201 (:::; ILAlg I. 1950); for Zabulla as a

ILAlg I. 14;8;nth~a~~es~: a~~~~~s~l~~ ~b~~z~tions', 57 (,Zabullus'). Bereebal: I. 1913. Namgedde: CIL 8 4906 (:::; ILAl . 17293, ~7507. Therefnat ILAlg the 136 men who had R . (' d) . g I. 1396). N~mgldde; ILAlg I. 1417· For

96 .• oman Ize wlves, see Appendix 3 (v, a-b).

VlVla Matrona; CIL 8. 5132 (:::; ILAlg I. 1435); for Bariehio as a north Af . name, see Thompson, 'Observations', 48 ('Barieio'). Aemilia Natalis: ILAlg I. ~~e3a7~


The data may be summarized this way: fully 13.2 per cent (21/ 159) ofthe marriage-epitaphs appear to record the union ofRoman(ized) and un-Romanized, compared to just 0.8 per cent (3/366) of the marriage-epitaphs recovered at Lambaesis.

Conclusion

The marriage-patterns described by the epitaphs are summarized in Table 4.6. The figures are at best a rough estimate of the frequency with which Roman(ized) married un-Romanized eitlrer in the fron tier-zone or at Thubursicu Numidarum. They probably underestimate the actual rate of intermarriage at every site. And they misrepresent the marriage habits of the indigenous population. Twelve of the fourteen un-Romanized women attested at Thubursicu Numidarum, for example, appear to have had Roman(ized) husbands; put another way, just two of the 159 marriage-epitaphs seem to record the union of two un-Romanized north Africans: ILAlg 1. 1634, on which a man named radar is commemorated together with his wife, Zabullica; and ILAlg 1.

1774, where a woman named Sumuda is commemorated together with her husband, Mustiolus.97 It must be the case that many marriages of un-Romanized north Africans have not been recorded.

There is, however, no reason why the data in Table 4.6 should be more inaccurate in the case of one community than of another, or why the epitapbs at one of the sites should be any more or less representative of its population. And there is no evidence to show that the un-Romanized population in the frontier-zone was

Germana: ILAlg I. 1635. Iulia Honorata: CIL 8. 5018 (:::; ILAlg I. 1683); on the name Zabo, see Thompson, 'Observations', 57 ('Zabullus'). Postuma: CIL 8. 5069 (= ILAlg I. 1824); for the name Numida, see Kajanto, Latin Cognomina, 206. Sextilia Villatiea: CIL 8. 5107 (= ILAlg 1. 1891); on the name Nabor, see Pflaum, 'Onomastique de Cirta', I I 8 ('Nabor-'). Saturnina, Petronia Frontilla, and lulia Privata: CIL 8. 5098 (= ILAlg I. 1876); ILAlg I. 1356; ILAlg I. 1977; on the north Afriean origin of the name Mustiolus, see Pflaum, 'Onomastique de Cirta', II8; 'Castellum Tidditanorum', 27·

97 Similarly, just one marriage of un-Romanized north Afrieans is attested in the frontier-zone, that of Amausgaris and Taseuri at Hf. Metkides (CIL 8. 2200 = ILAlg I. 2975); the other fourteen un-Romanized north Afrieans attested on the fron tier-zone epitaphs all appear to have had Roman(ized) partners. Variations of ladar are attested at CIL 8. 9923 (ladir), 10686, 12102, 12207, 17253 (lader); for Zabulliea as a north Afriean name, see Thompson, 'Observations', 57 ('ZabuUus').

132

Site

Auzia


Table 4.6. The incidence 0/ interman'iage at selec/ed sites in Roman-era Algeria

Intermarriage as % of all recorded marriages

Military Civilian TOTAL population population

0.0 2.8 2.6 Lambaesis 0·7 0·9 0.8 Theueste 0.0 2.2 2.0 Frontier-zone I.I 2·3 2.0 Thubursicu Numidarurn 0.0 13·5 I3· 2

significantly smaller than at Thubursicu Numidarum. Comparison, in other words, can be made across different sites even if the data are suspected of misrepresenting historical practice.

The marriage-patterns that are recorded on the epitaphs of the frontier-zone and Thubursicu Numidarum are compared in Table 4· 7· A standard chi-square 2 X 2 table statistical test applied to the data would yield a p-value of less than .001, from which it could be inferred that there is a very significant difference statistically between the rates of intermarriage that are attested in the fron tier-zone and at Thubursicu Numidarum. The figures would seem to demonstrate therefore that the intermarriage of Roman(ized) and un-Romanized was decidedly less common in the fron tier-zone, perhaps especially at Lambaesis, across both the military and civilian populations. There is no evidence of any

Table 4-7· Marriage-patterns in theJrontier-zone and at Thuhursicu Numidarum

Intermarriage of Roman(ized) and un-Rornanized

Roman(ized) husband and wife TOTAL

Frontier-zone Thubursicu TOTAL

Numidarum

14 (2.0%) 693 (98.0%) 70 7

21 (13.2%) 138 (86.8%) 159

35 83 1

866


significant measure of cross-cultural interrelationship in the fron tier-zone, still less of what Elizabeth Fentress has called 'assimilation'.98

It is virtually impossible now to identify marriage-patterns within the seemingly self-segregated Roman(ized) populatIOn of the frontier-zone, for almost nothing survives to descnbe the origins of the wives who are named on the frontier-zone epitaphs. We might suppose that some of them had been drawn to the armytowns that were scattered across the region, where they could expect to make a living (of sorts) by providing services-Iaundering, entertainment prostitution99 Some will have been ex-slaves, hke the two wom~n commemorated at Theueste who married their former owners. IOO

I suspect that a great many of the soldiers' wives were other soldiers' daughters. TOI There is no evidence to show that soldlers or their children married into the families of the Romanized local elites or of the merchants and craftsmen (carpenters, masons, metal-workers) who are likely to have taken up residence in the civilian settlements which grew up around many of the frontlerzone army-camps. '0' It might be said of the fron tier-zone army in north Africa as it has been said recently of the soldlers statIOned in northern' Britain, that it constituted its own 'distinct and separate' society. <03 The marriage-patterns described by the fron· tier-zone epitaphs would seem to indicate that there was, m Shaw's wards, a 'terrible estrangement' between the army and

98 Fentress: Numidia, 78; see also M. Brett and E. W. B. Fentress, The Berbers (Oxford. 1996), 55· .

99 See especially H. von Petrikovits, 'Lixae', in w. S. Hanson and L. J. F. Kepple (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1979 (Oxford, 1980), 1027-34·

100 eIL 8. 1925 (= ILAIg I. 3228), 27869 (::::: ILAIg I. 3199). See also A. 1. Marshall 'Roman Warnen and the Provinces', Ancient Sodety, 6 (1975), I~7. "

JOT Th~ idea is borrowed from C. M. WeHs, '''The Daughters of the ~eglment : Sisters and Wives in the Roman Army', forthcoming in the proceedmgs of the XVlth Roman Frontier Studies Conference (Aug. I995)· . . . ..

102 On army-towns, see especially C. S. Sommer, The Mlbtmy VICl In Roman Britain (Oxford, 1984), 3I-4. For merchants, Sal~ust, Bell. Iu~. 4.4., .

103 I. Ferris, 'Shopper's Paradise: Consumers m ~oman BntaI,n, m Ru.sh (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology, I36. Cf. C. van Dnel-Murray, Gender m Que.stion', in Rush (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology, I2, 16: on the. Dutc~ army m Indonesia; K. Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class under the Ra}: Imperial At~l!.udes and Policies and their Critics, 1793-1905 (New York, I980), 2, I67, on the Bnttsh army in India.


indigenons society, and perhaps more generally between the Roman(ized) and the nn-Romanized populations. W4

It might be argued, I suppose, that some Roman citizens who married non-Romans will have wanted to conceal it because, through much of the period from about the Social war (c.90 BC) until after the death of Septimius Severus the intermarriage of Roman and non-Roman was invalid ~nder Roman law and, in various ways, penalized. There are, however, a number of reasons for believing that the legal rules had little practical effect.

LAW AND SOCIAL PRACTICE

It was a long-standing principle in Roman law that a lawful marriage could be contracted only by two Roman citizens or by a Roman citizen and a 'foreigner' (peregrinus/a) or Latin who possessed conubium, which the Roman jurists defined as 'the capacIty to contract a valid marriage'. W5 As early as the Latin settlement of 338 BC, conubium was identified as a right (ius conubii) distinct from the citizenship. w6 But it seems rarely to have been awarded without simultaneous enfranchisement. 1°7

Children born to a marriage for which the partners possessed conubium took their father's status. w8 So the child of a Roman

1°4 Sh~w: 'S.oldiers and So~iety', 144; cr. 148: there are, he conc1udes, 'few signs' that the IsolatIOn of the soldtery at Lambaesis was 'in auy way mitigated by other normal müdes of interrelation within civil society (e.g. intermarriage),. See also MacMullen, Changes, 226. .

1°5 Tituli Ulpiani 5.3 (conubium est uxoris lure ducendaefacultas); cf. Gaius Inst. I: 56. !he Ti~uli Uipi~ni is probably an early 4th cent. AD epitome of a Regularum b~e~ smgularzs of Ulplan. On conubium, see especially F. de Visscher, 'Conubium et ClVl~a~', l!-evue internationale des droUs de l'antiquite, 1 (1952), 401-22; 'Conubium ~t ClVlt~S , Iurt!, 7 \1951), 140-4, .is a, s~orter version of the same paper; E. Volterra, La no~~one gmndlca deI conu~n~m , 111 Studi in memoria di E. Aibertario (Milan,

1953), 11. 34~-84; se~ .also F. Vltt111ghoff, 'Militärdiplome, römische Bürgerrechts~ und Int~gratlO~~poht1k der Hohen Kaiserzeit', in Eck and Wolff (eds.), Heer und Integ~atl.onspollflk, 543. Other requirements of a valid .marriage are discussed in Tr;§llan, Roman ~arriaße, 38-43, 54-7.

