MOTIVES FOR ROMAN IMPERIALISM IN NORTH AFRICA,

300 BCE TO 100 CE

_______________

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

San Diego State University

_______________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

History

_______________

by

Michael A. DeMonto

Summer 2015

iii

Copyright © 2015

by

Michael A. DeMonto

All Rights Reserved

iv

DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to Sara. Thank you for supporting my education venture for

these past six years. Your love and support means everything to me. I love you!

v

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Motives For Roman Imperialism in North Africa,

300 BCE to 100 CE

by

Michael A. DeMonto

Master of Arts in History

San Diego State University, 2015

Previous examinations of Roman imperialism in North Africa are insufficient because

they lack an appreciation of the balance between the defensive, political, and economic

motives. These past arguments have focused on specific regions around the Mediterranean

world, but have failed to include North Africa – an integral part of the Roman Empire. This

region was politically and economically integrated into the empire during the first century

CE.

This study closely examines the ancient sources for Roman imperialism in North

Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE to construct the narrative for Roman imperialism while

juxtaposing corresponding ancient and archaeological evidence. This study examines the

ancient and modern constructed narratives against anthropological models for interstate

warfare and cooperation. The ancient written sources include Polybius’s Histories, Livy’s Ab

Urbe Condita and Periochae, Appian’s Roman History, Dio Cassius’s Roman History,

Sallust’s Jugurthine War, Julius Caesar’s De Africo Bello, Velleius Paterculus’s Roman

History, Augustus’s Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Tacitus’s Annals and Histories, and Pliny the

Elder’s Natural Histories. A wide range of archaeological data are examined including

settlement patterns, economic structures, agricultural patterns, amphorae studies, roads, the

Fossatum Africae, and military structures in North Africa, which offer corroboration of or

disjunction from the written source material.

The Roman state aggressively expanded across the Mediterranean from 300 to 100

CE, during which period the Romans incorporated North Africa into their empire. Chapter

one establishes a definition of imperialism and considers the usefulness and level of scrutiny

required in the examination of the ancient written, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence.

Chapter two offers the defensive motives for Roman imperialism in North Africa through

cause, effect, and postwar outcomes. Chapter three examines the role of politics at the state

and individual levels in addition to political structures. Chapter four focuses on the economic

motives for Roman imperialism in North Africa including commodities and structures.

Chapter five brings together this range of motives to illustrate the complexity and

imperialistic nature of Roman expansion into North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1

2 DEFENSIVE MOTIVES .............................................................................................21

3 POLITICAL MOTIVES ..............................................................................................47

4 ECONOMIC MOTIVES .............................................................................................68

5 CONCLUSIONS..........................................................................................................89

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................98

APPENDIX

A MAP OF ANCIENT NORTH AFRICA ....................................................................103

B MAJOR EVENTS IN ROMAN HISTORY ..............................................................105

C ROMAN COLONIES OF NORTH AFRICA ...........................................................107

vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Professor Pollard for all her help in each stage of my thesis,

from figuring out a topic to completion. Also, Professor Cobbs and Starkey provided a

wealth of thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. I thank all of you for your efficient readings of

my work and helpful suggestions. Thank you to Louis, Emma, and Pete for always being

there for emotional support.

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The Romans have subjected to their rule not portions, but nearly the whole of the

world and possess an empire which is not only immeasurably greater than any

which preceded it, but need not fear rivalry in the future.

-- Polybius, Histories

This quote from Polybius illustrates a foreigner’s perspective on the massive

expansion program of the Roman state that had already occurred by the 150s BCE. Polybius

witnessed first-hand the Roman expansion as a conquered Greek magistrate. From 300 BCE

to 100 CE, the Roman state conducted constant warfare, colonization, and economic

exploitation in their imperialist expansion across the Mediterranean world. Many scholars

have referred to this expansion as Roman imperialism, but with little consensus on its nature

or the motives for it. A primary concern with “imperialism” for many scholars was Rome’s

near completion of world conquest as a republican government. The Roman state’s rapid

expansion brought about the conditions for the so-called Roman imperial period and fall of

the republic.

From 509 to 30 BCE, the Roman Republic expanded their political hegemony from

their Italic city-state to nearly the entire Mediterranean world before ever being considered

an empire. Republican Rome’s expansion led to the transformation of its political system,

which scholars often mark as the beginning of the imperial period, 30 BCE to 476 CE.1 The

use of the terms “imperial” and “empire” in the study of Rome and other historical research

causes much contention and confusion about the term “imperialism,” so this term requires the

development of a working definition. Furthermore, the subject of this thesis necessitates an

examination of “imperialism” in relation to Roman interactions with the North African

kingdoms including the Carthaginian Empire. After 30 BCE, the concentration of state power

1 The traditional imperial period is divided into the more accurate principate (30 BCE to 284 CE) and

dominate (284 to 476 CE) periods for this study.

2

rested on the shoulders of a single individual with the republican institutions remaining in

place, known as the “principate.” Under the principate government, the Roman state began to

strengthen and consolidate its political and economic power over its entire empire, which

culminated in a slower territorial expansion than during the republican period. This thesis

seeks to explain the motives and processes involved in the Roman state’s political, territorial,

and economic expansion into North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE.2 Furthermore, this

thesis examines the nature of these expansions in terms of the defensive, political, and

economic motives, interests, and outcomes involved in Roman imperialism in North Africa.

While this thesis will consider imperialism in general and in conjunction with the Roman

state’s actions, its primary focus is on the motives, interests, methods, events, goals, and

results of Roman expansion into North Africa.

The ancient region of North Africa consisted of the regions north of the Sahara

Desert, west of Egypt, and east of the Atlantic coast of Mauretania. This region included

Cyrene, Carthage, Numidia, and Mauretania in the ancient world (see Appendix A). From

580 to 396 BCE, Carthage expanded into a large empire that included colonies in coastal

Spain, the Atlantic coast of Africa, and various Mediterranean islands in addition to their

primary territory in northern Tunisia. Numidia’s territory (modern-day southern Tunisia and

Algeria) was often divided into several kingdoms that warred against each other resulting in

unifications under one of the rival kings. Mauretania was a kingdom that avoided interaction

with the Roman state, but often interacted with Numidia, Carthage, and other peoples in the

region, including the peoples of Spain. Cyrene was a Greek city-state until Augustus’s

annexation as a province, which included the region that is modern-day Libya. These regions

were well-populated with Carthage as the primary power until the end of the Second Punic

2 The difficulty in assessing motives for an ancient empire is that the only sources we have are of events

and secondary thoughts, outside of maybe Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. In assessing motives, we must

examine the cause and effect relationship of the events deemed as imperial acts. “Motives” are the reasons for a

behavior or actions that are somewhat hidden or unknown. Another challenge in this subject is that the Roman

state for a time is in republican form, with many voting institutions, political voices (i.e. magistrates), a

senatorial body, and often an unruly mob. The motives, decisions, and actions of this state are derived from an

amalgamation of political voices that persuaded others, including that of influential individuals, political

factions, and socioeconomic classes. Sometimes, motives, interests, and goals appear to intertwine or the lines

between them are blurred.

3

War (201 BCE). Many economic resources were available throughout these territories, as

shown by agricultural and other types of economic exploitation throughout these periods.3

“Imperialism” has been and continues to be a contentious term among historians and

other scholars. The primary problem surrounding the term is that individual scholars define it

specifically for their own studies’ purposes. Another problem arises when scholars utilize

“imperialism” in a derogatory manner towards the contemporary actions of nation-states.

Nineteenth-century political thinkers developed the concept of imperialism in order to

describe the events surrounding contemporaneous European rivalries and expansions. Rosa

Luxemburg’s Accumulation of Capital (1913) described imperialism as the economic

relationship between dominant nations and weak ones, which was an argument about

capitalist exploitation. This work proved to be influential in defining “imperialism,” but the

book’s postwar English translation (from German) caused this work to be very influential in

later American scholarship.4 “Imperialism” became more widely used after Vladimir Lenin’s

1916 political-economic commentary, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. This

work specifically set the stage for future works either to focus on American actions abroad as

a capitalist power or to develop or denounce Marxist theories of capitalism. The difficulties

posed by Lenin’s work necessitate a return to an earlier and clearer definition of imperialism.

Prior to Lenin, the preeminent work that defined imperialism was John A. Hobson’s

book, Imperialism: A Study (1902). In this work, he contemplated the many definitions and

uses of “imperialism” that had already surfaced by the twentieth century. Hobson declared

that difficulty existed in defining any “ism” since meanings quickly “shift and political

practitioners often obscure and distract” these terms for their own purposes, as Lenin and

many later scholars did.5 Hobson defined imperialism as a foreign policy motivated by the

“interests of certain classes within the state,” which utilized “political and economic forces”

for personal gain. These classes and their actions were supported by the “state’s military,

3 The archaeological evidence of economic exploitation (use of land to produce, not necessarily taking

from people) details the imperial-period Roman data mostly, but certainly they displaced local elites through

colonization as will be shown in chapter four.

4 R. Koebner, “Imperialism,” 403-406; Rosa Luxemburg’s concept of “imperialism” as a relationship

between dominant nations and weak ones is a prominent concept even today.

5 J.A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, 3.

4

political, and financial resources.”6 Hobson’s definition best describes the concept of

imperialism, which has been the subject of an amazing number of works over the course of

the twentieth century.

After Hobson and Lenin, the scholarship on imperialism shifted focus to America as a

capitalist empire. In 1930, Chang Yun-Yo’s article “American Imperialism: A Chinese

View” was one of the early commentaries that shifted the conversation about imperialism to

America. In this article, Yun-Yo argued that America had all of the resources it needed, but

continued to act in the European imperial manner. He explained that America conducted

imperialism through its aggressive nature, capitalistic system, need for external products,

acquisition of territory for these products, and a belief in Anglo-American superiority over

other races.7 This work was clearly influenced by Lenin’s political commentary with some

attention given to Hobson’s definition. After this work and World War II, scholarship on

American imperialism increased extensively partially due to the framework of Hobson and

arguments of Lenin in addition to America’s more visible actions in politics and trade around

the world.

