Graham, Alexander: Roman Africa: an outline of the history of the Roman occupation of North Africa ; based chiefly upon inscriptions and monumental remains in that country (London [u.a.], 1902)

122

Roman Africa

recording the completion of an important public road during
his reign.1

IMP • CAES • T • AELIO Imperatore Ccesare Tito

HADRIANO • ANTONINO AZlie Hadriano Antoni?io
AVG • PIO • P • P mi • ET M Augusto, Pio, Paterpatrice

AVRELIO • CAESARE • II quartum et Marco Aurelio

COS • PER • • PRASTINA Ccesare seciotdum, consulibus

MESSALINVM ■ LEG per Prastinam Messalinum

AVG • PR • PR . VEXIL legatum Augusti, proprcetore

LEG • VI • FERR ■ VIA vexillatio legionis Sextce Ferratce

FECIT viam fecit.

It will be observed that the sixth legion Ferrata referred to
was employed in opening up communication across the Aures
by means of a military road. This legion formed no part of the
army of Africa, but was probably sent thither by the Emperor at
a time when the third legion Augusta was engaged in defending
the western frontiers against irruptions by the Moors. Some
fifty years ago the late General St. Arnaud was conducting a
column through this identical pass, and when he had reached
the summit and looked down on the Great Desert stretched at
his feet, he remarked in the enthusiasm of the moment, ' We
may flatter ourselves we are the first soldiers to pass through
this region.' Strange error ! There by the mountain track, on
the face of the imperishable rock, was the record of a nation
long since passed away—a memorial of a Roman legion who
had bivouacked on that very spot more than seventeen centuries
ago.

Among other dedications to Antonine mention should be
made of an inscription on the great gateway forming the approach
to the principal temples at Sufetula in the far south, now known
as Sbeitla. This remote town has played an important part in
the making of Roman Africa, and was the scene of the great
heroic struggle at a later date between Christian and Moslem
for supremacy in that country. Its early history is veiled in
obscurity, and its name is supposed by Bruce and other travel-
lers to have been derived from the Sufetes, the title held by all
magistrates in towns dependent upon Carthage.2 The modern

1 I.R.A. No. 4360. Henzen, Orelliana Collect, vol. iii. No. 6621.

2 The Roman duumvirs called themselves sufetes in Punic towns, the word
appearing on several inscriptions. Vide Guerin, vol. i. p. 429 ; also C.I.L.
No. 797.