107 A. N. Sherwm-Whlte; The R?n:~n Citizenship, :nd edn. (Oxford, 1973), 32. See also D. Cherry, The MIllIClan Law: Marnage and the Roman Citizen~

ship', Phoenix, 44 (1990), 245-6. lOS Tituli Uipiani 5. 8: 'where the right of intermarriage exists, children always

fol1ow the father' (conubio interveniente fiberi semper patrem sequuntur); Digest I. 5. 19 (Celsus): 'where a lawfuJ marriage has been contracted, the children follow their


man and a foreigner or Latin who had conubium was born a Roman citizen. Conversely, the child of a Roman woman and a non-Roman who possessed conubium was born non-Roman. 10

9

Under the rule of the 'Iaw of nations' (ius gentium), which comprised those legal principles that the Roman jurists considered to be common to all peoples, including Roman citizens, children born to a marriage for which the partners did not have conubium were illegitimate and therefore took their mother's, not their father's, status."o Their condition was thought to be analogous to that of children conceived outside of marriage. I I I So children born to a Roman man and a non-Roman woman (foreigner or Latin) who did not have conubium were illegitimate non-Romans; those born to a Roman woman and a non-Roman (foreign or Latin) man who did not possess conubium were illegitimate Roman citizens. 112

The rules that governed the status of children born to marriages for which the partners did not have conubium were overthrown by the Minician law. "3 Passed probably sometime before the Social

father' (cum legitimae nuptiae factae sint, patrem liberi sequuntur). The law is summarized in Gaius, Inst. I. 56.

109 Gaius, Inst. I. 77. . .

110 Tituli Ulpiani 5. 8: 'where the right of intermarriage does not eXlst, they [l.e. children] take their mother's status' (non interveniente conubio matris condicio~i accedunt); Cicero, Top. 20: in the absence of conubium, 'children do not follow thelr father' (qui nati sunt patrem non sequuntur); Isidorus, Orig. 9. 7. 21: 'whenever there is no right of intermarriage, children do not follow their father' (quotiens autem conubium non est filii patrem non sequuntur).

l!l Digest I. 5.' 19 (CeJsus). A marriage for which the partners lacked conubium, such as the union of a senator and a freed~woman (prohibited by the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus of 18 Be; see Digest 23. 2. 44, Paul; Treggiari, Roman Marriafe, 61-2), was held to be unlawful (iniustum), but appears not to have been legally vOld; see Digest 38. II. I. pr. (Ulpian); Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 49-51. The law seems to have treated the couple as husband and wife, and afforded.them at least same of the legal rights normally associated with lawful Roman marnage: .e.g. a ~an could charge his 'wife' with adultery even if they were not lawfully marned (Digest 48. 5· 14. I, Ulpian). .

IIZ Gaius, Inst. I. 78. Examples in Livy 26. 34. 6-9, 38. 36. 5-6 (Campama); 43· 3· 1-4 (Carteia), on which see R. Syme, Colonial Elites: Rome, Spain and the Am~ricas (London, 1958), 11; M. Mirkovi6, 'Die Entwicklung und Be~eutun~ .der Verleihung des Conubium' in Eck and Wolff (eds.), Heer und IntegratlOnspolztlk, 168.

113 On the la~, see especially R. Böhm, 'Zur lex Minicia', Zeitschrift der Savigny· St{ftung für Rechtsgeschichte (Romanistische Abteilung), 84 (19~7), 3.63-71; C. Castello, 'La data della legge Minicia', in Studi in onore di V :4ranglO~RUlz.~~ples, 1953), iii. 301-17; G. Luraschi, 'Sulla date e sui destinatan dell~ lex ~mlcl~ de liberis', Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris, 42 (1976), 321-7o.1t IS notlced bnefly in 1. F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (London, 1986), 138, 143,223; B. Rawson, 'The Roman Family',in B. Rawson (ed.), The Family in Ancient Rome:


war (perhaps in 121 BC), "4 it declared that children born to a marriage for which the partners did not possess conubium should take the status of their non-Roman ('inferior') parent. "5 It affected then only one of the four types of marriage of mixed citizenship, that of a Roman woman and a foreigner who did not have conubium, which prior to its enactment yielded Roman children under the law of nations. Both before the law and after it the children of a marriage for which the partners possessed con: ubium took their father's status, and the children of a Roman man and a foreigner who did not have conubium were born foreigners. A somewhat different set of rules governed marriages of mixed citizenship contracted by soldiers. Since soldiers could not lawfully marry, their children were illegitimate, and therefore took their mother's status under the law of nations. So the children of soldiers and Roman warnen were illegitimate Roman citizens; those born to soldiers and non-Roman warnen were illegitimate non-Romans. 116

It is reasonably certain that the Minician law applied to all Roman citizens, both those who lived in Italy and those who were resident in the provinces. Some Roman laws that dealt largely with matters of contract or property did not apply to Roman citizens outside Italy: so, for example, the Furian law, passed perhaps in the first century BC, which regulated the release of sureties and guarantors. I I7 I cannat imagine, however, that this could have been the case with the Minician law, if for no other reason than that Gaius describes it as operating in his own day, when the number of non-Romans resident in ltaly is likely to have

New Per"pectives (lthaca, NY, 1986),23; Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 45-6. Its terms are summarized in W W. Buckland, A Textbook 0/ Roman Law fram Augustus 10 Justinian, 3rd edn., rev. by P. Stein (Carnbridge, 1966),99-100.

114 Cf. Castello, 'La data della legge Minicia'; Luraschi, 'Sulla date e sui destinatari'.

115 The terms ofthe law are described in Gaius, Ins!. 1. 78; Tituli Ulpiani 5. 8. An ur;.dated deeree of the Senate legitimized certain types of marriage cootracted by mlstake, e.g. where a Roman man married a noo-Roman woman in the belief that she was a Roman ~itizen; its terms are described in Gaius, Inst. I. 67, 69-74, 87; see a!s? Behrends, 'DIe Rechtsregeluogen der Militärdiplome', 120; Cherry, 'Lex Minicm , 256-9.

116 See also K. Kraft, 'Zum Bürgerrecht der Soldatenkinder', Historia, 10 (1961) 120-6; M. Mirkovic, 'Die römische Soldatenehe und der "Soldatenstand''', Zeit~ schrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 40 (1980), 259-71; H. Nesselhauf, 'Das Bürgerrecht der Soldatenkinder', Historia, 8 (1959), 434-42; H. Wolff, 'Zu den Bürgerrechtsverleihungeo an Kinder von Auxiliaren und Legionaren' , Chiron, 4 (1974), 470-510. lJ7 Gaius, Inst. 3. 122.

Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone I37

been very smalI. Gaius also applies the law (Inst. r. 79) to Latins who at one time had their own communities and states and were classified with foreigners; they are probably the Latins who were resident in Italy in the period before the Social war. ,,8

Gaius indicates also that a marriage of mixed citizenship was transformed into a lawful Roman marriage if the non-Roman partner acquired Roman citizenship. "9 Children born to the marriage after the non-Roman partner had been given the citizenship were Roman citizens. l2o We are not told whether the enfranchised were required to relinquish their former citizenship and the rights and privileges that are likely to have accompanied it in the laws of their local communities. The Syrian author Bardesanes, writing probably early in the third century AD, declared that the Romans 'abolish the laws of the countries they conquer'.'"' A number of the provisions of the so-called Gnomon of the [dios Logos-a summary list of regulations, mostly of a financial nature, originally drawn up under Augustus, amended and augmented by later emperors, Egyptian prefects,and the Roman Senate, and designed to be used in administering the emperor's 'private account' in Egypt-indicate that the enfranchised in Roman Egypt were subject to the terms of Roman legislation. m

118 Cf. A. Watson, The Law of Persons in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford, 1967), 27-8. . ..

"9 Gaius: Ins!. I. 67-71, 87; see also I. 90, where, mdulgmg m what mus~ be a kind of lawyers' game, he describes the rules that governed t~e status ~f. cht1d~en conceived but not yet born when the non-Roman partner recelved the elhzenshlp.

l~O The Roman citizenship might be acquired in a number of ways other than by birth to two citizen parents. Those who served as magistrates or decurion.s in towr:s of Latin status, for example, were awarded the citizenship when they IeH office (11 was given also to their parents, wives, children, and sons' children); see eh. 21 of the Flavian municipallaw (text in 1. Goozalez, 'The Lex Irn~tana: A New Copy of the Flavian Municipal Law', JRS 76 (1986),154); see also Gams, Inst. 1. 96; P. Garnsey, Sodal Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1970), 266 .. The citizenship was given to the ex-slaves of a citizen-owner if they were freed III a manner sanctioned by law; see 1. P. V. D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (London, 1979),86. And the authorities, seemingly as a matter ofpol.icy, periodieally enfranchised individuals towns even whole peoples; see e.g. Tacltus, Ann. 6. 37 (Ornospades of Maureta~ia, wh; assisted Tiberius in the Dalmat~an war); ~as~ius Die: 41. 24. I (Gades); Pliny, HN 5. 20 (Rusucurru, in Mauretama Caesanensls); Tacltus, His!. I. 78 (the Ligones); see also the list in Velleius Patereulus I. 14. 1-8.