World War II highlighted the militancy of imperialism while those who argued for an

end to imperialism altogether became more vocal. In 1942, Moritz J. Bonn’s article, “The

Future of Imperialism,” argued that “The essence of imperialism was militarism, not

capitalism” in response to Lenin. Bonn further explained that although economic pressure or

motives are often part of imperialism, it is always reinforced with military strength.8 He

defined imperialism as “the making and holding of empire through military force.”9 This

article illustrates the broadening of the concept of “imperialism” to include every militarily

strong nation in the world that has ever existed. This argument is problematic, but a direct

attack on Lenin’s argument. As the world appeared to change to economists, historians, and

political scientists, the meaning of “imperialism” quickly transformed to mean militant

domination alone. The World Wars and the resulting rise of the United States of America on

the world stage were powerful factors in these changes. Bonn’s argument highlighted the

6 Ibid., 356.

7 Chang Yun-Yo, “American Imperialism,” 278.

8 Moritz J. Bonn, “The Future of Imperialism,” 254.

9 Ibid., 255.

5

militarism involved in “imperialism,” but ignored the importance of economics, politics, and

defense.10

After 1946, the Marxist scholarship on imperialism reemerged with the English

translation of Rosa Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of Capital. Her argument propagated the

notion that dominant nations unfairly and wrongly took advantage of the weak, which many

scholars viewed as a critique of American capitalism. In his 1963 essay, economic historian

Tom Kemp responded to Luxemburg’s work by examining the many theories and definitions

of “imperialism” as Marxist terminology. Kemp’s introduction provides a perspective

opposed to Lenin and Hobson. Kemp described imperialism as a “radical slogan devoid of

objectivity” – a derogatory term.11

In order to avoid subjective scholarship, Kemp stated that

the term should be carefully defined with recognition of the many existing definitions.12

Furthermore, “theories of imperialism should confront the bare data” rather than focus on the

abstract concept. The abstract concept can be useful, but often is more of an “apologetic of

the writers’ society and time.”13

Scholarship that utilizes “imperialism” must observe the

known political and social structure, foreign policy, and military actions in order to apply the

concept to the polity studied.

Tom Kemp described “imperialism” as a complex concept often misused and

confused that is directly connected to Vladimir Lenin’s ideas about communism and

capitalism. In Michael Barratt Brown’s 1963 book, After Imperialism, he defined imperialism

as an “attitude of mind as well as a political and economic relationship.”14

This definition or

concept of “imperialism” is too broad and vague. The increasing vagueness and redefining of

imperialism requires a return to earlier definitions that offer a framework to assess the

structure, character, and actions of states over the course of time in order to categorize rather

than disparage them.

As Tom Kemp suggested, imperialism and all other similarly confused terminology

should be explicitly thought out and defined before being employed in historical study. The

10

The militarism of “imperialism” was the primary issue lacking in Hobson’s definition. He mentioned

military force, but did not highlight the issue well.

11 Tom Kemp, Theories of Imperialism, 1.

12 Ibid., 2.

13 Ibid., 151.

14 Michael Barratt Brown, After Imperialism, 18.

6

term imperialism is overused and misunderstood as it is applied in many explanations of the

contemporary world, especially in apologetic works and as a derogatory term. Scholars

should consider that the word “imperialism” is rooted in the Roman Republic as imperium

(military command). This term is connected to political office, which required military

service and success. Furthermore, this Roman concept and their political system led the

Roman state to control an enormous territory and exploit resources, including people, as the

spoils of war. These wars and exploitations were motivated by the various classes for wealth

and power. This examination of the motives and interests involved in Roman imperialism

will utilize Hobson’s definition as a working definition and framework for “imperialism,”

since all definitions after this point incorporate the negative connotations instilled into the

term by Lenin and later political, economic, and historical commentators. In addition, the

most recent studies specifically focus on contemporary states or eliminating the concept as a

disapproving remark. In North Africa, Rome intervened politically, militarily, and

economically on behalf of the various classes until direct rule was achieved, which was

imperialism.

The available ancient sources clearly depict imperialist actions in the Roman state’s

conquest of North Africa, from 300 BCE to 100 CE. These sources narrate the Roman

Republic’s massive territorial, political, and economic expansion from a small city-state in

Latium (northwestern Italy) to a Mediterranean empire. The available evidence suggests that

Rome imposed political control and cultural influence upon the regions conquered or

occupied by the end of the first century CE. Modern scholars often debate how this conquest

and imposition relate to imperialism, which has led to the categories of defensive and

aggressive imperialisms for the Roman Republic. How did Roman foreign policy change in

relation to the kingdoms of North Africa and Carthage from the republic to principate

periods? What Roman interests motivated their intervention, colonization, and eventual

annexations in this region? The study of Roman imperialism in North Africa requires an

examination of the available ancient written and archaeological evidence (including coinage,

defensive works, settlements, agricultural evidence, and epigraphy). A primary purpose of

this thesis is to determine the extent that Roman motives for imperialism were rooted in

defensive, economic, political interests, or an amalgamation of these when interacting with

7

North Africa during the middle republic (300 to 146 BCE), late republic (145 to 30 BCE),

and early principate (30 BCE to 100 CE) periods (see Appendix B).

The sources for Roman imperialism in North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE include

a wide range of Greek and Latin writers under varying circumstances that dictate their intent

and perspective. The only extant ancient source for the period from 300 BCE to 264 BCE is

Livy’s history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita.15

Livy’s history continues through his own time

(59 BCE to 17 CE), but many of the books have not survived. Polybius’s (c. 200 to 118

BCE) life was closest of the ancient writers to middle republican events, including the

beginnings of Rome’s conquest of North Africa. He wrote a history of Rome’s expansion

across the Mediterranean world beginning in 264 BCE with the onset of the First Punic War.

The late republican period (145 to 30 BCE) is well documented through histories, political

works, and letters including Sallust’s Jugurthine War, Gaius Julius Caesar’s Commentarii De

Bello Civili, and Velleius Paterculus’s Roman History. The sources for the portion of the

principate period (30 BCE to 100 CE) that this study examines include Augustus Caesar’s

(63 BCE to 14 CE) panegyric work, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, about his own deeds as the

princeps senatus of Rome. In addition, Tacitus’s (c. 56 to 118 CE) Annals and Histories

provide historical accounts of the events from 14 to 96 CE.16

This thesis focuses more on

Polybius, Livy, Caesar, and Tacitus because their historical works survive today and provide

the most details today. Also, they were living relatively close to the times they wrote about

and have a clear intent in their works.

A few other supplementary works assist in understanding the individual motives of

defense, politics, and economics. These writers include Plutarch (mid-first century to 120

CE), Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE), Cassius Dio (c. 164-229 CE), and Appian (second century

CE). Plutarch wrote a series of biographies about famous Romans and Greeks from the

republican period in Parallel Lives, which contributes to the modern understanding of

Roman thinking, ideas, morality, and individual political and military actions. Cassius Dio

and Appian wrote about the Punic Wars, civil wars, and the end of the republic. Pliny the

Elder wrote on a plethora of topics around the Roman world in the first century CE, which

15

Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 112.

16 Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 153; only the account of the civil war after Nero’s death 68 to 70

CE is extant in Tacitus’s Histories.

8

provides many insights to economic, political, and geographical aspects of North Africa. The

ancient sources for Roman imperialism in North Africa provide clues to the motives,

interests, and outcomes in their expansion. Also, the ancient sources depict the changing

foreign policy towards North Africa during the transformation from republican to principate

governments.

Polybius’s historical work provides information about the functioning of the Roman

state, interactions between Rome and African societies, and the narrative behind Roman

imperialism in North Africa during the middle republic. Despite the mass of details Polybius

offers for this period, some scrutiny must be applied to his writing because of his background

and place in the Roman world. Polybius (a Greek politician) was captured when Rome

conquered Macedon in 168 BCE.17

Polybius’s father was an important figure in the Achaean

League (an alliance of Greek city-states) leading to Polybius’s holding of military offices and

serving on embassies. The Achaean League opposed Roman rule, which led to warfare and

Polybius’s capture, trial, and captivity. Roman interest in Greek culture at this time and

Polybius’s intellect brought about patronage from one of Rome’s leading politicians and

commanders, Publius Scipio Cornelius Aemilianus Africanus (Scipio the Younger).18

This

patronage allowed Polybius to travel across Italy and produce one of the most important

historical works, which was written with analytical precision.19

From 168 through 150 BCE, Polybius wrote his Histories, which is one of the most

important works on Roman history because so little source material is available for the Punic

Wars and the Roman Republic during the middle republican period.20

Only books one

through five exist in entirety. The rest are lost or fragmentary.21

In this work, Polybius

described Rome’s political system and aggressive expansion from a Greek perspective.

Polybius also provided insight to Roman diplomacy during the middle republican period.

This work is of utmost importance because Polybius lived through many of the events that he

discussed, and had access to Roman archival data. Andreas Mehl argued that Polybius and

17

Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 129-130.

18 Ronald Mellor, The Roman Historians, 8.

19 Ibid., 8-9.

20 168 to 150 BCE represents Polybius’s detainment and patronage in Italy.

21 Some of the fragmentary sections are near complete or provide a great amount of detail.

9

later Latin historians follow a formula developed by Fabius Pictor, who is considered the

father of Roman historiography. This argument characterizes Polybius as being more similar

to Roman historians, but with an understanding of his observations through his Greek roots.22

Like other ancient historians, Polybius discussed the importance of avoiding bias in writing

history.23

The primary importance of this work to the examination of Roman imperialism in

North Africa is Polybius’s commentary on events occurring in Carthage and Rome during the

Punic Wars, the intermittent peace that occurred from 241 to 219 BCE, and some of the

events that led to the destruction of Carthage.

Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita and Periochae allow us to cross-examine Polybius’s text

from the Latin perspective. Although writing much later, Livy utilized many of the same

sources as Polybius and even his work. Like Polybius, Livy also had access to sources and

archival data that have not been preserved. Unlike Polybius, Livy described Roman actions

as defensive rather than aggressive conquest. He also attributed more power to the senate

than the voting assemblies. His view of the balance of power in Roman politics was informed

through his experiences during the reign of Augustus. During this period, the balance of

power shifted dramatically to the princeps senatus, who directed the senate and

recommended candidates for magistracies.24

Written works from this period underwent

censorship with writers even being exiled for “immoral” works. Livy’s history is the only

source available for the period prior to the Punic War and without other written sources or

archaeological evidence corroborating these events and details historians must accept or

reject his narrative. Another challenge for scholars with Livy’s work is that the books

covering portions of the Punic Wars are lost.25

Livy’s Periochae provide summations to all

books from Ab Urbe Condita, but some disjunction exists from the copying process over the

centuries.26

Livy’s works provide details to periods for which no other works are available

and the Latin view for the republican period, which is important for reconstructing the

narrative of Roman imperialism in North Africa.

22

Andres Mehl, Roman Historiography, trans. by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, 43-48.

23 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.4.

24 The recommendations were the only candidates, while earlier in the republic candidates would choose to

run for office without being told who was allowed.

25 Books 21-30 are extant and cover the Second Punic War, also known as the Hannabalic War.

26 Jane D. Chaplin, “Introduction,” xxiii.

10

Gaius Julius Caesar’s De Bello Africo provides details on his conquest and the

annexation of the Numidian kingdom into a province.27

Caesar went to North Africa to end

the Roman civil war with the political faction known as the optimates, or the best men. This

faction fled to North Africa to seek a safe haven with the Roman client-states of Numidia and

Mauretania. Caesar defeated the optimates and their allied North African states, which ended

this region’s autonomy. For what reasons did the Numidians and Mauretanians protect the

optimates against Caesar? Clearly, the optimates believed they could defeat Caesar with the

help of these foreign armies plus they had a Scipio among them. Allegedly, an oracle

prophesied that no Scipio could lose a battle in Africa. In addition, the Numidians and Mauri

were likely attempting to gain more autonomy or maintain their current level. Caesar’s many

titles, dictatorship, and warring with Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) made the North

Africans believe that their future under Caesar would be similar to Carthage’s, complete

annihilation. As Roman dictator and conqueror of North Africa, Caesar decreed the

annexation of Numidia as a Roman province, Africa Nova. This work is important for this

examination because it explicitly describes an imperial policy shift towards annexation and

direct rule in North Africa.

Many controversies surround the works and life of Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust),

who wrote Jugurthine War and The Conspiracy of Catiline. Like nearly all of the ancient

writers of Roman history, Sallust was not a Roman, but from the Sabine highlands of central

Italy. Previous to writing, Sallust was a Roman politician whom the censors eliminated from

the senate for corruption, but who had also been a quaestor (55 BCE) and tribune of the plebs

(52 BCE). Caesar revived Sallust’s career and he served in Caesar’s army during the civil

wars. Caesar also appointed Sallust “proconsular governor of the province of Africa Nova.”28

Sallust’s Jugurthine War was written after Caesar’s death in 44 BCE and takes a highly

moralistic tone. This moralistic tone follows the traditional Roman norms for the political

elite, which in this time could encompass plebeian men, such as Sallust. In the preface of this

work, Sallust proclaimed, “What guides and controls human life is man’s animus, If it

pursues gloria by the path of virtus, it has all the resources and abilities it needs for winning

fame, and is independent of fortuna, which can neither give any man uprightness, energy, or

27

The part of Julius Caesar’s Commentarii De Bello Civili that discussed his actions in Africa.

28 S.A. Hanford, “Life and Writing of Sallust,” 7.

11

other good qualities.”29

This passage and the rest of his preface set up the high moral tone of

his work.

Sallust employed traditional ideals of Roman exempla to illustrate how the Numidian

Jugurtha rose to power. Chapter two, “The Early Life of Jugurtha,” of the Jugurthine War

uses Jugurtha as an example of proper and improper conduct for a Roman. In this venture,

Sallust also provided a description for how Jugurtha and his predecessors came to power

through ideal behavior. Massanissa, King of Numidia, befriended Publius Cornelius Scipio

Africanus (Scipio Africanus the Elder) during the Second Punic War, which led to

Massanissa’s restoration to the Numidian throne. After Carthage’s defeat and destruction,

Massanissa’s kingdom was given more territory and power in the region. After Massanissa’s

death, one of his sons became the sole ruler of Numidia, Micipsa, who had two children of

his own – Adherbal and Hiempsal. Micipsa is said to be the only surviving child of

Massanissa due to disease, but one of the dead sons, Mastanabal, had an illegitimate son,

Jugurtha.30

Jugurtha posed a threat to the throne and was sent on campaign with Scipio

Africanus the Younger in the Numantine War, where Micipsa hoped Jugurtha would die.31

In

this narration, Jugurtha resisted the temptation of falling into individual amicitia, which led

to his rise to power. Scipio Africanus the Younger had warned him to gain the friendship of

the state not individuals.32

In essence, Jugurtha’s accepting Scipio Africanus the Younger as

a patron, fighting in warfare with honor, and being loyal to the Roman state rather than

individuals demonstrate Jugurtha as an exemplum for Roman tradition and morality. This

work’s importance to the study of Roman imperialism in North Africa is that it provides

important insights to political, economic, and defensive events in North Africa related to

warfare and the development of client-states in the region. Livy also wrote about these

events, which allows for Sallust’s details to be cross-examined.

The Jugurthine War and many later works place importance on the the rise of the

novi homines into traditionally patrician positions as a major political change in the late

republican period. How much of an impact did the novi homines have on Rome? Much of the

29

Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 1.1.

30 Ibid., 2.1.

31 Ibid., 2.4.

32 Ibid., 2.6- 3.7.

12

debate on this subject has been philological in nature, but the late republican sources focus on

it as a problem leading to the breakdown of the republic. Other sources, such as Plutarch’s

Parallel Lives, describe the novi homines as advancing relatively early in the republican

period, such as Marcus Porcius Cato, but do not show this to be a political problem in the

middle republic. Leonard Burckhardt argued that many of the men born into the equites class

that achieved consulships are mostly referred to in this manner.33

Furthermore, he maintained

the argument that the patrician class controlled the reins of power throughout the republican

period, which downplayed the role that the novi homines played in the late republic. Despite

this argument, the late republic and early principate sources, including Sallust, appear to

attribute a large role to the rise of the novi homines in transforming the state. During the

Jugurthine war, Gaius Marius transformed the Roman military structure, which some claim

led to turmoil in Rome during the late republican period. These military changes and

Marius’s many terms as consul (Cos. 107, 104, 103, 102, 101, 100, 86 BCE) allowed for the

eventual rise of Augustus Caesar’s principate government. Also, this text clarifies Rome’s

position as patron of the North African kingdom of Numidia as well as direct control of

Carthage since the end of the Second Punic War. Clearly, Rome allowed the Numidian kings

to administer their conquered territory, much like some of the kings of the Greek East.

Velleius Paterculus (c. 20 BCE to after 30 CE) wrote a history of Rome that describes

the events leading to civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great including the

changes that took place as a result of conquering North Africa.34

His Roman History was a

brief work that sought to describe the lives and importance of his family. His family

supported the optimates and fought under Pompey the Great and Junius Brutus against the

Caesarians. Paterculus was born into an equestrian family from outside of Rome in the region

of Campania. He served as a military officer and close friend to Gaius Caesar (grandson and

chosen successor of Augustus Caesar). Paterculus was a political insider during the

principate and sought to record the events going on around him with his conservative Roman

point of view. One motive of this work was to increase the prestige of his family as loyal

Romans. 35

Despite his family opposing Julius Caesar, Paterculus himself fit well into the

33

Leonard A. Burckhardt, “The Political Elite of the Roman Republic,” 83.

34 Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, trans. by Frederick Shipley, 2.1.1-3.1.

35 Jona Lendering, “Life of Velleius Paterculus.”

13

renewed conservatism of the principate government. Similar to many other writers during the

principate period, Paterculus wrote in a very moralistic tone. This work provides important

details about North Africa during the principate in addition to a Roman perspective on the

earlier events and causes of the end of the republic, which coincided with the conquering of

North Africa.

Plutarch’s Parellel Lives provides insights into Greco-Roman thinking during the

principate period. He was born in Chaeronea, Greece into the empire in c. 45 CE.36

Plutarch’s perspective was of the Roman world with Greek context. His Parallel Lives

provides details about Roman and Greek important figures and in the process created the

images of these figures as exempla of immoral and moral Greco-Roman behavior for future

generations.37

This work was written well after the lives of these Greeks and Romans. The

moral ideals communicated are a central theme of this work as he equates Greeks to Roman

heroes through Roman morality.38

Despite the morality, his book provides some idea about

how Romans thought in regard to the conquest of North Africa in addition to those involved

in the region. Historians need to acknowledge the challenges faced in working with these

texts, such as the moral tone, length of time written after the events and people, and the

changes in Roman thinking. Plutarch’s account of Roman actions and interests in North

Africa, Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder) and his thoughts about Carthage and the

narration of those involved in imperial expansion in North Africa are the primary concern.

Plutarch knew Cato through his writings, which disseminated his distaste for the Greeks. In

Plutarch’s time, everybody in Roman territories was Roman, not necessarily by citizenship

but by acculturation. Besides Cato, Plutarch provided details about those involved in the

Battle of Thapsus (46 BCE) which led to the death of many optimates (such as, Cato the

Younger in Utica) and Julius Caesar’s annexation of Numidia. The events and people

described in this work are important for any study on North Africa, but especially Roman

imperialism.

