History of the Romans in North Africa: Conquest, Wars, Decline | Early European History And Religion

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ROMANS TAKEOVER NORTH AFRICA

The Romans claimed North Africa after Hannibal, his elephants and Carthage were defeated in the Punic Wars

The Romans claimed: 1) North Africa after the Punic Wars (264 – 146 B.C.), 2) Greece, Macedonia, Syria and Asia Minor after the Macedonian Wars (214–148 B.C.); and 3) Egypt after the struggle between Octavian (Augustus) and Marc Antony and Cleopatra VII (Cleopatra) and the Battle of Actium (31 B.C.).

African Provinces of the Roman Empire
Africa proper (Libya, former Carthage, 146 B.C.).
Cyrenaica and Crete (74, 63 B.C.).
Numidia (Algeria, small parts of Tunisia, Libya, 46 B.C.).
Egypt (30 B.C.).
Mauretania (western Algeria, Morocco, A.D. 42). \~\

After the Punic Wars, North Africa was reduced to the form of a province. It comprised all the land which had hitherto been subject to Carthage. Utica was made the new capital city, where the Roman governor was to reside. All the cities which had favored Carthage were punished by the loss of their land, or the payment of tribute. The cities which had favored Rome were allowed to remain free. Numidia, on account of its fidelity to Rome, was continued as an independent ally. In this way the condition of every city and people was dependent upon the extent of its loyalty to Rome. After Africa was made a province, it soon became a Romanized country. Its commerce passed into the hands of Roman merchants; the Roman manners and customs were introduced; and the Latin language became the language of the people. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) \~]

Websites on Ancient Rome: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; Lacus Curtius penelope.uchicago.edu; The Internet Classics Archive classics.mit.edu ; Bryn Mawr Classical Review bmcr.brynmawr.edu; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org; Ancient Rome resources for students from the Courtenay Middle School Library web.archive.org ; History of ancient Rome OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame web.archive.org ; United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV) History unrv.com

Punic Wars

The Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage were pivotal in making Rome a great empire. They began in 264 B.C., and lasted for 118 years with Rome ultimately prevailing. There were three Punic wars. They are regarded as the first world wars. The number of men employed, the strategies and the weapons employed were like nothing that ever been seen before. "Punic" come from the Roman word for "Phoenician, " a reference to Carthage.

When the wars began Rome and Carthage were the two most powerful states in the Mediterranean. They both began as small cities and emerged as major powers around the 5th century B.C. They were briefly allied against the Greeks but later fought one another over lucrative trade routes.

Rome became the major power of the Mediterranean after it defeated Carthage, annexing territory in Sicily, North Africa and Spain. While fighting against Carthage the Romans also amassed large amounts of territory as spoils from wars against Macedonia, the home of Alexander the Great.

Carthage

Carthage

Carthage (10 miles north of modern Tunis in Tunisia) was once the greatest city in the world. It was the home of Hannibal, who threatened Rome with his elephants and huge armies, and was the center of a great Phoenician trading empire that extended across North Africa and the Mediterranean. The period when Carthage was the dominate power in the ancient world is called the Punic Era. Little more than foundations and walls remain of the great city today.

Carthage has also been portrayed as one of the world’s most decadent cities. In his novel “Salambo” , Flaubert depicted Carthage as a city of unimaginable wealth and indescribable debauchery and violence, in addition to romanticizing Hannibal and his elephants. This apect of Carthage’s reputation is at least partly due to the fact that most of what we know about it is based accounts by its enemies, Greece and Rome.

In 814 B.C., the Phoenician city state of Tyre founded Carthage — Qart-hadasht or “new city” — in northern Africa. Today, Carthage is an affluent neighborhood of Tunis in Tunisia. It emerged as powerful city state when Tyre was sacked by the Babylonians in 6th century B.C. Today, ancient Carthage is a modern, wealthy suburb of Tunis.

Plutarch called the Carthaginians a "course and gloomy people." Appian describe them as "cruel and arrogant." The Greek historian Plybius wrote in the 2nd century B.C. they " were far superior, both in the speed of their ships and they way they built them, and also in the experience and skill of their seamen.”