121 Book of the Laws of Countries; see MacMullen, Changes, 33.. . 122 BGU 1210; text also in S. Riccobono et al. (eds.), Fantes Iuns Romanz

Anteiustiniani 2nd edn. (Florenee, 1940-3), i. 99. Provisions: e.g. 23, 27-8, 33, 61. The law that governed the intermarriage of Romans and Egyptians is reviewed


The status of marriages of mixed citizenship in locallaw is not attested. '23 Of the Roman jurists, only Gaius shows any interest in non-Roman law, and then only when it was likely to become an issue in Roman law, for example when the Roman citizenship was awarded to one partner of a non-Roman marriage. Cicero c1aimed (Ba/h. 20) that provincial communities had the right to adopt or reject Roman legislation, and he was probably correct. It is certainly hard to imagine that any non-Roman community would have chosen to adopt the Minician law. The intermarriage of Roman and non-Roman is likely to have been valid then, or at least not penalized, in the laws of most non-Roman communities.

In keeping with the temper of much of the Roman law of personal status, the Minician law reserved its harshest penalties for the children of the disobedient. Denied the Roman citizenship and therefore also access to the remedies of the civillaw, they were probably most aeutely disadvantaged in the Roman law of succession. They could accept nothing bequeathed to them by their Roman parent, because non-Romans could not receive inheritanees or legacies from Roman citizens. '"4 Anything left to them by their Roman parent could be eonfiscated by the state. '25 The rule extended so far that a Roman could not bequeath even a usufruct to a non-Roman. 126

It may be doubted, however, that the Minician law was always rigorously or evenly enforced. It seems to have established no method of exacting what it prescribed. The status of children born of marriages of mixed citizenship is unlikely to have become an issue unless they were betrayed to the authorities or laid claim to Roman status in a Roman court of law or before a Roman

in Cherry, 'Lex Minicia', 260~2. Examples of Roman-Egyptian marriage are collected in R. Taubenschlag, The Law 0/ Greco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri, 2nd edn. (Warsaw, 1955), 106, J08.

1~3 Ulpian does say (Digest 50. I. 1. 2) that children born to the marriage ofthose who were from different non-Roman communities took their father's status. He goes on to report that the children of such marriages were sometimes allowed to take their mother's status; the privilege was granted to the Ilienses, to Delphi, and, by Pompey, to the Pontici. Some jurists thought that only illegitimate children in Pontus were eligible; Ulpian and Celsus disagreed. 1~4 Gaius, Inst. 2. 1I0.

1~5 Details in D. Johnson, The Roman Law 0/ Trusts (Oxford, 1988), 35-9. J~6 Fragmenta Vaticana 47a. Nothing survives to describe the rules that governed

succession to the estate of the non-Roman partner. I suspect that the Iaws of provincial communities are unlikely to have barred the non-Roman partner from bequeathing his (or her) estate to his (or her) non-Roman child.


official. There were probably also many local differences in the degree to which the law was enforced, varying according to the extent to which Roman law was known and applied. And the children's disabilities in the Roman law of succession could be dodged. A Roman could leave property to his non-Roman child in a trust (fideicommissum), for example, by appointing someone his heir with the request that the heir pass on all or part of the estate to the child. '27 Trusts were made actionable by Augustus. It was later decided, probably by Vespasian, that non-Romans could not receive trusts from Roman citizens. 128 But other dodges were at hand, including the secret or tacit trust. "9

The law also allowed a soldier who was a Roman cll1zen (a legionary, for example) to appoint his illegitimate children his heirs or legatees. '30 There is no evidence to describe the rules that governed the succession of illegitimate Roman children to the estate of a non-Roman saldier. They are, I think, unlikely to have been disqualified. The same can be said of the illegitimate non-Roman children of a non-Roman soldier. And soldiers who were Roman citizens and made a military will were expressly allowed to make non-Romans their heirs or legatees. '3' The introduction of the privilege cannot be dated. It may be coeval with the introduction of the military will. Ulpian says (Digest 29. l. l. pr.) that it was Julius Caesar who first relaxed the rules that governed soldiers' wills, but adds that the concession was short-lived (concessio temporalis erat). The privileges of the military will were reintroduced, it seems, by Titus, reaffirmed by Domitian, perhaps expanded by Nerva, and entrenched in law by Hadrian.'32

So there is little reason to think that the law will have deterred Romans from marrying non-Romans. There is certainly nothing to indicate that the union of Roman and non-Roman was considered

127 Gaius, Inst. 2. 275, 285. On trusts, see D. Daube, Roman Lmv: Linguistic,

Socia! and Philosophical Aspects (Edinburgh, 1969), 96-102; Johnson, Law 0/ Trusts. 128 See Johnson, Law 0/ Trusts, 21-31, 36-9.

1~9 So Jerome, Ep. 52. 6: 'we cheat the law by trusts' (per fideicomf!1issum !ef!ib~s inludimus). The secret trust is described in Digest 34. 9. JO. pr. (GalUs); detaIls 10

Johnson, Law of Trusts, 42-68. . , . 13° The inheritance rights of illegitimate children are dlscussed at great length 10

the Code o' Justinian 5. 27' summary in 1. Crook, Lmv and Life of Rome (London, v, 131 • I 1967), 107. . .. Gams, n~t .. 2. JIO.

13~ See V. Arangio-Ruiz, 'L'origine deI testamentum mlhtIs e la sua pOSJZlone nel diritto rornano classico', Bullettino deI Istituto di Diritto Romano, 18 (1906), 157-96.


to be morally objectionable. Tacitus reports without comment the mtermarnage of Romans and Germans at Cologne (Hist. 4. 65) and at Cre~ona (Hist. 3. 34). '33 And the diplomas which the authontles Issued to auxiliary and other veterans awarded them the right to marry non-Roman women. It may be concluded that the law IS hkely to have had little, if any, effeet on the incidence of mtermarriage.

'33 See also Suetonius, Iul. 52. I, on Julius Caesar's affair with Eunoe 'the Moor', wife of King Bogudes.

5

Consequences of the Roman Occupation

There is little reason, then, to think that the acculturation of the fron tier-zone in Roman-era Algeria was aecomplished by the intermarriage of Roman and north African. There is in fact no evidenee to show that there was any really significant measure of eultural change in the region during the period of Roman oecupation. It might be supposed instead that the main consequenees of the coming of the Romans were economic and social.

It has been argued of other frontier-provinees that the needs of the Roman army resulted in the expansion of loeal agricultural production, and that the army's continuing presence mayaIso have stimulated the development of long-distanee trade, in so far as soldiers with cash to spend ereated new and ready markets for all kinds of goods, at least some of which could not be produeed locally.' Several lines of inquiry are suggested. Was there a sustained and measurable increase in cultivation in the frontierzone in the period of the Roman occupation? How much of any increase in production can be attributed to the demands of the army? How much of it, if any, was accomplished by Roman colonist-settlers (veterans, for example)? Can we distinguish increased production that responded to army-demand from what may have been longer term (that is, indigenous) trends towards expanded production? Did the whole of the indigenous population profit from military spending, or were the benefits limited largely

, See e.g. S. K. Drummond and L. H. Nelson, The Western Frontiers of Imperial Rome (Armonk and London, 1994), 9; cf. H. Elton, Frontiers of the Roman Empire (BJoomington, Ind., 1996), 8, 83; C. R. Whittaker, 'Rural Labour in Three Roman Provinces', in P. Garnsey (ed.), Non-Slave Labour in the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge, J980), 81. The issues are carefully reviewed in Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Sodal and Economic Study (BaItimore, 1994), 99-13I.


to the merchants and camp-followers who supplied goods and services to the soldiers? To what extent did the Roman occupation change patterns of landownership or otherwise effect a redistribution of wealth in the fron tier-zone?

The evidence that might allow us to assess the economic and social consequences cf the Roman occupation is in same cases missing, in many others preserved only in fragments, scattered over space and time, difficult of interpretation.' It hardly needs saying that I have no perfeet answers. Comparative evidence from better-documented frontier-provinces, especially Britain and Tripolitania,3

may sometimes be used to define the limits of what the Romans can be expected to have accomplished (or to have destroyed) in Algeria. I am certain, however, that the picture described here wilI need to be modified when there is systematic investigation of rural sites in the frontier-zone of the sort for example, that has been carried out in Tripolitani; by the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey project4

AGRICULTURE

It has been said recently of the western frontier-provinces that the army's 'steady appetite' for food and other materials was 'the fundamental factor that led to the development of the frontier districts'; the indigenous population, we are told, was 'forced to produce a surplus', most ofwhich 'went directly to supplying the army'. 5

A similar argument has been advanced by Ramsay MacMullen: 'the

.2 See also B. D. Shaw, 'The Structure of Local Society in the Early Maghrib: The Blders', The Maghrib Review, 16 (1991), 19.

3 Recent work 011 the [rontier-zone in Britain is described in D. 1. Breeze, 'The Nortllern Frontiers', in M. Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain [960-89 (Landan, 1989), 37-60. On Tripolitania, see especially D. 1. Mattingly, Tripolitania (Ann Arbor, 1994).

4 Th: pr~ject is described in G. D. B. Jaues and G. W W Barker, 'Libyan Valleys Survey, üb. Stud. 11 (1979-80), II-36; Jones, 'The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey; The Development of Settlement Survey', in D. 1. Buck and D. 1. Mattingly (eds.), Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania: Papers in Honour o/Olwen Hackett (Oxford,. 1985), 263-89;. see also Barker, 'The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey: Developl~g MethodoJogles for Investigating Ancient Floodwater Farming', in Buck a~d Mattmgly (eds.), Town and Counlry, 291-306; Barker and Jones, 'The UNESCO Llbyan Valleys Survey UI, Palaeo-Economy and Environmental Archaeology in the Pre-Desert', Lib. Stud. 13 (1982), J-34.

