DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18096#0178
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Roman Africa
CHAPTER V
AFRICA UNDER ANTONINUS PIUS
A.D. 138-161
GOOD fortune favoured Antoninus during an uninterrupted
reign of twenty-three years. His correct name was Titus
Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus, which was changed
on his assuming the purple to Titus iElius Hadrianus Antoninus
Augustus.1 Rome was then at peace with the rest of the world,
and the provinces were reaping the benefits arising from
forty years of wise and beneficent government under Trajan
and his successor. Slight disturbances arose on the Moorish
frontier at the commencement of Antonine's career, but they
do not appear to have affected general prosperity, nor to have
retarded the work of colonisation in that direction. At subse-
quent periods of Roman history the Moors caused an infinity of
trouble, and, on one occasion, succeeded in evading the Roman
army and encamping for a short time before the walls of
Carthage. Pausanias, referring to this particular disturbance,
says that' the Moors form the largest population of the Libyans,
who are nomads like the Scythians, and are very difficult to
overcome. They travel about on horseback accompanied by
their wives and families, and not in vehicles. Antoninus chased
them from all parts of Africa held by the Romans and drove
them back to the Atlas Mountains.'2 The record of this
Emperor's uneventful reign of twenty-three years is almost a
blank. Dion's manuscript is unfortunately lost, and Capitolinus
devotes only half a dozen pages to his career. Xiphilin, in his
abridgment of Dion, has nothing but praise for this gentle
peace-loving ruler, and Sextus Aurelius Victor, a reliable author
of the fourth century, closes his brief memoir by telling us that
1 Vide Guerin, Voyage en Tunisie, Paris, 1S62, Inscript. No. 19, vol. i. p. 100,
and No. 183, vol. i. p. 411.
' Pausanias, Arcadia, lib. viii.
Roman Africa
CHAPTER V
AFRICA UNDER ANTONINUS PIUS
A.D. 138-161
GOOD fortune favoured Antoninus during an uninterrupted
reign of twenty-three years. His correct name was Titus
Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus, which was changed
on his assuming the purple to Titus iElius Hadrianus Antoninus
Augustus.1 Rome was then at peace with the rest of the world,
and the provinces were reaping the benefits arising from
forty years of wise and beneficent government under Trajan
and his successor. Slight disturbances arose on the Moorish
frontier at the commencement of Antonine's career, but they
do not appear to have affected general prosperity, nor to have
retarded the work of colonisation in that direction. At subse-
quent periods of Roman history the Moors caused an infinity of
trouble, and, on one occasion, succeeded in evading the Roman
army and encamping for a short time before the walls of
Carthage. Pausanias, referring to this particular disturbance,
says that' the Moors form the largest population of the Libyans,
who are nomads like the Scythians, and are very difficult to
overcome. They travel about on horseback accompanied by
their wives and families, and not in vehicles. Antoninus chased
them from all parts of Africa held by the Romans and drove
them back to the Atlas Mountains.'2 The record of this
Emperor's uneventful reign of twenty-three years is almost a
blank. Dion's manuscript is unfortunately lost, and Capitolinus
devotes only half a dozen pages to his career. Xiphilin, in his
abridgment of Dion, has nothing but praise for this gentle
peace-loving ruler, and Sextus Aurelius Victor, a reliable author
of the fourth century, closes his brief memoir by telling us that
1 Vide Guerin, Voyage en Tunisie, Paris, 1S62, Inscript. No. 19, vol. i. p. 100,
and No. 183, vol. i. p. 411.
' Pausanias, Arcadia, lib. viii.