Numidia

Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia and Libya. The polity was originally divided between the Massylii state in the east and the Masaesyli in the west. During the Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.), fought between Rome and Carthage Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into the first unified Berber state.The kingdom began as a sovereign state and an ally of Rome and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state. [Source Wikipedia]

Juan Pablo Sánchez wrote in National Geographic History: During the Second Punic War in the third century B.C. Allying himself with Rome, King Masinissa, united the region under his rule as the kingdom of Numidia. His land prospered, and following Rome’s destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C., Masinissa’s son, Micipsa, continued ruling as a Roman ally. [Source: Juan Pablo Sánchez,National Geographic History, February 4, 2021]

Numidia after the Punic Wars

Struggling to subdue the people of Spain in 134 B.C., Roman general Scipio Aemilianus realized he needed more troops. He turned to Micipsa, who was glad to provide Numidian soldiers and had an underlying motive for helping Rome: Micipsa could send his nephew Jugurtha to command Numidia’s forces. Charismatic, clever, and aggressive, Jugurtha represented a threat to Micipsa’s throne and his two sons. Assisting Rome in Spain would conveniently put Jugurtha in harm’s way. Perhaps he would never return.

Later, Micipsa’s division of the kingdom into three provoked the Jugurthine War. Jugurthine War (112–106 B.C.) was an armed conflict between the Roman Republic and King Jugurtha of Numidia. Jugurtha was the nephew and adopted son of Micipsa, king of Numidia, whom he succeeded on the throne, he had done so by overcoming his rivals through assassination, war, and bribery. Numidia made the wrong call during the Roman civil wars in the first century B.C. when King Juba I sided against Julius Caesar. Following Caesar’s victory and rise to power, Numidian independence ended.

Jugurtha, King of Numidia

Jugurtha became king of Numidia by murdering rivals and bribing Roman officials to look the other way. Juan Pablo Sánchez wrote in National Geographic History:“ Jugurtha returned from Soain after a decisive Roman victory at Numantia with a glowing letter of recommendation from Scipio. His military and political reputation enhanced, Jugurtha had also established valuable Roman connections. To diminish his threat to the throne, King Micipsa decided to adopt his nephew and include him in a three-way split of the kingdom with his biological sons, Hiempsal and Adherbal. Jugurtha’s ambition was undeniable, and he would not be content to co-rule with his adoptive brothers. [Source: Juan Pablo Sánchez, National Geographic History, February 4, 2021]

“Most of what is known about Jugurtha’s life comes from two Roman historians: Sallust and Plutarch, who recorded how he employed bribery, treachery, and murder in ruthless pursuit of sole control of Numidia. The civil conflict, the Jugurthine War, would turn into a costly distraction for Rome that exposed the corruption eating away at the heart of the Roman Republic.

After the death of Micipsa, Jugurtha immediately contested the division of power. Gathering his soldiers, he sent them to Hiempsal’s quarters where they ransacked the house, killed anyone who resisted, and discovered Hiempsal hiding in the cell of a maidservant. As ordered by Jugurtha, they cut off Hiempsal’s head.

Adherbal fled to Rome, where he declared to the Senate that Jugurtha was a traitor and had murdered his own brother. He demanded punishment, and the Senate set up a commission to investigate. Quoted in Sallust’s first-century B.C. work, Jugurtha describes Rome as “urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit — a city for sale and doomed to speedy destruction if it finds a purchaser” — a valuable lesson he learned during his time with Roman troops in Spain. To fight his adoptive brother’s accusations, Jugurtha applied this lesson and bribed his friends in the Senate. The commission decided to split Numidia between Jugurtha and Adherbal, each man in charge of his own section. Jugurtha’s role in the assassination of Hiempsal was overlooked.

Encouraged, Jugurtha turned to building up his forces at home and then securing the throne for himself. He attacked Adherbal and pushed his forces back. Adherbal retreated, secured himself in Cirta, the capital of his portion of Numidia, and appealed to Rome for help. Jugurtha’s armies besieged the walled city of Cirta, sealing it off from any shipments of food or supplies.

“Sallust recorded how Adherbal begged Rome to deliver him from “the inhuman hands” of Jugurtha, but Roman envoys failed to bring Jugurtha to terms. Adherbal surrendered, trusting that the status of the many Romans trapped with him in Cirta would make Jugurtha act mercifully. Undeterred, Jugurtha took the city, tortured Adherbal until he died, and killed the adult occupants of the city, including those of Italian descent.

