DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18096#0382
3o6
Roman Africa
inscriptions still extant. From the time of their first encounter
with the Berbers of the hill country or the rude warriors from
the Desert, the Romans must have recognised the almost
insuperable difficulties in waging irregular warfare with un-
organised tribes, having no seat of government and no settled
habitations—here to-day and gone to-morrow, the hillsman
secure in some inaccessible mountain retreat, the man of the
Desert lost to sight in a whirlwind of sand as he scampered
across his trackless domain. This sense of insecurity seems to
have been never absent from the Roman mind, and was par-
ticularly apparent at a late period of the Empire, when Diocletian
attached the province of Mauritania Tingitana to the diocese of
Spain, as a means of checking the piratical raids of Moorish
corsairs on both shores of the Mediterranean. It was also
indicated by the unusual authority given to the commander
of the legion in Africa, who, from the time of Caligula, received
his orders direct from the Emperor, and exercised more power
than the governor of the province. Exceptional circumstances
demanded exceptional forms of government, and the defensive
measures found necessary for the protection of large communi-
ties enjoying all the privileges of civilised life redound to the
credit of the Roman world ; yet, looking back at the six centuries
of work accomplished by the Romans in their attempt to make
North Africa a prolongation of Italy, one is forced to admit
that the subjugation of the country was never complete, and
that the native races were never conquered.
The climatic condition and the general aspect of the country
in the early days of Roman occupation were much as they are
in our own time, except, perhaps, on the southern frontiers over-
looking the great Desert. But with the development of Roman
civilisation a new order of things changed the face of the land.
Recognising the value of natural resources, and bending the
elements to his indomitable will in the service of mankind, the
Roman colonist controlled the watercourses, constructed gigantic
reservoirs to meet the necessities of a thirsty soil, encouraged
forestry, and converted a region of desolation into a garden of
cultivation. And this is amply borne out in the statements of
Arab authors of the seventh century, who are profuse in their
praise of the fair land which had fallen into their hands. From
Carthage to Tangier, stretching a thousand miles from east to
Roman Africa
inscriptions still extant. From the time of their first encounter
with the Berbers of the hill country or the rude warriors from
the Desert, the Romans must have recognised the almost
insuperable difficulties in waging irregular warfare with un-
organised tribes, having no seat of government and no settled
habitations—here to-day and gone to-morrow, the hillsman
secure in some inaccessible mountain retreat, the man of the
Desert lost to sight in a whirlwind of sand as he scampered
across his trackless domain. This sense of insecurity seems to
have been never absent from the Roman mind, and was par-
ticularly apparent at a late period of the Empire, when Diocletian
attached the province of Mauritania Tingitana to the diocese of
Spain, as a means of checking the piratical raids of Moorish
corsairs on both shores of the Mediterranean. It was also
indicated by the unusual authority given to the commander
of the legion in Africa, who, from the time of Caligula, received
his orders direct from the Emperor, and exercised more power
than the governor of the province. Exceptional circumstances
demanded exceptional forms of government, and the defensive
measures found necessary for the protection of large communi-
ties enjoying all the privileges of civilised life redound to the
credit of the Roman world ; yet, looking back at the six centuries
of work accomplished by the Romans in their attempt to make
North Africa a prolongation of Italy, one is forced to admit
that the subjugation of the country was never complete, and
that the native races were never conquered.
The climatic condition and the general aspect of the country
in the early days of Roman occupation were much as they are
in our own time, except, perhaps, on the southern frontiers over-
looking the great Desert. But with the development of Roman
civilisation a new order of things changed the face of the land.
Recognising the value of natural resources, and bending the
elements to his indomitable will in the service of mankind, the
Roman colonist controlled the watercourses, constructed gigantic
reservoirs to meet the necessities of a thirsty soil, encouraged
forestry, and converted a region of desolation into a garden of
cultivation. And this is amply borne out in the statements of
Arab authors of the seventh century, who are profuse in their
praise of the fair land which had fallen into their hands. From
Carthage to Tangier, stretching a thousand miles from east to