5 Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontiers, 9. See also C. M. WeHs, 'The Impact

Consequences of the Roman Occupation 143

demands of resident troops for agrieultural products of all sorts might enlarge and nourish the local economy, through requiring more land to be farmed and surpluses to be produeed'. 6

There ean be little doubt that the army as a whole consumed a great deal of grain and other agrieultural produets; the European frontier-armies alone are thought to have requrred the skms of three-quarters of a million calves to make and to repair their tents. 7 It is not at all clear, however, that army-demand had a significant impact on the economy of any given region (except perhaps Britain). It isuneertain, too, how much of tbe food and other materials required by the army was supplred by loeal farmers and how mueh was produeed by the soldiers themselves. Widely distributed inseriptions that mention military conductores ('eontractors') and pecuarii ('cattlemen') indieate that required supplies were sometimes obtained from independent clvllran producers8 The ostraka reeovered at Bu Njem suggest that it was eustomary for the soldiers posted there to obtam food from loeal agriculturalists9 At least some food was grown on the military land (territorium or prata legionis) that extended, m Roy Davies's words, 'a considerable distance' around most

of the Augustan Campaigns on Germany', in D. M. Pippidi (ed.), Assimilation:1 resistance ci la culture greco-romaine dans le monde ancien: Travaux de VIe. Congres International d'Etudes Classiques (Madrid, Sept. 1974) (Bucharest and Pans, 1976), 422. There is an excellent discussion of the army's needs in D. 1. Breeze, 'Demand and Supply on the Northern Frontier', in R. Miket and C. Burgess (eds.), s.et,?e~n and beyond the Walls: Essays on the Prehist01Y and History 0/ North Entam m Honour 0/ George lobey (Edinburgh, 1984), 268-72.

6 Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary (Princeton, 1990), 58:9; see also W. Groenman-van Waateringe, 'Urbanization and the North-West Front~er ofthe Roman Empire', in W. S. Hanson and L. 1. F. Keppie (eds.), Roma~ Frontter Studies 1979 (Oxford, 1980), 1037-44; C. R. W~ittaker, 'Trade and FrontIers ~ft~e Roman Empire', in P. Garnsey and C. R. WhIttaker (eds.), Trade and Famme In

Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 1983), 124-5 n. 4I. . 7 Drummond and Nelson, Western Frontiers, 80. See also C. ~. Whlt~ak~r,

'Introduction', in C. R. Whittaker (ed.), Pastoral Economies in Classlcal AntlqUlty (Cambridge, 1988),4, on cattle products. . .

8 C. R. Whittaker, 'Agri Deserti', in M. 1. Finley (ed.), Studles In Roman Property (Cambridge, 1976), I58-9.

9 R. Marichal, Les Ostraca de Eu Njem (Tripoli, 1992), 99-106; see also. ~attingly, Tripolitania, I52. Soldiers with apermit (diplom,a) coul~ lega.lly reqUIsltlOn supplies from civilians, usually, it seems, a! a set pnce, ~hlCh mIght be mor:, normally not less, than the current market-pnce; see Breeze, Demand and Supply, 277' R. W Davies, Service in the Roman Army, ed. D. Breeze and V A. Maxfield (Ne~ York, 1989), 51; R. MacMuHen, Soldie~ and Civilian. in the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 85-9; cf. Wluttaker, FrontIers, 106.

'44 Consequences oj the Roman Occupation

camps. <0. The land seems sometimes to have been worked by the soldlers themselves-we may recall the legionaries harvestmg hay (or overseeing its collection) at Casae-but was probably more often leased to. civilians." It is unlikely. however. that large leglOnary bases (hke Lambaesis) could have obtained the food and fodder that they required entirely from military land.

The wealth of north Africa in the Roman period. as in the preRoman era, was almost entirely in agricultural products (not in industry, which was always small-scale)." It may safely be said then that any significant measure of economic growth could have been achieved only by expanding agricultural production. There seems now to be little doubt that production was increased, perhaps dram~tlcally, acros~ much of north Africa; the Roman accomplishment, It has been sald, was 'vastly to extend the area of cultivation'. 13

Production was expanded in the Aigerian fron tier-zone from at least the early second century AD, mainly, it appears, in the steppelands that lay behmd (that IS, to the north 01) the frontier-line. '4 It might be conjectured therefore that increased production was a consequence of the creation of the fron tier, and of its linear barriers (thejossatum), which, in Eric Birley's opinion, were designed (m part) to mark the southem limit of economic development. '5 It has often been remarked that the density of farm-settlements in

)0 Da~ie~: Service, 188. See also A. M6csy, 'Das territorium legianis und die canabae in Pa~nOll1en, Acta Archaeolog;ca :1-,cademiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 3 (1953), J79-99.

Casae: eIL 8. 4322. On mIlItary land leased to civilians, see Breeze 'Demand al1d Supply', 27?; cf. N. 1. Higham, 'Roman and Native in England N~rth of the Tees: AcculturatlOll and !ts Limitations', in 1. C. Barrett, A. P. Fitzpatrick, and L. Macm~es (eds.), Barbanans and Romans in North-West Europe: Frorn the Later Rer;.ubilc to Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1989), 161.

13 Cf. S. Raven',Rome in Africa, 3rd edn. (London and New York, 1993),96. C. M. WeHs, The Problems of Desert Frontiers', in V. A. Maxfield and M. 1.

Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989: Proceedings ofthe XVth International ~ongress of R~man Frontier Studies (Exeter, 1991), 479. See also D. J. Mattingly, New Per~peC!lve~ ?n the Agricultural Development of Gebel and Pre-Desert in .R0m~n ~np~htama, ROMM 41-2 (1986), 45; Tripolitania, 138 (a 'massive increase' In T~lpohta~la);, D. 1. Mattingly and R. B. Hitchner, 'Roman Africa: An ArchaeologlCal RevIew, JRS 85 (1995), 204.

i4 C. Daniels, 'The Frontiers: Africa', in 1. S. Wacher (ed.), The Roman World (L?5nd~m an~ Ne~ Y<;,rk, 1987), i. 235; Raven, Rome in Africa, 91.

BI:ley: Hadnamc FrontIer Policy', in E. Swoboda et al. (eds.), Carnunlina: Er~eb~lsse de~ Forschung über die Grenzprovinzen des römischen Reiches: Vorträge beim mternatIOnalen Kongress der Altertums/orscher Carnuntum 1955 (Graz and Cologne, 1956), 29-32.

Consequences oj the Roman Occupation '45

Roman Britain was much higher in the region south of Hadrian's wall than in the area that lay beyond it. ,6 The problem is that virtually nothing is known of agricultural settlement in the period before the building ofthe wall (or, for that matter, ofthejossatum), so that variations in settlement-density in the Roman period cannot be shown to be a consequence of its construction (or of the Roman presence). 17

There is no evidence to indicate that there was any real change in the kinds of crops that were grown in the Aigerian fron tierzone. Grain production may have been increased, perhaps at the expense of pasture. Pastoralism was perhaps also intensified, with the result that in some areas at least it may have developed into long-range nomadism. ,8 But the principal agent of agricultural expansion was the olive. A subsistence crop, it seems, in the preRoman era, its widespread cultivation in the frontier-zone in t~e Roman period, and perhaps especially in the third century AD, IS

attested by the recovery of numerous ruins of olive-presses in the valleys of the Aures mountains and in the plain-Iand to the north of them. '9

It is reasonably clear, then, that there was an increase in agricultural production in the fron tier-zone in the period of the Roman occupation. The real question is whether any of the increase can be attributed to the coming of the Romans. There are, it seems to me, three ways in which the Romans might have contributed to the expansion of cultivation: by introducing new or better methods of farming and/or of water-management; by increasing the demand for agricultural products; or by promoting the cultivation of marginal land. For the first, at least, there is no evidence at all.

The notion that the Romans introduced better techniques of

16 See e.g. G. D. B. Jones, '''Becoming Different Without .Knowing It":. ~he Role and Development of Vici', in T. F. C. Blagg and A. C. Kmg (eds.), Milüary and Civilian in Roman Britain: Cultural Relationships in a Frontier Province (Oxford, 1984), 86; Whittaker, Fronliers, 86-7. . . , .

17 D. 1. Breeze, 'The Impact of the Roman Army on North Bntam, III Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 231.

18 E. W. B. Fentress, 'Forever Berber?', Opus, 2/I (I983), 164, 167. 19 See ibid. 165. On the importance of the olive, see also H. Camps~Farber,

L'Olivier el l'huile dans I'Afrique romaine (Algiers, 1953); D. 1. Mattingly, 'First Fruit? The Olive in the Roman World', in G. Shipley and 1. Salmon (eds.), Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity: Environment and Culture (London and New York, 1996), 213~53.

'46 Consequences 0/ the Roman Occupation

cuItivation and of water-retention and distribution in north Africa has been refuted (by Brent Shaw and others). But it refuses to go away altogether. So it has been argued recently that the agricultural 'boom' in north Africa in the Roman period cannot be explained 'if agrarian technologies or systems of water use were not changed,.20 Even C. R. Whittaker, who knows better than most historians the biases that inform a great deal of colonialistera scholarship on Roman north Africa, says only that 'many of the supposed agrarian innovations in Africa, being undated, could be pre-Roman.''' It is sometimes suggested, too, that the agricultural development of the fron tier-zone was accomplished by veterans who settled in the region after they were discharged, bringing wirh them 'more intensive farms of production'. 22 So the extension of agriculture in the Auros mountains in the second century AD, in the valleys of the Oueds el-Abiod, el-Abdi, and Rassine, is said to have been a product of veteran settlement. 23

It was remarked earlier that many of the rural water-control schemes of Roman-era Algeria must necessarily have been constructed before the coming of the Romans because the centuriation-lines that are visible on aerial photographs were drawn across the hydraulic systems. 24 Much of the fossatum, for example, was built on top of irrigated field-systems: in the Jebel Mekriziani-Seba M'gata region; near the encampment that Jean Baradez called Fort Parallelogramme; and in the Hodna mountains. And at least some parts of the Roman-era watercontrol systems lay outside the zone of Roman political controI. 25

Bruce Hitchner has demonstrated that the dry-farming methods practised in the rich agricultural area around Cillium and

20 A. Carandini, 'Pottery and the African Economy', in P Garnsey, K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker (eds.), Trade in the Ancient Economy (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), 157; cf. R. I. Lawless, 'L'Evolution du peuplement, de I'habitat et des paysages agraires du Maghreb', Annales de geographie, 81 (1972), 460.