Tacitus’s Annals is a yearly history of Rome from 14 to 66 CE, which provides many

details about the political history of Rome. This source provides the best details for political

36

Robert Lamberton, Plutarch, 1.

37 Tim Duff, Plutarch’s Lives, 1-3.

38 Ibid., 13-14.

14

decisions and actions in Rome during the early principate period. In particular, this work

describes the integration of North Africa into the empire including the client-state of

Mauretania.39

Some parts of this text are missing, which required this text to be pieced

together utilizing several different manuscripts. The details from 29 to 31 CE and all of the

narration for Caligula’s reign (37 to 41 CE) are not preserved in this work.40

Despite this, the

text is still very useful for understanding the details of the early principate period during the

Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Tacitus’s Histories describes the political events of Rome during a period of civil war

after Nero’s death (69 to 70 CE). Although the original text discussed the events from the

civil war to the death of Domitian (96 CE), not all of the books survive. Only books one

through four are completely intact with book five partially preserved. The preserved books

leave only the narration of the civil war.41

This civil war had seen several different emperors,

but Vespasian (a military general) secured the imperial throne, which led to the creation of

the Flavian Dynasty. Although the focus of this text is on the Roman political situation of the

period, Tacitus also described rebellions and events in North Africa.42

Most of these events

involved rebellious peoples that refused integration into the Roman Empire.

Similar to previous historians, Tacitus discussed avoiding bias despite being a

political insider.43

Tacitus’s career also reveals the changes to the Roman state and the

expansion of its territory by the principate period. Tacitus was born in southern Gaul to an

equestrian family.44

By this period these regions were integrated into the empire and

provincial peoples, including equestrian individuals, could enter political life. Tacitus’s

political career began during Vespasian’s reign (69 to 79 CE) and lasted beyond the Flavian

dynasty into Trajan’s reign (98 to 117 CE).45

Tacitus lived during the historical events

discussed in his Histories while his Annals relied on Roman government documents and

39

Tacitus, Annals, trans. by A.J. Woodman, 123-124.

40 Ronald Mellor, Tacitus, 23.

41 Ibid., 19.

42 Tacitus, Histories, trans. by Kenneth Wellesley, 1.7, 1.11, 1.37, 1.49, 1.70, 1.73, 1.76, 1.78, 2.58, 2.97,

3.48, 4.38, 4.48, 4.49, 4.50.

43 A.J. Woodman, “Introduction,” x-xi; Tacitus, Annals, 1.1.3.

44 Rhiannon Ash, “Introduction.”, i.

45 Ronald Mellor, Tacitus, xii.

15

other written works. Both books provide important details about this period with the historian

living very close to the events in his government positions and time period. The primary

challenge to historians for his works relates to his being a public figure and perhaps unable to

narrate his actual thoughts about some of the time period. Tacitus began his writing venture

during Domitian’s reign of terror through Trajan’s reign.46

This fact introduces the difficulty

that he examined these past events through the lens of contemporary events, such as

Domitian’s tyrannical reign and Trajan’s massive Roman expansion program. Andres Mehl

described the pessimism in Tacitus’s work as being related to the inner workings of the

monarchy and the decreasing importance of the city of Rome and Italy as the center of the

empire. The increasing importance of the frontier regions and the east equated to the decline

of Rome for Tacitus.47

These texts offer important and useful details of the principate period

from 14 to 70 CE despite the negative tone of Tacitus. The negative tone towards the

monarchy should be considered and scrutinized when utilizing these texts because they are

contemporary feelings projected onto the past.

Appian’s Roman History describes many events from the republican period

and a significant amount of his work has been preserved. Knowledge about Appian’s life is

limited as everything is known from letters to Marcus Cornelius Fronto, Marcus Aurelius’s

tutor. Appian was from Alexandria, Egypt and lived from c. 95 to 165 CE.48

The events

Appian wrote about with which this study is concerned are the Punic Wars, Numidian affairs,

and the civil wars. This text is mostly used to cross-examine the narrations of the other

writers on these events, a few of which Appian likely cited in his works. Andres Mehl

viewed Appian as a “late admirer of Rome’s world domination and the establishment of its

dominion.” Appian’s work discusses a positive image of Roman conquest, which must be

considered biased to some extent. Despite Mehl’s description, Appian, as the equestrian

patron of Fronto, was not a Roman political outsider.49

When considering Appian’s work the

positive ideas of Roman expansion should be deliberated, but also his distant retrospective

viewpoint. Although Appian shows Roman bias, he still likely utilized sources that modern

46

Ibid., 9-10.

47 Andres Mehl, Roman Historiography, trans. by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, 136-145.

48 Horace White, “Introduction,” vii.

49 Andres Mehl, Roman Historiography, trans. by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, 162.

16

historians do not have available and offers an alternative perspective on these past events.50

This alternative viewpoint is useful in the cross-examination of the earlier sources.

Another ancient historian who provided an alternative view of republican and early

principate Roman history was Cassius Dio. He was born into a prominent family in Bithynia

between 155 and 164 CE.51

Similar to many of the earlier historians, he also had a political

career in Rome prior to writing his history.52

Cassius Dio’s Roman History is the most

recently written of the ancient works utilized in this study. But, this history provides

confirmation of the details of other writers, such as Plutarch, Caesar, and Livy. Although this

work was written a few centuries after the described events, an underlying assumption maybe

that Cassius Dio had sources and insights that are not available to historians today. For this

reason, these later works are still useful despite their drawbacks and limitations. Many of his

works are not preserved, but the surviving books of his Roman History describe the events

from 68 BCE to 47 CE.53

Similar to Appian, Cassius Dio’s retrospective viewpoint, but

probable access to sources not available to modern scholars allows for this work to be used to

substantiate the more ancient histories.

Besides the many written works of the Romans and Greeks in the ancient world,

archaeological evidence is important for corroboration or disjunction from the written

sources. The Romans left cultural remains around the entirety of the Mediterranean including

settlements, fortifications, coinage, epigraphy, amphorae, commodity production sites, ships,

funerary sites, and pottery. Many of these materials provide insight to defensive purposes

through structures and selection of settlement or colony sites in addition to economic,

political, and military activities. Furthermore, the extent of cultural diffusion can also be

viewed through all of these materials. In North Africa, the Romans left their mark on the

territory through all of these types of materials. From these cultural remains, scholars can

better understand the motives for Roman imperialism in the region, which clearly

demonstrates political control and economic exploitation.

50

Appian would likely have had annalistic and other Roman archival sources.

51 Earnest Cary, “Introduction,” vii.

52 Andres Mehl, Roman Historiography, trans. by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, 151.

53 Andres Mehl, Roman Historiography, trans. by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, 152; no consensus exists

among scholars as to which works belong to him beside his Roman history and a biography of Arrian.

17

David L. Stone’s chapter, “The Archaeology of Africa in the Roman Republic,”

highlights some of the archaeological evidence available for North Africa including the

changes that took place through the many centuries of Roman interventions. Stone mentioned

that the “Fossa Regia (Royal Ditch) was dug from Thabraca in the North to Thaenae in the

South.”54

Scipio Africanus the Younger had this dug in order to divide Carthage from

Numidia officially at the conclusion of the Second Punic War in 201 BCE.55

While this

illustrates Rome’s ongoing and long-term control of Carthage and North Africa,

archaeological evidence for this ditch does not exist today.56

Still, Stone conveyed the

various alterations to the landscape including urban, rural, and mortuary. These alterations

show up in the archaeological record as changes in the design of urban centers (including the

addition of public buildings), agriculture, centuriation, defensive sites in the rural regions.57

Also, he argued that the Roman mortuary sites transformed with the transition of power and

influence during this period. Stone mentioned that many previous archaeologists argued that

Rome did not truly alter the region in cultural and economic materials until the first century

CE. But he claimed this argument was an attempt to apply “defensive imperialism” to the

republican period while demarcating the imperial period as a stark change in Roman

provincial policy.58

The primary archaeological evidence in North Africa for the middle and

late republic includes mortuary sites, territorial surveys, new urban construction dating to the

republican period, and rural landscape changes from the influx of new Roman settlements.

The archaeological evidence for Roman imperialism in North Africa demonstrates the

defensive, political, and economic motives for Roman expansion. The Roman state

developed political control of the region at the end of the Second Punic War, as confirmed

through the Fossa Regia. Although the Fossa Regia no longer exists in the archaeological

record, the Fossatum Africae provides a similar type of structure that many claim for

54

David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of Africa in the Roman Republic,” 505.

55 Ibid.

56 The commentary on the Fossa Regia is used in interpreting the political aspects of the Fossatum

Africae. Pliny the Elder discussed the Fossa Regia in his Natural Histories, 5.25.

57 Centuriation, described further in later chapters, refers to the Romans division and redistribution of

foreign settlements or land to Roman citizens. This often involved existing settlements, which the landed elites

were dispossessed of their land and the settlement was Romanized through design, peopling, measurement, and

rights.

58 David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of Africa in the Roman Republic,” 505-521.

18

defensive purposes, as the many forts and camps along this structure demonstrates.59

The

dating for this large-scale structure is unknown, but most scholars that have studied this

structure believe it to be post-Hadrian (138 CE). This dating would put this structure out of

the period examined for Roman imperialism in this thesis, but reveals the changing nature of

the Roman state and policy in North Africa under the principate. Also, the construction of

aspects of the structure likely began well-prior to the construction of fort sites along the

ditch.