Sallust wrote in the War with Jugurtha: “[B]eing ordered by the senate to leave Italy. After going out of the gates, it is said that [Jugurtha] looked back at Rome in silence and finally said, 'A city for sale and doomed to speedy destruction if it finds a purchaser!'

Jugurtha Battles and Bribes the Romans

Coin commemorating Sulla's capture of Jugurtha

Juan Pablo Sánchez wrote in National Geographic History: In killing the Roman occupants, Jugurtha crossed a line. Facing a popular outcry, the Senate declared war against him and sent troops to fight the rogue Numidian king in 112 B.C. The decision surprised Jugurtha, Sallust wrote, because “he had a firm conviction that at Rome anything could be bought.” Even so, Jugurtha probably had reason to believe he could win over Rome again because Rome’s existing conflicts with Germanic tribes closer to home made fighting with him in North Africa less of a priority. [Source: Juan Pablo Sánchez, National Geographic History, February 4, 2021]

“Lucius Calpurnius Bestia led Roman forces in North Africa in 111 B.C. Bestia’s campaign began with victories but was undone by bribes. Jugurtha doled out bribes to the invading forces. He warned Bestia that a prolonged war was the last thing Rome wanted. His tactics paid off: When Jugurtha surrendered to Bestia, the terms were very favorable to him.

“Despite sparing Rome from war, this arrangement was seen as a great dishonor by the Roman public. Gaius Memmius, tribune of the plebeians (described by Sallust as “a man fiercely hostile to the power of the nobility”), accused the aristocrats in the Senate of accepting Jugurtha’s bribes. Jugurtha was again brought from Numidia to Rome to defend himself against the accusations. During his visit, he bribed officials in a bid to ease his sentencing process. He was promised safe passage home, but before he left, Jugurtha found a royal Numidian cousin, and rival to the throne, living in Rome and had him killed. The murder of a prince under protection of Rome was a provocation too far. In 110 B.C. war was renewed with more experienced generals, during which Rome’s rivalry between nobles and plebeians intensified. (Discover how Hannibal staged a legendary attack against Rome.)

“The consul Quintus Metellus won significant victories over Jugurtha, but was unable to capture him. In 107 B.C. the plebeians wrested the command in Numidia from Metellus and gave it to his subordinate, Gaius Marius. The new commander had just been elected consul partly on the strength of his modest roots and promises to tackle corruption.

“Marius was gifted with formidable military skills, and was popular among the troops. Yet even Marius had difficulty capturing Jugurtha, who had persuaded his father-in-law, Bocchus, king of Mauretania, to shelter him. With great diplomatic and military flair, Jugurtha drew Roman troops into a wearying game of cat and mouse. It was only in 105 B.C. that Rome managed to strike a deal with Bocchus. In return for control of a large portion Numidia, Bocchus handed over his errant son-inlaw. Writing in the first-century A.D., Roman historian Plutarch recounts in his “Life of Marius,” in Parallel Lives, that the subdued Jugurtha was paraded in chains through Rome and imprisoned, where he died sometime afterward of starvation.

Jugurtha’s Legacy

wheat, North Africa to some degree was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire

Juan Pablo Sánchez wrote in National Geographic History: Although Rome’s military might crushed Jugurtha, his courage, craftiness, and brilliant guerrilla tactics are a remarkable chapter in the annals of Rome’s military history; Jugurtha’s true motivations in provoking this conflict are unclear in the historical record. Some assume he wanted to free Numidia from Roman influence. Others believe his aim may have been to reinstate himself as an ally of Rome. [Source: Juan Pablo Sánchez, National Geographic History, February 4, 2021]

“The historian Sallust’s account is often cited as the main source for Jugurtha, and Sallust’s background colors his account. A nonaristocrat, Sallust was elected tribune, but his career was cut short by infighting when he backed a rival of Julius Caesar in the civil wars of 49-45 B.C. His subsequent career as a historian was colored by his relatively humble roots and focused on the corruption and arrogance of the aristocratic elite.

“His preoccupations found a perfect theme in his history of the Jugurthine War, written circa 40 B.C. Historian Gareth around Sampson, author of The Crisis of Rome: The Jugurthine and Northern Wars and the Rise of Marius, argues that “Sallust had an ax to grind about the decay of Roman elite society, and Jugurtha was a prime example that he could exploit to ‘prove’ his case.”