21 'Supplying the System: Frontiers and Beyand', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 68 (my italics); cf. 'Land and Labour in North Africa', Klio, 60 (1978), 331.

22 E. W B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army: Social, Military and Economic Aspects 0/ the Frontier Zone (Oxford, 1979), 177.

23 T. R. S. Broughton, The Romanization 0/ A/rica Proconsularis (Baltimore, 1929), 140; cf 128.

24 B. D. Shaw, 'Water and Society in the Ancient Maghrib: Technology, Property and Development', An!. afr. 20 (1984), 127.

25 Ibid. 157, 162.


.' . re indigenous.26 The same can Thelepte in Roman-era TumsIa we 10 ed in the pre-desert be said of the cultivation techmques emp Y allel perhaps,

T' 1"t . 27 There IS an mterestmg par , zone of npo lama. , dh the 'desert' or 'thirsty' people of among the Tohono 0 0 arr:;;ern Sonora (Mexico), who, long southern Anzona and no E ans cultivated maize, beans,

h ·ng of the urope , . c before t e cornI d ourds in a region notonous lor squash, cotton, tobacco, a~ g th f the wash' (akchin), where its aridity, by farmlllg the f;nou

t 0 as carried over the land; in

arroyos widened and run-o wa er wf

11 and surface-water were t rritories where ram a ff

their eastern e , '1 d' . n walls to capture run-o , b dant they bm t IverslO - . ,8

more a un, d b h structures to reduce erOSlOn. and low earthen dykes a~ r r~sei~her tbat Roman veterans were

There IS no reason to e JeV t f the fron tier-zone. It is hardly responsible for the developmen 0. ved techniques of cultivalikely that veterans learned new .~: I~::: has pointed out that the tion dunng theIr penod o;.~e~v\o· have discharged annually more legion at LambaesIs IS un 1 e Yb be expected to have settled

ly some ofw om can . f than 100 men, on . h I des an 'extreme pauclty 0

f . neo there IS e conc u , in the rontler-zo, , f ' 29 And even where veterans evidence for supposed vetera: armers; be shown to have had any are known to have settled, t ey canno 30 The expansion of agridiscernible effect on the local economY;h Africa is very likely to cultural production in Roman-era nor

. 1 Surve 1982-1986', Ant. afr. 24 26 Hitchner: 'The Kasse.rine Archae~lo?~ct Survey y'1987', Ant. afr. 26 (r99

0),

(1988), 7-41; 'Thc Kassenne Archaeo oglca ,

231-59. , d' t'Limesetmaitrisedel'eau',ROMN!11-

27 P. Trousset, 'De la mon.ta~ne au e(~~here Archaeology and Military Trammg 2 (1986), 95· R. G. Goodch1~? s theoduard" Outposts in Tripolitania', Report.\·, and Go Hand in Hand: Roman Home . .. 'n Tri olitania 2 (1949), 29-35; The Monographs of the Department of ~ntl~~l;l:~~t the ~xpansidn of cultivation in the Limes Tripolitanus', JRS 4° (1950 , 30 IOIII·sts is denied in 1. R. Bums and B. r hed by Roman co i\D pre-desert was accomp lS . D '. The Tripolitanian Example, 3?0 BC-

Denness, 'Climate and Soclal (Ydna)m1~s. alld Country 217- 19; Damels, 'The ,. k d M ttingly e s. , .J OIvn , 3°0, m Buc an. a . 1 'New Perspectives', 47. Frontiers: Afric~', 1. 2~0-2; ~Tatlftll~ y: Dog' American Indians, Environment, and

28 D R LeWIs Nezther rrO 01. 6

Agrari~n Change (New York .and ~~fot;~~~~\..~·~I~i~i~' Opus, 211 (1983), I40. 29 Shaw: 'Soldiers and, Soclety: . e Ancient Irrigatio;l Community',. A~t. afr. 3° Ibid 140' see also Lamasba. An D. 'L Phenomene assoclatlf dans ., .." H D'Escurac OlSy, e

r8 (1982), 8811. 2,. 9?: pace ci. Haut-Empire', Ant. afr. I (1967), 61. le monde paysan a 1 epoque u

148 Consequences of the Roman Occupation

have been, as Rober! Broughton once remarked, 'primarily a natIve development'. 31

The only question then is whether the increase in production was a consequence of Roman demand for agrieultural products, eüher for the soldIers statlOned in the fron tier-zone or for military and clVIhan markets in other parts of north Affica or in Europe. It ought to be smd at the .outset that, in the present state of the eVIdence, no enlIrely sallsfactory answer can be formulated. It does seem to me, however, that there are some reasons for thinking that the effect at least of frontier-zone army-demand may have been smaller than has sometimes been suggested.3'

It. se.ems now to be generally agreed that agriculture in the empIre s f~ontIer-zo~es was 'stimulated' by the army's considerable appellte for gr~m and fodder. 33 Whittaker, for example, has suggested. that the declslve factor' in economic development on the fronlIers was 'the fron tier itself and the large consumer market m the form of the Roman army' 34 It is, however, almost ImpOSSIble to demonstrate that agricultural production in any part of the fronlIer-zo~e was mtended, exclusively or even primanly, to feed the soldIers statlOned in the region (and/or their alllmals). And there is no way to measure the effect of military demand.

Elizabeth Fentress once tried to calculate the grain requirements of the legIOn at Lambaesis and their consequences for agricultural productIOn m the regIOn 35 Assuming that the 5,000 or so legion-

31

Broughton: Romanization o"AI'rica 225 32 ~ J , .

34 ~.g. ,by Fentre~.s, Numidia, I2?, 33 Raven, Rome in Africa, 77 . . Rural LaboUl: ,?I. Cf" M. ~enabou, La Resistance africaine Ci la romanisation

(Pans, 1976), ~9:, llOtenslficatlOll de l'activite economique est fonction de la dema~de romame; Fe~tress, Numidia, 176: the army was a 'powerfu! stimulant to agllcultural productlOn'; M. 1anon, 'Remarques sur la fron tiere de Numidie' in M,axfield and Dobson (eds), Rom~n ~ron.tier Studies /989, 483: it is 'very possible' ~hat the development of ohve cultlvat1.on In th~ region around Mena'a was directly 1elate~ ~~,the pr:s~nce ofthe fort ~nd 1tS assocmted settlement (vicus); Y. Le Bohec, ~~ !f~teme LegIOn Auguste (Pans, ~989), 578: legionary fortresses functioned as venta e~ cen~res: : .. de conso,mmatlO?'? Matting.ly, Tripolitania, 140 ; the Roman

prese-?ce In Tnpohtal1la was a catalyst 111 extendl11g agriculture south of the 150 mm., lsoh~et ~ee also N, ROYl~ans, 'The North Belgic Tribes in the Ist Century B.e.. A Hlston~al-~nthropologlcal Approach', in R. Brandt and J. Slofstra (eds.), Roman and NatIve In the Low Countries: Spheres o/Interaction (Oxford 1983) 8 who goes a step further in .sugge~ting that the army on the Rhine, becaus~ of its ~;ed f?~ f~od an,d ~ther matenals, will have tried 'to stimulate tribaI economic produc-tlVity (my ItaiJcs). 35 H 'd"

l~uml Ta, 125.


aries will each have eaten a kilogram of wheat per day,36

she estimated that the legion's ammal grain consumption was 1,825 tonnes. Borrowing Jean Despois's figures for modern sowing-rates in the region (50 kg./hectare) and for expected average crop-yields (1:5),37 and allowing for grain held over each year for seed, she suggested that in an 'average' year 91.2 square blometres would

h I · . d 38 have been needed to produce the grain that t e egIOn reqmre . Assuming further that one household could farm up to 20 hectares and that it would need about 6 hectares to grow food for Ils own 'eonsumption, she calculated that the legion could have been fed by the 'surplus' production of about 650 households. Her conclusion according to which a peasant household fed almost

, . , . b d't' 39 eight legionaries, is, as Shaw has put It, an economlC a sur 1 y . But even ifher other figures were eorrect (or nearly SO), they could not really be said to improve our understanding of the practieal effects of army-demand. It would surely be wrong to suppose that 90 -odd square kilometres of previously uneultivated land were brought into production to feed the legion. Some of the reqmred increase must have been accomplished by more intensively exploiting land that was already under cultivation. But how much? And how are we to determine whether the necessary surplus was drawn from a large number of grain-farmers over a wide area or, at the other extreme from a few large-scale producers? There is, in other words, no wa~ even to estimate the per capita effect of increased demand in the fron tier-zone, which is surely what really mattered on the ground.4

0

I am not suggesting that the presence of the Roman army had no effect on agricultural production in the fron tier-zone. My po mt

36 The fiaure corresponds to about 3 Roman pounds ofbread (I Roman pound = roughly 3;7 g.; see R. P. Duncan-Jones, The Economy 0/ tI:e ~oman Emp~'re: Quantitative Studies, 2lld edn. (Cambridge, 1982), I47 o. 2), WhlCh 15 what soldlers were issued in the 3rd ceot. AD (Fentress, Numidia, I45 o. 2). Cf. Br~eze, 'Demand and Supply', 269, who estimates that a typical soldier ate about a thlrd of a ton of grain annually; Elton, Frontiers, 67 (1.5 kg/day). .