Another important piece of archaeological evidence for the political and economic

activities in North Africa is Roman coinage. From at least 300 BCE, Roman coins were used

for “payrolls, tax collection, trade, and daily transactions.”60

The political aspect of coinage

was the images stamped into the coins during their production as these images were approved

by the state. From 300 to 200 BCE, many of the coins found depict a deity on the obverse

side and an animal on the reverse.61

Despite the religious tones, these depictions were

communicating something political to the community. After the end of the First Punic War,

the large indemnity payments increased the amount of denarii produced, but Rome

specifically minted coins to demonstrate peace time through a depiction of an “ass-drawn

carriage carrying the youthful head of Ianus.” This depiction communicated that the god

Ianus’ temple doors were closed, which indicates an end to war.62

This depiction was meant

for a Roman audience, but shows how coins communicated to the public. Kenneth W. Harl

argued that the republican expansion monetized the Roman provincial world, which set the

stage for the monetary propaganda of Augustus in these regions including North Africa.63

Another example of political propaganda on coinage is Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius

Scipio’s coin, which depicts this politician and commander as a god and imperator of Africa

during the republican period.64

The spread of and depictions on coinage provide details about

Roman imperialist expansion and economics in addition to political aims.

59

René Dussaud, “Jean Beradez – Fossatum Africae,” 359-361; Unknown Author, “Fossatum Africae –

Reminders of the Roman Empire; Jean Lucien Baradez, Fossatum Africae.

60 Kenneth W. Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy, 1.

61 Ibid., 25.

62 Ibid., 29.

63 Ibid., 72.

64 Michael Crawford, “Money and Exchange in the Roman World,” 40-48.

19

Amphorae serve as another important piece of archaeological evidence for the

economy of the Roman state. Amphorae are vessels that typically carried liquid products

such as wine, olive oil, and fish-based products. This type of evidence exemplifies the types

of products exploited and distances these products traveled. Specifically North Africa was

involved heavily in wine and olive oil production, refinement, and transport. Another

important piece of this evidence is the production sites (kiln sites) of these vessels. Several

kiln sites are preserved today in North Africa, which exposes these types of exploitation:

wine and olive oil. These archaeological sites in North Africa include processing and

production facilities for the types of products amphorae carried that included oils and wine.

These commodities played a crucial role in the economic motives for Roman imperialism in

North Africa.

In sum, the study of Roman expansion and imperialism during the transition from

republic to principate requires extensive source material to understand their interests in North

Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE. During this period, Rome expanded from a regional power

to the ruler of the entire Mediterranean world. Furthermore, the malleable nature and long-

term discussion of the concept of “imperialism” requires some explanation of this term’s use

in any study. Modern scholars should adopt a definition that encompasses the root and

purpose of the term. Imperialism should be defined as an aggressive foreign policy pertaining

to expansion of hegemony or territory in order to serve the goals and aspirations of specific

classes of peoples within the examined society, in this case, the equestrian (merchant) and

political (patrician) classes during the middle republican period. In the late republic through

the early principate periods (145 BCE to 100 CE), the equestrians and plebeian classes began

to infiltrate the political world. This change in the oligarchy of Rome was brought about by

Roman expansion, which allowed class mobility through plunder and military honors.

Each of the sources discussed provides some insight to the political, economic, and

defensive motives and interests of the Roman state from 300 BCE to 100 CE in North Africa.

In addition, these sources provide an understanding of the changes to Roman imperial policy

over the course of the period, including the change from the republican expansionist policy to

the principate’s defensive position in North Africa. Many questions are examined throughout

this thesis: What were the Roman state’s interests in North Africa for this period? What was

the nature of Roman imperialism or should this term not apply to this ancient state?

20

Since modern Roman historians have divided the concept of imperialism into

aggressive imperialism and defensive imperialism, this examination considers the defensive,

economic, and political interests of the Roman state. The defensive interests of Rome are

examined along with the concept of defensive imperialism, which many nineteenth- and

twentieth-century scholars have adhered to until recently. The defensive interests are

considered in the context of the reasons, causes, and results of warfare and diplomacy with

political entities in North Africa. In these interactions, this thesis considers the nature of

Roman subjugation including the creation of client-states and the shift to direct rule. The

concept of aggressive imperialism is divided into separate examinations of political and

economic interests. Also, the individual aspects of economics and political ambitions among

the socio-economic classes will be examined. In addition, the motives and ambitions of the

overall state and political factions must be considered in order to determine the Roman

economic and political interests in North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE. Rome was a

militaristic society that constantly warred for economic and political dominance over

surrounding regions. In the struggle for Mediterranean economic and political dominance,

the Roman state also achieved defensive aspirations along the way.

21

CHAPTER 2

DEFENSIVE MOTIVES

Adherbal [an heir to the Numidian throne] addressed the Roman Senate,

“Members of the [Roman] Senate, my father Micipsa advised me on his deathbed

to consider that it was merely a stewardship of the Numidian Kingdom that

belonged to me, and that the real ownership and sovereignty of it were yours.”

-- Sallust, Jugurthine War

This address to the Roman Senate provides details about the Roman state’s position

in North Africa by 116 BCE.65

The Roman state subjugated the North African peoples after

the defeat of Carthage in the Second Punic War, even though it did not formally annex the

region until much later. The Roman state constantly warred for territorial, political, and

economic dominance of nearby peoples and governments throughout the republican period.

Defense played some role in Roman conquest, but primarily in the regions immediately

surrounding Rome. In North Africa, defense became more important after the inception of

the principate government and increased building of economic infrastructure. Many Roman

historians have argued that Rome expanded as an act of defense that inadvertently led to a

large Mediterranean empire: a concept known as “defensive imperialism.”66

But a majority

of the available ancient sources from the middle republic through the early empire contradict

the proponents of defensive imperialism. Although the Latin sources tend to communicate a

defensive ideal for Roman actions, when scholars examine these narratives more deeply they

find that these sources argue for iustum bellum (“Just War”). The Greek sources (such as

Polybius) narrate Roman imperial conquest rather than defense. From 300 BCE to 100 CE,

the Roman state’s motives and policies changed as their relationship to the North African

65

Sallust framed this speech as groveling to the Romans for assistance, but historians must consider that

only this source exists for this speech and the possible motives of Adherbal and Sallust.

66 The proponents of defensive imperialism include Theodor Mommsen, Maurice Holleaux, Frank Tenney,

H.H. Scullard, Ernst Badian, and Arthur Eckstein. These arguments have been primarily applied to warring with

the peoples of Greece, Asia Minor, Spain, and the Italic regions surrounding Latium.

22

territories evolved. Although defense has been discussed as a primary cause of Roman

expansion in general, North African expansion involved some defensive motives and actions,

but politics and economics were the most important factors during most of this period. This

chapter determines and examines the Roman defensive motives for imperialism in North

Africa through the concepts of defensive imperialism, aggressive imperialism, iustum bellum,

the narratives of Roman conquest, and various models for the development of state

complexity through warfare and cooperation. The Roman state was an aggressive power that

sought political and economic conquest while developing defensive space between their

capital and other aggressive or rival states.

The defensive imperialist argument for Rome suffers from presentism and lack of

evidentiary analysis. This argument has tended to reflect the historians’ own place and time

or act as an apology for their own nations’ wrongdoings against weaker foreign peoples. In

this thesis, defense is considered with regard to threats to the Roman state (such as

Carthaginian expansion), the Roman state’s warfare events (motives, causes, actions, and

treaties), and the construction of defensive structures (including site placement). In a 2005

article, C. Enemark and C. Michaelsen remarked that iustum bellum requires right intention,

which can be viewed in the postwar results.67

In essence, defensive war and conquest must

truly involve a serious threat to the existence of the state, and the postwar results (including

the treaty) should reflect defensive motives. For the Romans, wars fought with virtus (virtue,

manliness) and mos maiorum (tradition of the elders) constituted iustum bellum. The Latin

sources nearly always justify warfare in these terms or in defense of an ally. Historians and

other scholars should always consider the actual causes, threats, and results of conflicts when

labeling military actions as defensive or offensive.

In general, Roman imperialism has been argued and justified for over a century at this

point. The longest running argument falls under the concept of defensive imperialism. In the

last several decades, this concept has begun to be rejected and replaced with the concept of

aggressive imperialism. Both of these arguments are problematic in that they avoid the real

complexity of the events and motives involved in Roman imperialism. As mentioned earlier,

defensive imperialism argues for defense as the only motive for Roman expansion, but also

argues that the Roman Republic only annexed territory when necessary, otherwise left to

67

C. Enemark and C. Michaelsen, “Just War Doctrine and the Invasion of Iraq,” 559.

23

local rule. Aggressive imperialism argues for political and economic motives for the massive

expansion of the Roman state during the republican period. Many Roman actions involved all

three types of motives and interests, which indicates that Roman foreign policy was more

complex that these concepts allow.

In the 1850s, German historian Theodor Mommsen first proposed that Rome’s

expansion was defensive through the idea that they were honoring allied treaties. The

terminology of imperialism emerged in response to British policy in the 1870s, well after

Mommsen’s Roman History.68

Mommsen provided the framework behind the concept of

defensive imperialism. In 1921, Maurice Holleaux styled Mommsen’s narrative of Roman

imperialism closer to the concept of defensive imperialism.69

Holleaux disagreed with

Mommsen’s notion of Roman philhellenism, but maintained that Roman expansion was

motivated by self-defense and fear of eastern peoples.70

In response to the earlier works,

Tenney Frank argued defensive imperialism in Scipio Africanus the Younger’s reconquest of

Spain in 133 BCE.71

In his text, Frank attempted to illustrate defensive imperialism over

already conquered territories while ignoring the original reasons for the conquest of the

region. In a 1935 textbook, H.H. Scullard utilized the earlier arguments to explain the

growing hostilities between Rome and Carthage.72

In this text, Scullard called the Roman

actions that led to the Punic Wars and North African expansion “defensive imperialism,” the

first mention of this term. The early proponents of defensive imperialism argued with

presentism while lacking proper scrutiny of the Latin writers, who framed their histories

within the context of Roman iustum bellum.