“Jugurtha’s legacy certainly supports Sallust’s interpretation of events. After the Jugurthine War, the plebeian assembly used Jugurtha’s bribes and the Senate’s incompetence to gain power through brilliant soldiers like Marius. The erosion of senatorial power in favor of individual generals would increasingly destabilize the Roman state and lead to the civil war that gave rise to Julius Caesar.

Septimius Severus

Emperor Septimius Severus (ruled A.D. 193 - 211) was born and raised in North Africa. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Septimius Severus “was a member of a leading native family of Leptis Magna in North Africa who allied himself with a prominent Syrian family by his marriage to Julia Domna. Their union, which gave rise to the imperial candidates of Syrian background, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus, testified to the broad political franchise and economic development of the Roman empire. It was Septimius Severus who erected the famous triumphal arch in the Roman Forum, an important vehicle of political propaganda that proclaimed the legitimacy of the Severan dynasty and celebrated the emperor's victories against Parthia in a lavishly sculpted historical narrative. [Source: Department of Greek and Roman Art, The Severan Dynasty (193–235), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2000, metmuseum.org \^/]

“As in most artistic achievements under the Severans, the monumental reliefs show a decisive break with classicism that presaged Late Antique and Byzantine works of art. At Leptis Magna, he renovated and embellished a number of monuments and built a grandiose new temple-forum-basilica complex on an unparalleled scale that befitted the birthplace of the new emperor. Septimius cultivated the army with substantial remuneration for total loyalty to the emperor and substituted equestrian officers for senators in key administrative positions. In this way, he successfully broadened the power of the imperial administration throughout the empire. By abolishing the regular standing jury courts of Republican times, he was likewise able to transfer power to the executive branch of the government. \^/

Theater at Leptis Magna

Olive Production in Tunisia Crashed Because of Roman Iron Production

Zach Zorich wrote in Archaeology Magazine: After the Romans conquered the Phoenicians of northern Africa in 146 B.C., they allowed them to maintain their cultural traditions, but imposed a new economic system. The drastic cost of this was evident at Zita, a city in present-day Tunisia that was once famous for its olive groves. A team of American researchers and archaeologists from Tunisia’s National Heritage Institute compared the quantity of iron slag and carbonized olive pits in soil from the city’s iron smelting workshops. [Source: Zach Zorich, Archaeology Magazine, March/April 2022]

When the Romans took over, they increased iron production, but the problems didn’t begin until about A.D. 200. “We can see clearly in the archaeological record that they lost the balance between producing fuel and producing olive oil,” says archaeologist Brett Kaufman of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He believes that plagues and political instability may have created economic pressures that led to shortsighted decisions. To feed Rome’s appetite for iron, the olive orchards that had sustained Zita’s economy for centuries were fed into the smelting furnaces, leading to the city’s collapse around A.D. 450. “It’s just shocking to think about the emotional cost for the people who realized that they were feeding an empire and losing their own city in the process,” says Kaufman.

Vandals and the End of Roman Rule in North Africa

In A.D. 238, the revolt of Thysdrus resulted in economic collapse and the Mudian uprising. The Vandals invaded in and sacked Carthage in A.D. 439. Earlier they had entered North Africa from Spain. They used Tunisia as a stepping stone reach Sicily and then Rome. North Africa's rich granaries that once fed the Roman Empire vanished. Tunisia has lost perhaps half its arable land.

Invited to North Africa by a rebellious Roman official, the Vandals, a Germanic tribe, crossed from Spain in 429. They seized power and, under their leader, Gaiseric, established a kingdom that made its capital at Carthage. Although the Roman Empire eventually recognized their overlordship in much of North Africa, including Tripolitania, the Vandals confined their rule to the most economically profitable areas. There they constituted an isolated warrior caste, concerned with collecting taxes and exploiting the land but leaving civil administration in Roman hands. From their African base they conquered Sardinia and Corsica and launched raids on Italy, sacking the city of Rome in 455. In time, however, the Vandals lost much of their warlike spirit, and their kingdom fell to the armies of Belisarius, the Byzantine general who in 533 began the reconquest of North Africa for the Roman Empire. [Source Library of Congress]

Cup-Bearers mosaic from the Bardo National Museum in Tunis

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated October 2024