37 Despois: La Tunisie orientale, Sahel et basse steppe, 2nd edn. (Pans, 1955),238. 3& M. Millett The Romanization 0/ Britain: An Essay in Archaeological Interpre

tation (Cambridge, 1990), 57, conc1udes that the army in Britain could ha~e. been fed by the tax product of an area of 28-45 ~m2; cf. Mille.t~, 'Forts an~ ~l~e Ongms of Towns: Cause or Effect?', in Blagg and Kmg (eds.), Mllltary und ClVlhan, 68-72 .

39 Shaw' 'Soldiers and Society', I56 n. 48. 40 Cf. C: R. Whittaker, 'Da Theories of the Ancient City MatterT, in T. 1. Cornell

and H. K. Lamas (eds.), Urban Society in Roman !taly (Landon, 1993), 3·

r 50 Consequences 0/ the Roman Occupation

rather is that there is no way to isolate production for the army in the archaeological record, and therefore no real basis for measuring its impacl. No one, I think, would argue that the army's presence is in itself enough to explain the dramatic increase in production that is attested over much of north Africa4 ' Apart of the increase must have been intended for external markets (at least some of which may have been opened up as a consequence of the Roman conquest).4' How are we to weigh their effect on production against the impact of military demand or even against what may have been longer-term trends toward increased cultivation? The more intensive system of production that is attested in the region of the Rhine in the first two centuries AD, for example, is now thought to be at least partly a consequence of increased demand in the indigenous population. 43 The extension and intensification of agriculture in Britain seems to have occurred over a period much longer than that of the Roman occupation.44 Where pollen diagrams used to be taken to indicate an increase .in prodnction in the highlands in the Roman period, new diagrams and the redating of some old ones show that the increase in cultivation probably belongs mainly to the (pre-Roman) Iron Age and to the later years of the Roman presence. 45

There is also little reason to believe that the imperial government actively encouraged agricultural expansion in north Afriea.

41

cr. Mattingly, 'New Perspectives', 60, on the Tripolitanian pre-desert in the Ist

and 2nd cents. AO ('a few forts can hardly explain the full picture of agricultural development').

42

Cf. G. D. B. Jones, 'Concluding Remarks', in Buck and Mattingly (eds.), Town and Country, 310, who argues that the expansion of agriculture in Tripoiitania in the Roman period is 'best seen in terms of an indigenous response to the growth of external market farces'; see also G. W. W. Barker and G. D. B. lones, 'The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey VI: Investigations of a Romano-Libyan Farm', Lib. Stud. I5 ([984), [-44·

43 L. Hedeager, 'Empire, Frontier and the Barbarian Hinterland: Rome and Northern Europe from AD J-400', in M. Rowlands, M. Larsen, and K. Kristiansen (eds.), Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World (Cambridge, J987), 134.

44 M. lones, 'Crop Production in Roman Britain', in D. Miles (ed.), The RomanoBritish Countryside: Studies in Rural Settlement and Economy (Oxford, 1982), i. 99; see also lones, 'Agriculture in Roman Britain: The Dynamies of Change', in Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain, 134 ethe Roman occupation took place in the context of mueh lünger-term change in the agrarian landscape'); D. Miles, 'The Romanü-British Countryside', in Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain, 124 (on the Fenlands); V. A. Maxfield, 'Conquest and Aftermath', in Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain, 29.

45 C. S. Sommer, The Military Vici in Roman Britain (Oxford, 1984), 39.

Consequences 0/ the Roman Occupation I 5 I

A Hadrianic law, which appears to have restated the provisions of a lex Manciana of unknown date, was eVldently llltended to promote the cultivation ofmarginalland (subseciva)46 But it probably applied only to imperial estates, most of which, it seems, were III

the rich Bagradas valley south-west of Carthage and III the regIOn around Sitifis47 The law made various arrangements about sharecropping,48 awarded the right of pos session (ius possidendi) to those who undertook to work marginal land that had gone out of cultivation, and offered them reduced rent on land that they plan ted with fruit or olive trees, figs, or vines. It used to be thougbt that the law's purpose was to expand tbe dass of indigenous peasant-farmers; it is now understood that few amo~g the landless would have had enougb capital to pay for the plantlllg of Vllles or trees49 Tbe law's practieal effect, it may be supposed, was to transfer possession of some marginal land to well-capitalized, IDeal landowners. . .

ltis sometimes supposed tbat the army's effect on provlllcIaI economies can be measured by calculating (or eshmatlllg) Ils impact on provincial population levels; we are told, for example, that because the soldiers in Britain were only 2-5 per cent of tbe provincial population, their presenee 'required an equally small increase in overall production' . 5° By the same reasomng, the Roman oceupation of north Africa can be expected to have produeed an increase in agricultural production of perhaps 0.3-0 -4 per cent (assuming 20,000-25,000 soldiers and a regional population of 6-8 million). In fact, we mlght suppose that the effect was

46 See D. 1. Crawfürd, 'Imperial Estates', in Finley (ed.), Studies i~ Roman Property, 54 (cf. 49). The Hadrianic law is quoted on an altar found at Am .Oussel (eIL 8. 264I6; AD 2°9-12); for the lex Manciana, see CI~ 8. 25902 (Hr. MettIch; AD Il 61r 7); for the dates, P. MacKendrick, The North Afncan Stones Speak (Chapel

Hill, NC, 1980), 52. . ..,. G . d C 47 P. Garnsey, 'Rome's African EmpIre u~der the Prmclpate .' m P. arnseyan .:

R. Whittaker (eds.), lmperialism in the Anelenl Warld (Cam~ndge, 1978), 233· Pace Fentress, Numidia, 135, 137-9; 'Forever Berber?:, 167, the~e lS no ~easo~ to suppos~ that a large part ofthe region north ofthe Aur~s mo.untams was Impenal pr?perty, see Shaw, 'Soldiers and Society', 140. On the Impenal estates of nort~ Afnca, s~e

.. 11 D P Kehoe The Eeonomics 0/ Agrieullure on Roman Impenal Estates In especmy .. , 8' k 'R ILb '8 North Afriea (Göttingen, 1988). 4 See ~hltta er,. ,ura a our, 2.

49 Carandini, 'Pottery', 156; Garnsey, 'Rome's Afncan ~mplre, 234.. . 5° M. van der Veen, 'Native Communities in the Frontler Zon~: Umformlty 01'

Diversity?', in Maxfield and Dobs~n (eds.), R01:lQn.Fron~ier.St.udles 1989, 446. A similar argument is advaneed in MllIett, RomamzallOn oi Bntaln, 57·

154 Consequences of the Roman Occupation

~~~~~:~ts.,;,;as in circulation in the period before the coming of

There were no doubt many . h' ' might profit from military sp::~:n; ~t ~~s t~e 10cal.~oP~lation wealth of Belgie Gaul was a eonse uenee of 't een sm t. at the produetive opportunities opened ~p by the ~ commereml and presenee of th I' on quest and the . '1 e army a ong Ils frontier in the Rhineland' 58 A

:~~,~r sort of development is likely to have oeeurred in Ro;"an-

fewer 1:~;~~~r~h~~~i~::~bo~lih~:~r::~~~~caSCnalfe, sitnee tThhere were somet' 1 fon leT. e army

Imes et out contraets for uniforms and other kinds f . ment. 59 And the civilian settlements that grew up aro 0 d eqUlp-

~~~~:~:; ~:rt!~~~~P;i~~~a~~ ~~~ep~~1 to have provided aU:ri::;r::r I . . I -gammg, taverns brothels 60

jlmagme t lat the opportunities opened up by military ~pe d' '.

t le army-towns served over th I n mg m from the countryside6,' e ong term, to draw population

It i8 impossible. now to determine what rneasure of economic

f:~~:~ ~~~;or ~Ight hfiave been) achieved. It is difficult even to " e w 0 pro ted most. We might suppose th h

pnnclpal beneficiaries were the li'aders and m h' hat t e up shop in c . . ere ants w 0 set frontie omm

l umlies along the provision-routes and in the

r-zone sett ements that mark t d d the camps.62 e e goo sand services to

57 cr. Elton, Frontiers 82' MacMullen eh the main source of (coin~d) 'mon . th' f an.ges, 59· The anny was undoubtedly Fentress, The Berbers (Oxford I ey ;n ~ ronher-zones:, s~e M. Brett and E. W. B. Unites auxiliaires de l'armee :m~~iJ~ ~5, ~e~tressp Numldw, ?7S; Y Le Bohec, Les Haut-Empire (Paris I989) 18S' Sh n 'Slfn~ue roconsulmre el Numidie sous le

, , , aw, oldlers and Soc' t ' Th' reason to suppose, however, with Drum d d le y, 149· ere IS no tha~ the several increases in soldiers' amonh' an Nelson, Western Frontiers, 167, dunng the Ist and 2nd cents p Y w. ICh are known to have been awarded fron tier'; their real purpose ,', ':SAD] were deslgbned to 'keep fron tier money on the fi ' ' c ear, was to uy the ar ' I ] g~re IS taken from Fentress, 'Forever Berber?'

164 my s oya ty. 10,000,000; the

C. Haselgrove, 'Culture Process on h P . ' during the Late Republic and E ] E . t, ~ enphery; Belgic Gaul and Rome ( d )

ar y mpne 10 Rowlands L d' . e s. , Centre and Perinhery 108 ' , arsen, an Knstransen 6cCf ' r" 59 Wh'" k F: . . p, Mlddleton, 'The Roman Arm ,I a er, rontlers, J08,

and Whittaker (eds) Trade aIId" . 8yand Long-Dlstance Trade', in Garnsey 61 ' . , , ramme, 2 n. I.