In 1968, Ernst Badian’s Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic revived the topic of

defensive imperialism, but continued to ignore North Africa and its implications for late

republican Rome. He argued that the Roman ruling oligarchy’s rejection of imperialist

68

Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 36; Mommsen did not explicitly label Rome’s expansion as

defensive imperialism for this reason, but following the reasoning of the available sources alludes to this

concept.

69 Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 36-37.

70 Erich S. Gruen, Imperialism in the Roman Republic, 40.

71 Ibid., 58.

72 Ibid., 36.

24

actions (or non-annexation policy) still required further explanation.73

A primary problem

with Badian’s work was his limited scope (from 133 to 30 BCE), which ignored the fact that

Rome had already begun to impose political and economic hegemony over surrounding

regions including North Africa. Badian’s focus was also on internal problems and individual

power rather than state actions, which disregards the imperialist policy of the state.74

For

Badian, imperialism required annexation rather than hegemonic control. So Badian did not

consider Republican Rome’s use of local leaders through the development of patron-client

relationships on a state level to be imperialist action.75

Badian provided a new perspective to

the complexity of Roman imperialism, but still favored defensive imperialism because he

viewed Roman declarations of war as defending state interests, not territorial expansion,

economic exploitation, or political hegemony.

By 1979, scholarship on Roman defensive imperialism exponentially increased

because of the collective need to explain imperialism, colonialism, and the defensive stance

of America in the Cold War against communism. William V. Harris fervently rejected

defensive imperialism with his concept of aggressive imperialism, which contended that all

Roman actions were imperialist and aggressive against weaker foreign peoples. Harris

argued, “The Roman aristocracy had ample reasons to favour aggressive foreign policies, and

the mass of citizens had reasons to support such policies.”76

Harris examined the defensive

significance of Roman actions from the middle republican to late republican periods. In

historical scholarship, he was the first in this conversation to discuss Roman conflicts in

North Africa in regards to imperialism.77

In his discussion on the Jugurthine War, Harris

concluded that although the war was “fought partly with the purpose of defending an

outlying part of the empire…a heavily contributing factor was the expectation of certain

73

E. Badian, Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, 1.

74 Badian focused on economic and political actions of individuals. His starting date of 133 BCE places

the greatest influence on Roman policy with Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus’s reforms, agrarian law, and

assassination. Badian examined the struggles involved in the internal political problems, such as civil wars and

individuals claiming greater power over the state, but ignored these individuals as directing the state’s imperial

policy.

75 E. Badian, Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, 13-15.

76 William V. Harris, War and Imperialism, 163.

77 Ibid., 249-252.

25

Romans that the war would reward them in various ways.”78

In response to defensive

imperialism, Harris argued that the defensive aspect of Roman warfare has been exaggerated

because of the extent of Roman propaganda, which was produced for the purpose of

justifying warfare in concordance with mos maiorum and virtus.79

For Harris, every conflict

was aggressive Roman action and had little to no defensive motives or interest. In opposing

defensive imperialism, Harris went too far, but often the first scholar to clash with a long-

running belief system requires an over-the-top argument.

The most recent historical scholarship on Roman imperialism and expansion tends to

take a more neutral stance somewhere between the defensive and aggressive imperialism

works. In 2006, Arthur Eckstein introduced the “anarchistic” model, which dictates that each

ancient power was in constant opposition with all others until Rome dominated the region.80

Eckstein related his argument as a realist approach, but clearly sided with defensive

imperialism because the aggressive nature of other ancient societies required Rome to defend

their interests and territories preemptively.81

In 2013, Andrew Erskine explained that “few

deny the aggressive and militaristic character” of the Roman state during the republican

period, but “defence has not been entirely ruled out” as a method of expansion.82

He

concluded that “defence may explain some of Rome’s wars” but “Rome was repeatedly at

war,” which led to the “acquisition of empire”83

The historical scholarship of Roman

imperialism remains in a stand-off between defensive and aggressive imperialism. This

stand-off requires examination into studies in other disciplines and the application of social

science models, which offer a new or different perspective for examining Roman imperialism

and defensive motives in any region including North Africa.

The discipline of archaeology has viewed North Africa and the question of Roman

imperialism in the region more closely than historical research. In this region, archaeologists

have relied on inscriptions, settlement pattern studies, possible defensive structures, and

78

Ibid., 252.

79 Ibid., 254.

80 Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 38.

81 Arthur Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome, 1-14.

82 Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 37.

83 Ibid., 39.

26

economic structures to determine Roman motives for expansion. The earliest work that has

influenced archaeologists was Stéphane Gsell’s (1928) eight-volume history of Rome, of

which one volume was devoted to the republican period. Gsell argued for defensive

imperialism, but “recognized Rome’s active confiscation and redistribution of Carthaginian

territory to those in the equestrian and senatorial classes.”84

Jean Baradez’s photographic

analysis (1949) of the Fossatum Africae illustrated the massive construction of possible

defensive, or political, structures in North Africa built during the principate period. This

construction showed that Rome altered the region significantly; the question remains whether

this structure was erected for defensive or political purposes.

In response to Gsell, Marcel Bénabou’s 1976 book, La résistance africaine à la

romanisation, argued that native resistance to Roman expansion illustrated imperialism. In

making his argument, Bénabou utilized Punic and native Libyan language inscriptions from

the principate period to show this resistance.85

In 1979, Elizabeth W.B. Fentress published

her archaeological study, Numidia and the Roman Army: Social, Military, and Economic

Aspects of the Frontier Zones, which discussed the Fossatum Africae in more detail and other

defensive structures in North Africa. In this work, she considered tribal resistance, but found

that the coloniae and municipia founded in North Africa proved to be strong defensive

structures in that they brought the North African tribes to want incorporation into the empire.

Most of the resistance occurred beyond the Roman limes with the Musulamii and the

Gaetuli.86

In regards to the Fossatum Africae, Fentress dated this structure to the reign of

Hadrian or later, which illustrates the point that Roman policy in North Africa changed

drastically from the republican to the principate periods.87

Fentress’s work offers a detailed

examination of defensive and political structures in North Africa, but only offers conclusions

on the economic effects of Roman military activity.

In 1995 David J. Mattingly and R. Bruce Hitchner offered a summation of all the

previous archaeological works about North Africa. In their summation, they argued that

modern colonialism shaped the works including the distinct focus on the Roman Empire

84

David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of Africa in the Roman Republic,” 508; Gsell introduced the

Fossatum Africae as a defensive structure.

85 Michael Brett, “Review: Roman, Punic, Berber,” 131-132.

86 Elizabeth W.B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army, 61-115.

87 Ibid., 101-102.

27

rather than the republic. Mattingly and Hitchner found that Bénabou’s work focused on the

idea that all foreign cultures resist the invading or dominant force. They claimed that the

Romans coming to North Africa affected the different peoples in unique ways, which fails to

be as simple as Bénabou argued. In addition, the work on the frontier zones suffered from a

suspension of excavation due to the irritation of local rural populations. Mattingly and

Hitchner declared that the colonial and post-colonial analysis needs to be reconsidered and

corrected of biases.88

The archaeology of North Africa requires further examination, but most

of the focus has been on the Roman Empire rather than the republic. Despite the previous

archaeological focus, defensive motives for Roman imperialism necessitate further

investigation into Roman colonies, settlements, and any other structures that could be

construed as defensive.

Unlike the previous studies, this investigation examines the circumstances and

motives behind Roman military intervention, territorial expansion, and economic exploitation

in North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE. From here, this chapter investigates the extent to

which defense motivated Roman imperialism in this region and period. Also, the chapter

examines the defensive interests and nature of Roman actions in the various stages of warfare

and expansion into North Africa. The Roman state’s policies towards war, foreign relations,

and territorial expansion gradually transformed from 300 BCE to 100 CE, but were rarely

only defensive in nature. The eradication of large rival states and the creation of defensive

space in reaction to external threats resulted mostly from Rome’s militant government,

individual wealth acquisition and political ambitions, and the overlapping Roman and

Carthaginian imperial spheres of influence, power, and commerce.

In the analysis of the defensive motives and interests behind Roman imperialism in

North Africa, this chapter will examine Roman warfare events through the application of

state expansion and development models from historical, anthropological, and archaeological

research. In addition, analysis of Roman settlement patterns and defensive construction in

North Africa is vital to understanding the extent that defense motivated Roman expansion

and the ways Roman policy changed over this period. These models include Eckstein’s

“anarchistic” and Jonathan Haas’s “traditional” and “archaeological” models. The

“traditional” concept argues that warfare leads to interstate cooperation and greater socio-

88

David J. Mattingly and R. Bruce Hitchner, “Roman Africa,” 165-171.

28

political complexity, while the “archaeological” model argues that resource scarcity leads to

cooperation and warfare is only a risk of these circumstances, but is not a cause of socio-

political complexity.89

Although Haas’s models were devised to explain the beginnings of

state development through warfare, these models are still useful since Rome and all other

states continually develop and transform over time. These models provide alternate

perspectives for Rome’s actions and interests during this period. Eckstein offered the

defensive imperialism ideal that all ancient states are aggressive and militant, which required

preemptive defense to survive. Harris provided a model for aggressive actions leading to

territorial expansion through seizing political hegemony and commodities. David J.

Mattingly’s Tripolitania, an archaeological case study, utilized “conflict theory,” “limitanei

theory,” and the “minimalist approach” specifically devised for North Africa.90

The conflict

theory was derived from previous arguments that there had always been a conflict between

nomadic peoples and agriculturalists in North Africa. But the “Romans expelled the nomads

back to the Northern Sahara” and built defensive structures to keep them out.91

The limitanei

theory argues that the frontier zones and imperial limes were colonized by veteran soldiers

turned farmers in order to protect the imperial boundaries while producing products to

support the region.92

The minimalist approach favors the concept that these were indigenous

farms rather than Roman infiltration and influence in the socio-economic development of the

frontier zones. Mattingly found problems with what “constitutes Roman influence,” which he

claimed requires a full study of native African and Roman interactions.93

These models alone

have significant flaws primarily rooted in oversimplification, but the models applied in

conjunction with each other provide more complex theories and arguments for Roman

imperialism in North Africa.

The defensive motives and interests of the Roman state provide only a partial

explanation for Roman foreign policy and expansion from 300 BCE to 100 CE. The Roman

89

Jonathan Haas, "Warfare and the Evolution," 171-189.

90 David J. Mattingly, Tripolitania, xv-xvi.

91 David J. Mattingly, Tripolitania, xv.

92 David J. Mattingly, Tripolitania, xvi; this theory primarily argued about third century CE settlements,

which is outside the time frame of my examination, but the theory has mostly been discredited by the fact that

earlier Roman settlements existed in some of these regions.

93 David J. Mattingly, Tripolitania, xvi.

29

state began this period as a regional power in Italy, but transformed into the imperial ruler of

the Mediterranean by the end of the republican period. As Rome’s relation to the North

African kingdoms and peoples changed, so did the imperialist policies in the region from the

middle republic through the early principate period. From 300 to 261 BCE, Carthage was the

primary political and commercial power in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Roman

imperial aggression eroded the Carthaginian hold on these regions. Eventually, Carthage and

the other North African kingdoms became subjugated to Rome. The Roman state often acted

in defense of allies, but also took advantage of these situations to increase its own territory at

the expense of the defeated and allied governments. These imperialist actions against allied

governments under the guise of defensive action led to the violent conflicts with Carthage.

The development of the Roman imperial policy in North Africa is revealed in the

narrative of Italic conquest. Previous to the First Punic War, the Roman Republic added

many new Italic colonies, fought wars with the peoples of Italy, and conducted diplomacy

throughout the Mediterranean. From 300 to 264 BCE, Rome founded the colonies of Sora,

Alba, Carseoli, Castrum, Sena, Hadria, Posidonia, Cosa, Ariminium, and Beneventum.94

These colonies were scattered around Italy, often near territories of freshly conquered

peoples. This colonization policy illustrates both defensive and aggressive strategies in

foreign policy. Former soldiers with battle experience occupied the colonies, which were in

defensive positions around the state while also providing strategic launching points for

military operations. Roman colonies also served other purposes including trade, population

redistribution (from Rome), and the diffusion of Roman culture into foreign societies. The

foundation of these colonies illustrates a complex and aggressive foreign policy, laced with

nuances of defense, distinctly for the purpose of territorial, political, commercial, and cultural

expansion. These strategies dictate that Rome’s primary defensive interest and motivation

was to create defensive space between the capital and enemy peoples. These colonial and

diplomatic designs were also employed in the Roman state’s expansion into North Africa,

once Carthage was destroyed.

The Roman Republic maintained a constant state of war with campaigns and conquest

against the Marsi, Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, Gauls, Sabines, Vulsinienses, Lucani,

Tarentini, Brutii, Picentes, Sallentines, and the Greeks in Italy leading up to the First Punic

94

Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 10.1, 11.3.6-7, 14.1.12-13, 15.1.7-8.

30

War.95

Many of these campaigns and battles were connected to defensive pacts between the

Romans and the other peoples of Italy. The sources tend to justify the wars, but the end

results tell another story. The Third Samnite War (298-290 BCE) and the Pyrrhic War (280-

275 BCE) were long-term military engagements that ended with the complete defeat and

subjugation of Magna Graecia and Samnium. William V. Harris conceded that the Roman

senate viewed its actions in the Italian Wars, from 289 to 264 BCE, as necessary to quell

internal disputes and “repel invaders,” or as defensive actions.96

Furthermore, the ancient

sources refer to these campaigns as revolts against the Roman state. The senate’s perspective

and the ancient sources suggest that the Romans justified their militant actions as being

morally right through defense of allies, or through their Just War ideal. The available sources

indicate that Rome had already conquered and expanded into these regions, but no mention

was made about how these territories previously became part of the Roman Empire. This

territorial expansion illustrates the Roman state’s pursuit of an aggressive policy of

expansion previous to their North African expansion.

The Roman state conducted diplomacy around the Mediterranean and throughout

Italy prior to the middle republican period. From 284 to 281 BCE, Rome sent ambassadors to

the Gallic Senones and the Terentini, which resulted in Rome declaring war against these

peoples because the Roman envoys were murdered. The war with the Tarentini brought

Pyrrhus to the Greeks’ defense and started a larger war with the southern Italian Greek city-

states.97

Pyrrhus conducted warfare successfully against the Romans, but sought a peace

treaty due to heavy losses.98

The senate decided to decline Pyrrhus an audience and to

continue to fight until Rome achieved victory.99

The denial of a peace treaty, even though

Roman defeat appeared imminent, demonstrates Rome’s aggressive nature in conducting

warfare. Livy (the only source for this period) narrated that the Roman senate believed that

southern Italy already belonged to the state and was a domestic insurrection, but this is an

example of Just War. The Italic peninsula did not contain citizens beyond Roman coloniae

95

Ibid., 10.1.1-2, 10.1.6-9, 11.3.12-14, 12.1.1-2, 12.1.4-10, 13.1, 13.2.7-9, 14.1, 15.1.

96 William V. Harris, War and Imperialism, 182.

97 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 12.1.

98 The Romans appeared to be losing this war because they also suffered heavy losses, but they had the

resources to continue.

99 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 13.1, 14.1.

31

and the claim of defending allies does not work inside Roman territory. Instead, the claim of

defending allies was accompanied with Roman domination of that region.100

The conquest of

the Italic peninsula not only led to the First Punic War, but also Roman imperialist policies

and methods employed in North Africa were developed during these campaigns for imperial

power.

At some point between 280 and 278 BCE, the fourth treaty between Rome and

Carthage was agreed upon, which indicates a long history of diplomacy and trade relations

between the two states.101

In a 1971 article, Richard Mitchell argued that the Roman-

Carthaginian treaties of this period were a result of Rome’s increasing power, and the

relations between these two powers were already eroding as Rome clearly was expanding

towards the Carthaginian sphere of influence.102

Mitchell inferred details about the treaty

through ancient commentaries on later treaties between the two powers, mainly after each of

the Punic Wars. Rome also established an alliance with the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt

between 278 and 272 BCE, whose terms also remain unavailable.103

The evidence indicates

that Rome had early diplomatic relations with Egypt and Carthage well before the First Punic

War. At the same time, Rome vigorously added territory through defensive justifications

established through diplomacy, senatorial deliberations, and previous conquests.

In considering the various models for analysis, the Roman state’s use of alliances to

develop political control could be understood through Haas’s models. The Roman state was

at war with the Samnites for several decades previous to 300 BCE with intermittent peace

until the matter was resolved through absolute Roman conquest. Many of the Roman treaties

appear to come during these periods of warfare, which suggest that Rome conducted

interstate cooperation to avoid multiple wars in a single instance. In these matters to some

extent, Rome falls into Haas’s traditional model. The over-simplified design of this model

fails to account completely for all the factors at play, which include economic, military, and

political issues of the day. Also, the treaty-making of Rome upsets Eckstein’s anarchistic

100

The treaty Pyrrhus offered to Rome does not appear in the sources because he was never granted access

or the details were not preserved.

101 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 13.2; details of these particular treaties are not available, as

Livy’s books 11-21 are not extant.

102 Richard Mitchell, “Roman-Carthaginian treaties,” 634.

103 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 14.1.10-11.

32

model because this illustrates that constant warfare and aggression from all directions and

societies did not occur, likely for self-preservation. From the models, Rome’s conquest of

Italy appears more complex than they allow on their own, but suggests that Rome utilized

cooperation through treaties in order to focus resources where they were most needed to

accomplish defensive, economic, and political goals. In conquest, Rome gained buffer zones

between the capital and foreign states, political hegemony over militarily weaker peoples,

and new access to resources including land for farming, people for slaves, and other

important commodities.

The previous conquest of Italy proved important to Roman expansion into North

Africa, as the spheres of influence, power, and commerce of Carthage and Rome began to

overlap in Sicily. The Mamertine-Syracusan conflict, which blossomed into the First Punic

War between Carthage and Rome, initiated the Roman state’s mission to conquer the

Mediterranean world. This conflict illustrates the political complexity of Roman foreign

policy decision-making in addition to its aggressive stance. The Roman senate decided

against intervention in its deliberations but Appius Claudius (a military commander)

convinced the people, who were “exhausted by recent wars and in need of any and every

kind of restorative [especially financial],” to vote for war because of the monetary

advantages for the people.104

Claudius’s campaign for intervention and a consulship indicates

that fighting wars was popular because of the financial positions of the men who fought in

this period. In addition, an individual’s ability to plunder assisted in upward social mobility

and possibly gaining political positions in Roman society. These possibilities led much of the

citizenry to vote for militant actions. In contradiction to Polybius, Livy wrote that the senate

decided to help the “Mamertines against the Carthaginians and Hiero, King of Syracuse.”105

Livy provided no reasons for helping the Mamertines, but did articulate the disputes between

the senators who were either for or against defending the Mamertines as allies. These

senatorial arguments for war followed the concept of Roman iustum bellum.106

The

Mamertines, a Roman ally, beckoned Carthage and Rome for military assistance against the

104

Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.10.20-29.

105 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 16.1.2-3.

106 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 16.1.4-5; the full texts of Livy’s history from books 11 to

20 do not survive, which tell of this ordeal in greater detail.

33

Syracusans. At the same time, Carthage had economic interests in Sicily, which brought

Carthage and Rome into a series of long-standing conflicts.107

The evidence depicts Rome

defensively helping an ally, but ultimately the people of Rome voted for intervention in order

to acquire wealth, not in the defense of the republic or an ally. This event shows that the

Roman people often opted for or supported warfare for personal economic reasons rather

than defense of an ally.