Cf. 1. Mlkl Curk, 'Natives Romans and N . the 2nd Century (The Role oi th A . ewc.omers 10 the Eastern Alps during Dobsol1 (eds.), Roman Frontier St:di;r;I9~n Ethmc Interacti~)ll)', in Maxfield and

62 Cf. Whittaker, Frontiers 112 0 9'h250, on the regIOn around Poetovio. 227, ' . n illere ants, see also MacMullen, Changes,

Consequences 0/ the Roman Occupation 155

SOCIETY

Arehaeologists and historians of the western provinees who have attempted in reeent years to assess the effects of Roman eonquest and oeeupation have tended to concentrate on trade and exchange; far less attention has been paid to the impact of military rule on indigenous social structures and institutions-and not without good reason. It is extraordinarily diffieult to use the artifact reeord to reeonstruet, say, the relationship between the army and the loeal population, or to trace changes in indigenous society. Mainly beeause of the inadequaeies of the physical (and written) record, a number of models have been developed to deseribe the ways in which the Roman presenee might have affeeted indigenous societies. It is now generally agreed, for example, that the Roman system of administering the provinces, which aimed at eo-opting local elites, is likely, over the long term, to have reinforced their power63 But it mayaiso be conjeetured that the importation of Roman or Roman-style goods in the period after eonquest will have undermined the position of loeal elites by devaluing commodities (wine, for example, in the case of Britain) which, beeause they had previously been searee, had served to confer prestige on the few who could obtain them64 And wherever there was a prolonged period of direct military rule, as in the north Afriean frontier-zone, tbe army is likely further to have eroded the position of local elites by usurping at least some of their traditional politieal and military functions, and by providing young, indigenous males with the opportunity to acquire prestige and influence through military service, and thereby to bypass already established avenues of social mobility6 5 It may be supposed, then, tbat the Roman oecupation of Algeria (and perbaps that of other provinces) resulted in a restrueturing of indigenous social hierarchies; while some north Afrieans undoubtedly profited from the Roman presenee by adopting (or mimieking) Roman habits and by conforming to Roman expectations, others who would or could

63 See A. P. Fitzpatrick, 'The Uses of Roman Imperialism by the Celtic Barbarians in the Later Republic', in Barrett, Fitzpatrick, and Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans, 31. 64 Millett, Romanization of Britain, 58.

65 See also Janon, 'Remarques sm la [rontiere', 482; Millett, Romanization of Britain, 59-60.


not adapt themselves to Roman ways were probably politically and socially marginalized. 66

The effect of the Roman occupation of the N etherlands, it has been suggested, was the 'detribalization' or 'peasantization' of indigenous society; tribai structures, we are told, gave way to a 'peasant society' as traditional bonds, like kinship, 'lost importance' in the process of integrating native society into the Roman 'state-system,67 It is possible, I suppose, that something similar happened on the north African fron tier. But there is no real reason to believe that it did. What is known of north African tribai customs and institutions in the periods before and after the Roman occupation suggests that there was little real change in the period of Roman rule. 68

lt is regrettable that the views and practices of indigenous women in Roman north Africa (as in most parts of the Roman world) are inaccessible. Largely undocumented in the written sourees, their presence in the archaeological record normally indistinguisbable from that ofmen, they are only occasionally attestedas names-on inseriptions. MacMullen has suggested that provincial women 'on the road to Romanization' are likely to have travelled 'at a different pace from their men-generally more slowly'. They were, he goes on to say, probably less quick to abandon traditional forms of dress and of speech, at least in part because they travelled less than men, appeared less often in public, and generally had fewer opportunities to talk with strangers. 69

Some measure of corroboration is provided perhaps by Cicero, who claimed (De Orat. 3. 45), on what basis it is difficult to say, that 'it is easier for wornen to preserve old ways intact, because, knowing little ofthe different kinds of speech, they hang on forever to what they first Jearned' Uacilius enim mulieres incorruptam

66 Cf. D. 1. Buck, 'Prontier Processes in Roman Tripolitania', in Buck and Mattingly (eds.), Town and Country, I87; G. Woolf, 'The Formation of Roman Provincial Cultures', in 1. Metzler et al. (eds.), Integration in the Early Roman West: The Role of Culture and Ideology (Luxembourg. 1995), 9-I8 (on Gaul).

67 1. Slofstra, 'An Anthropological Approach to the Study of Romanization Processes', in Bralldt and Siofstra (eds.), Roman and Nati)!e, 79, 82.

68 See Whittaker, 'Land and Labour', 333, 343, 350. See also Broughton, Romanization of Africa, 225 (thc 'sodal basis' of north Africa was 'never appreciably challged').

69 MacMullcn: Changes, 63. See also E. Fantham el al., W0111en in the Classical World (Oxford and New York, 1994), 374.

Consequences of the Roman Occupaaon 157

antiquitatem conservant, quod, multorum sermonis expertes, ea tenen! sempe1: quae prima didicerunt). I am not sure how ~uch importance we ought to attach to the fact that on north Afncan inseriptions a preponderance of those altested with indigenous narnes are wornen.70

I suspect that the Roman occupation of north Africa may in fact have served to underrnine the position of wornen 111 mdlgenous society because men are likely to bave received a much greater share ~f the favours that the Roman state routinely dispensed to those provincials who collaborated in military al:~ civilian government. It is suggestive, perhaps, that the tradIllOnally powerful position of wornen in Cherokee society:-in tri.bal warfare, governanee and ritual-was seriously eroded In the eJghteenth century by Eur~pean settlement on the Appalaehian fron tier, . in large part beeause they were excluded from inter-colomal pohl1cal negol1ations, and therefore denied access to the gifts that routinely accompanied them7 '

7°1. Marion, 'La Population de Volubilis a l'epoque romaine', Bulletin d'archl!ologie marocaine, 4 (1960), 175; cf. Brett and Fentress, Berhers, 61; MacMu11en,

Changes, 294-5 n. 3°· .,. D M' 1 11 71 T. Hatley, 'Cherokee Wornen Farmers Hold thelf Ground , Ill. R. . l:C le

(ed.), Appalachian Frontiers: Settlement, Society {Im} Dcre!oprnent m the Premdustrial Era (Lexington, Mass., T99I), 47·

6

Conclusion: The Limits 0/ Acculturation

In the end, it must be admitted that we do not have, and are perhaps now never likely to possess, the sort of evidence that would allow us to define exactly either the extent of Romanization in the fron tier-zone Of its effect on the lives of ordinary north Africans. It has been said recently that the area was 'definitely Roman' already by the time of the Flavians.' N orth Africa, we are told, 'imbibed Roman culture', except in Hs mountainous regions.' It seems to me that the weight of the evidence tells against the view that the Romans brought about any really significant change in north African society. Their principal contribution, it might be said, was to open new markets to north African products.

It is reasonably clear also, I think, that the social and cultural consequences of the Roman occupation of north Africa were feIt mainly in its larger urban centres and among the weaIthy.3 It may be agreed with H.-G. Pflaum that there were in fact two north Africas-one that was urbanized (though perhaps not really urban), relatively and probably increasingly wealthy, and, in same important aspects of Hs material culture, Romanized;

r P. MacKendrick, The North African Stones Speak (Chapel Hili, Ne, 1980),216. 21. A. Ilevbare, 'Same Aspects of Social Change in North Africa in Punic and

Roman Times', Museum Africum, 2 (r973), 32. 3 Cf. T. R. S. Broughton, The Romanization 0/ Africa Proconsularis (Baitimore,

1929), 140-1; C. R. Whittaker, 'Integration of the Early Roman West: The Example of Africa', in 1. Metzler el al. (eds.), Integration in the Early Roman West: The Rote 01 Culture and Ideology (Luxembourg, 1995), 19-32. Much the same is said of Europe in A. T. Fear, Rome and Baetica: Urbanization in Southern Spain c. 50 BC-AlJ 150 (Oxford, 1996), 46, 60, 265; R. MacMullen, Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary (Princeton, 1990),42,46; P. 0rsted, Roman Imperial Economy and Romanization (Copenhagen, 1985), 199.

The Limits 0/ Acculturation 159

another that was rural and mountainous, and mostly untouched, it seems, by Roman practices4

There can be little doubt that the local elites were, in some (indeterminate) measure, Romanized;' they are likely, over time, to have fashioned a sort of composite culture, in which architectural forms and burial customs, for example, might be imitative of Roman styles, while the language of everyday discourse was indigenous6 But those who embraced Roman ways were almost certainly in the minority.7 The poor, after all, really had nothmg to gain by giving up their customs. lt seems to me that Robert Broughton probably had it exact1y right when he said that 'the ways ofthe mass ofthe people never changed,8lt is ironie that the novelist Louis Bertrand reached much the same conclusion in the 1930s, but on very different grounds; the indigenous population of Roman-era Algeria, he believed, was morally and intellectually incapable of assimilating the superior and civilizing tendencies of its Roman conquerors.9

Against the many indications of cultural and social continuity in Roman-era north Africa we are asked to set the example of the socalled 'Maktar harvester';'" born to an impoverished and unpropertied local family, he worked for years as an itinerant field-hand, became foreman of a gang of labourers, eventually bought a house and land, and served on the town-council. His rags-to-riches tale was undoubtedly replicated, perhaps many times over, in the course of the Roman occupation. But it must be admitted also that the vast majority of itinerant field-workers are unlikely to have finished their careers in municipal office. In so far as the Roman

4 Pflaum: 'La Romanisation de l'Afrique', Vestigia, 17 (1973), 65· Cr. Ilevbare, 'Aspects of Social Change', 39; D. J. Mattingly, 'Libyans and the Limes: Cultu~e and Society in Roman Tripolitania', Ant. afr. 23 (1987), 84; R. MacMullen, Rural Romanization', Phoenix, 22 (1968), 337-41.

5 Cf. C. R. Whittaker, 'Land and Labour in North Africa', Klio, 60 (1978), 331, 334. (1 MacKendrick, North Alrican Stones, 327·

7 See also MacMullen, Changes, 42. 8 Romanization 01 Africa, 228; cf. 113, 155, 226. 9 Bertrand: Sur les Routes du Sud, 9th edn. (Paris, 1936), 217; see also P. M. E.

Lorcin, Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial AIgel'ia (London and New York, 1995), 202.

10 MacKendrick, North Alrican Stones, 76; see also C. M. WeHs, 'The Problems of Desert Frontiers', in V. A. Maxfield and M. J. Dobson (eds.), Roman Frontier Studies 1989: Proceedings 01 the XVth International Congress 01 Roman. Frontier Studies (Exeter, 1991),479. The verse inscription that records hIS career IS CIL 8. 1I284 (~ ILS 7457)·

160 The Limits 0/ Acculturation

oeeupation may have widened the gap between rieh and poor, it wIll have served to expand also the range across which upward (or down ward) mobility eould oeeur. lt is neeessary to insist however that the mobility evideneed by the 'Maktar harveste/ has ver; 11ttle to do with Romanization: are we to suppose that hard work normally went unrewarded in indigenous soeiety?

What I have said about Rome's effeet on north Africa is likely also to have been true of the Algerian fron tier-zone. lt has been suggested that the western valleys of the Auros mountains were Romanized." But the only evidence that has ever been adduced to demonstrate the Romanization of the Aures is an inscription from Mena'a (eIL 8. 4204) which indicates that there were coloni ('tenant-farmers') there in AD 166-hardly sufficient grounds for coneluding, with Elizabeth Fentress, that the mountain-valleys were densely occupied by 'Romanised' settlements. I2 Broughton's careful reading of the inscriptions led hirn to conelude that the Auros was a 'strongly indigenous region' throughout the period of the Roman oeeupation. '3 Even at that, the Aures, and perhaps also the Nememshas, were probably more thoroughly Romanized than many of the communities of western Algeria (Mauretania Caesariensis). '4 Paul MacKendrick may be right in thinking that even at Thamugadi, which, in its architecture and amenities was perhaps the most eonspicuously Roman of all the settlements of the frontier-zone, Romanization was no more than a 'thin veneer' . I 5

In the almost complete absence of evidence for any significant measure of cultural change in the region, it is difficult now to understand why so much modern writing about north Africa has

J I ,E. W. B. Fe~tress, Numidia and the Roman Army: Social, Military and EconomlC Aspects o} (he Frontier Zone (Oxford, I979), 143' see also Y. Le Bohec La Troisieme Legion Auguste (Paris, 1989),578.' , • 12 F~ntress: 'Forever Berber?', Opus, 21I (1983), 167. There is no basis for believlOg, ,,:,lth Fentress, ibid. 166, P. A. Fevrier, 'Il1scriptions inedites relatives aux d?~al~eS de la ~egion.de ~etif', i.n R. Chevallier (ed.), Melanges d'archeologie et d 11lstOire o//erts a A. PlganlOl (Pans, 1966), 215, that all the coloni attested on north Afr~can inscriptions were tenants of imperial estates; see B. D. Shaw, 'Soldiers and SO~lety: Th~ A~my in. Nu~idia', Opus, 2/~ .(1983), I4I.

. RomamzatlOn 0/ .Af~/ca, IJ9 n. 4 (cItmg also Procopius, Vand. 4. 13. 23-5, WhlCh seems to me to mdlCate only that the mountains were rugged and difficult of passage); cf: 139 ('native life continued largely untouched in the mountains'). See als1~ P. Monzot, 'Vues nouyelles ~ur l'Aures antique', CRAl (1979), 309-10.

.Cf. R. I. Lawless, 'L'EvolutlOll du peuplement, de l'habitat et des paysages ag~aJres du Maghreb', Annales de geographie, 8r (1972),460.

5 North African Stones, 240.

The Limits 0/ Acculturation 161

maintained that it was extensively Romanized. I suppose that some part of the explanation is to be found in once widely shared, mostly implicit assumptions about the superiority of European civilization. lt is perhaps also a product of the seemingly widely held belief that the army functioned both as a powerful instrument of Romanization in the provinees (an idea which, it seems to me, may be in need of some revision), and as an intermediary betw~en the intrusive and indigenous cultures. There is no reason to thmk that the army performed either role in the Algerian fron tier-zone. ,6

The epitaphs examined earlier (Chapter 4) would seem to indicate that very few soldiers married un-Romanized women in any part of the frontier-zone. lt was remarked earlier also that there IS 11ttle evidence of any other kind of cross-cultural interrelationship. Recent study that characterizes the Roman frontier-regions as zones of cultural interpenetration cannot readily accommodate

1 . '7 the experience of Roman-era A germ.

We might therefore want to imagine that there was in fact a third north Afriea, one of forts and fortifications, administrators and soldiers who were increasingly of African origin, but segregated, by eirc~mstance or by choiee, from the people they ruled; their own society (and solitude), as it were, with little discernible effect on the structures and rhythms of north African life. Brent Shaw has suggested that the soldiers stationed in the region (whose deployment seems to have been intended at least as much to tarne the local population as to protect it) were removed also from the concerns of its inhabitants, identifying themselves instead 'wholly with the interests of their commanding officers and of a militaristic central government'. r8 I wonder whether we mlght not also suppose that, apart from the propertied elites, who will have counted on the Romans to defend their interests, the indigenous peoples of the frontier-zone were no less estranged from the army that occupied their land.

16 Cf. Fentress, Numidia, 156; Shaw, 'Soldiers and Society', I51: the. army 'was not halfway between the ruler and the ruled; it was the instrument of viOlent force wielded by the central power structure of the empire' (his italics).

17 'Recent study'; e.g. S. L. Dyson, The Creation of the Roman Frontfer (Princeton, 1985),4; W. S. Hanson, 'The Nature and Function ofRoman Frontiers:' in 1. C. Barrett, A. P. Fitzpatrick, and L. Macinnes (eds.), Barbarians and Romans 111 NorthWest Europe: From the Later Republic to Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1989), 55·

18 'Soldiers and Society', 148.

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x Prefaee

The ongms of this book go back some fifteen years, in the course of which I have contracted a great many debts, intellectual and personaL Susan Treggiari and Colin Wells have taught me much of what I know about the Roman world, and much else besides. They continue to inspire me. I am grateful also to Benjamin Isaac and Greg Woolf, who reviewed the whole of the manuscript and did much to improve it, and to Brent Shaw, who read an earlier version of the chapter on marriage, and encouraged me to think that I had something worth saying.

I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness also to the College of Letters and Science at Montana State University, for several grants in aid of research, to my colleagues in the Department of History and Philosophy, who have provided me with a wonderfully exhilarating environment in which to work, to the editors of the Press, whose help has been unstintingly generous, and to Phoenix, for allowing me to rework material which it published originally in 1990. Particular thanks are owed to Tom WesseI, for advice about Native American agricultural practices, to Warren Esty, for help with statistics, and to Richard Griggs, who prepared several of the figures.

I shall always be indebted to my wife Jeanette, without whose unfailing support I should have despaired of finishing this book (and of much else). For her tireless patience in teaching me to recognize what really matters, in all that constitutes our everyday world, I cannot expect to repay her.

D.C.

Contents

List of Figures xm

List of Tab!es xiv

Abbreviations xv

I. Pre-Roman Algeria The Landscape 3 Economy and Society 9

2. The Roman Frontier-Zone 24 Locating the Roman Frontiers 28 The Development of the Frontier-Zone 35 The Purpose of the Frontier-System 58 ConcJusion: Roman Objectives in the Frontier-Zone 73

3· Measuring Romanization 75 Sources and Methods 78 Unworkable Models 82 Intermarriage 99

4· Husbands and Wives in the Frontier-Zone 101 Sources and Methods 1°3 Marriage-Patterns 119 Law and Social Practice 134

5· Consequences of the Roman Occupation 14! Agriculture 142 Trade 153 Society 155

6. ConcJusion: The Limits of Acculturation 158

Appendices I. Marriage-Epitaphs of the Frontier-Zone

(e·50 BC-AD 250) 162 2. Marriage-Epitaphs of Thubursicu Numidarum

(e·50 BC-AD 250) 209

xii Contents

3. Marriage-Epitaphs that Record Roman(ized) Wives and Husbands

4. Dated Epitaphs of the Frentier-Zone

Bibliography 0/ Modern Works Cited in the Notes

Index 0/ Passages

Index 0/ Proper Names

Index 0/ Sub}ects

220 225

254

281

282 LI.

1.2.

1.3· 1.4·

2.1. 2.2. 2·3· 2-4-2·5· 2.6.

4·1. 4.2. 4·3· 4·4· 4·5· 4.6. 4·7· 4.8. 4·9·

List of Figures

Physical geography of Algeria 6 Bio-climatic zones of Algeria 7 Algerian transhumant reutes 14 The distribution of indigenous tribes in ancient Algeria 19 The frentier-zone 26 Linear barriers and frontier-zones 30 The frentier at the end of the first century AD 42 The frentier in the time of Hadrian 46 The frentier in the Severan age 50 Linear barriers and transhumant routes in the fron tier-zone 64 Dated epitaphs of the frentier-zone 108 The epigraphic curve at Theueste 110 Epitaphs at Theueste dated to 25-year periods I I I

Find-spots of marriage-epitaphs in the fron tier-zone I I 8 Intermarriage in the frentier-zone 121 Intermarriage at Lambaesis 124 Intermarriage at Theueste 126 Intermarriage at Auzia 128 Intermarriage at Thubursicu Numidarum 130

cherry, frontier and society in roman north africa

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