Once the Roman state entered Africa, they often intervened in political affairs and

imposed harsh treaties on conquered peoples. In 256 BCE, the consul Atilius Regulus led a

Roman fleet across the Mediterranean to North Africa in order to take the war to Carthage

and defeat them.108

After some battlefield successes, Regulus received a Carthaginian envoy

to negotiate terms to end the war. Rome sought to punish the Carthaginians and the terms

equaled defeat and subjugation for Carthage; the treaty was declined.109

At the end of the war

(241 BCE), Rome enacted an economically and politically punitive treaty on Carthage, which

included large indemnity payments and expelled Carthage from all islands between Rome

and Libya.110

Roman economic, territorial, and political gains through this treaty fail to be

purely defensive in nature, but some defensive advantages prevailed.111

Analysis of what is known about the Roman-Carthaginian Treaty of 241 BCE helps

to understand the defensive aspects of Rome’s postwar aims of the First Punic War. This

treaty is only extant in Polybius’s Histories. Livy’s Periochae mentions the treaty, but

because this was a summation of books not extant his explicit details are not available.

Furthermore, Polybius’s recorded details were also closer to the actual event, which makes

his documenting of this treaty more important. In Polybius’s Histories, this treaty states:

107

Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.10.1-5.

108 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 17.15-18.3; Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton,

1.33.1-27.

109 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.34.17-24.

110 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 19.22-26; Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton,

1.65.15-66.8.

111 While some may argue that the victor should always be the dictator of peace terms, ultimately

aggressively punitive treaties tend to lead to more warfare rather than peace. The most important aspect to the

treaties is that they communicate postwar aims, which tells us something about the reasoning for war in the first

place.

34

There shall be friendship between the Carthaginians and Romans on the following

terms if approved by the Roman people. The Carthaginians are to evacuate the

whole of Sicily and not make war on Hiero or bear arms against the Syracusans or

the allies of the Syracusans. The Carthaginians are to give up to the Romans all

prisoners without ransom. The Carthaginians are to pay the Romans by

installments in twenty years two thousand two hundred Euboean talents.112

When the treaty was sent to the vote of the people, likely in the Comitia Centuriata, the

people rejected it until a few provisions were altered. The term of the installments was

reduced by half, but the amount increased by a thousand Euboean talents. Also, they required

the Carthaginians to evacuate all the islands between Italy and Africa.113

The evacuation of

the islands surrounding Italy could certainly be understood through defensive motives, but

also economic. These islands have markets, commodities, and provide a buffer zone between

the city of Rome and Carthage. Also, the indemnity payments have an element of defense to

them in the sense that the loss of money would make acquiring necessary products for

military provisions and providing soldiers with pay more difficult. On the other hand, the

indemnity supplies Rome with a larger treasury for a host of activities. Rome did not build

great fortifications to keep enemies out, but went to war in the east after the First Punic War.

The decision to make peace with Carthage may have been due to new threats or internal

problems, which suggests these actions follow Haas’s traditional model since full conquest

did not occur. Without absolute conquest and the agreement to end hostilities, Eckstein’s and

Harris’s models do not explain this war or the concluding peace. Instead, resources needed to

be diverted elsewhere because the continuation of Roman-Carthaginian conflict suggests

both of these entities made a defensive decision to handle other threats and rebuild military

forces and resources.

The Second Punic War resulted from a period of conflict that led to increased

Carthaginian militarization and expansion causing a greater overlap in the imperialist spheres

of Rome and Carthage. Rome and Carthage experienced peace with each other from 241 to

218 BCE because they turned their attentions to perceived dire threats that emerged closer to

home. Carthage brought mercenary forces into its territory to assist against Rome in the First

Punic War. After this war, these mercenaries settled inside and around Carthaginian territory

112

Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.65.

113 Ibid.

35

and began to war with their former employer. Rome experienced turmoil with various

peoples across Italy and nearby surrounding regions. While Rome continued to struggle with

these threats, Carthage began to develop its military power and resources.114

After Rome

noticed the growing Carthaginian military power and territorial expansion into Spain, the

Romans sought a treaty with the Carthaginians in the region. Though acting independently,

General Hasdrubal of Carthage founded New Carthage (modern Cartagena) in Spain.

Hasdrubal and the Carthaginians of Spain continued to upset the mother city’s governing

body with willful insubordination. In time, Rome obtained a treaty with Hasdrubal, which set

the River Ebro as the limit of future Carthaginian expansion. The infamous Hannibal became

a military commander under the dominion of Hasdrubal and quickly became the sole leader

of Carthaginian Spain by 221 BCE.115

From 221 to 220 BCE, Hannibal seized control of the

entirety of Spain south of the Ebro, the agreed limits of their empire. Livy claimed, “He

[Hannibal] therefore determined to launch an attack on Saguntum. Because there was no

doubt such an attack would elicit an armed response from the Romans.”116

Polybius, Livy,

and Appian all make an argument that Carthage was the aggressor, but they also indicate that

Rome could be easily provoked to declare war.117

In this Livy and Appian employ the

concept of Just War in Rome’s actions while Polybius tended to argue for Roman aggression.

At this point, the Second Punic War appears to be for the defense of the republic and

certainly Hannibal posed the greatest threat to Rome since Gauls sacked the city in 390 BCE.

Further analysis through the models of warfare, imperialism, and state-building

assists in judging this event as defensive or aggressive. The defensive imperialism model

declares that a violent Roman reaction to the Carthaginian violation of the Ebro limitation

cannot be considered an aggressive expansionist policy. Other models offer a different

perspective of the Roman actions in the development of this war including aggressive

imperialist actions. In the structure of Eckstein’s anarchic model, all ancient societies acted

aggressively in order to gain political power and access to resources. In this model, Rome

114

Ibid., 2.12.1-18.

115 Livy, The History of Rome, trans. by J.C. Yardley, 21.2; Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton,

2.12.6-13.

116 Livy, The History of Rome, trans. by J.C. Yardley, 21.5.

117 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 2.12-2.16; Livy, The History of Rome, trans. by J.C. Yardley,

21.2-21.5; Appian, Roman History, trans. by Horace White, 7.1.

36

and Carthage were both aggressors in the Second Punic War, rather than Rome acting

defensively, because all states act as aggressors in order to achieve their immediate state

goals.118

Although Eckstein argued earlier in favor of Roman defensive imperialism, his

model claims that everyone is aggressive. If all actors in the event are aggressive, then the

designation of acting on defense for either power was not possible. For these reasons,

Eckstein’s model oversimplifies these complex events and actions of these states. In Harris’s

aggressive imperialism model, the Roman state constantly sought to expand politically and

territorially. In addition, the individuals of the republic constantly fought for internal political

power through military honors. Eckstein described Rome as having a “defensive spirit” in the

Second Punic War because the Carthaginians were the most powerful empire in the region at

that point. In addition, Carthage’s intense expansion towards Italy through Spain in the 220s

BCE provoked a Roman reaction. Despite conceding that Rome was defensive, Harris

viewed Polybius’s evaluation of “reasons versus causes” for this war as evidence for Rome’s

imperial ambitions being hidden behind defensive justification.119

The application of these

models provides conflicting perspectives, but allows for different viewpoints on the nature of

the Second Punic War’s beginnings.

Thus, the available ancient commentators – Polybius, Livy, and Appian – all depict

Carthage’s violation of the treaty and sack of Saguntum as the initiation of hostilities.120

Despite these comments, Polybius discussed the differences between the actions that began

and caused the war, as Harris noted.121

In this discussion, Polybius claimed that the terms of

peace from the First Punic war were among the causes of the Second Punic War. The causes

included the anger of Hamilcar Barca against Rome (after the Carthaginian defeat), the

Roman invasion of Sardinia, indemnities paid to Rome, and Carthaginian success in Spain.122

118

Arthur Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome, 1.

119 William V. Harris, War and Imperialism, 200-201.

120 Appian, Roman History, trans. by Horace White, 7.2-7.4; Livy, The History of Rome, trans. by J.C.

Yardley, 21.5.1-6; Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 21.1-3-7; Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R.

Paton, 2.31.1-2.32.5, 3.8.1-6.

121 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 3.8-5.6.

122 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 3.12.1-25; Commander Hamilcar Barca of the First Punic

War was also the head of the Barca political faction, to which Hasdrubal and Hannibal belonged; though the

Roman-Carthaginian treaty demanded the removal of Carthage from the isles surrounding Italy, the

Carthaginians considered Sardinia as their territory.

37

The evidence for the Second Punic War depicts the defensive stance of the Roman state

despite their earlier aggressive behaviors (including seizing control of islands important to

Carthage’s access to resources) was a direct cause of this war.

In the Second Punic War, Rome appeared to act in defense, but the postwar results

indicated punishment and subjugation. In the treaty of 201 BCE, Carthage retained all

previously held “cities in Africa, all former territory, properties, and law code.”123

This piece

of the treaty indicates that Rome allowed the Carthaginian state to continue on despite

absolute defeat, but in the form of a smaller state. The next stipulation in the treaty was that

Carthage was to pay reparations for all atrocities that occurred as a result of breaking the last

treaty and were stripped of foreign relations powers.124

In essence, this stipulation took away

Carthage’s autonomous state status because they could not conduct foreign policy without

Roman permission. Lastly, the treaty allowed Rome to place Massanissa on the throne of

Numidia, which began Roman rule through client kings in the region.125

The Roman state clearly defended itself from an invading force in the Second Punic

War. Furthermore, some of the treaty stipulations had defensive implications. But the

Romans chose the ruler of Numidia, imposed massive payments on Carthage, and limited

Carthage’s foreign policy powers, which was clearly imperialism. The defensive nature of

the treaty was the reduction of a powerful state to a non-threatening status, which involved

not allowing the state to declare war on anyone, conduct treaties or alliances, and indemnity

payments that made militarization more difficult. Despite the defensive aspects, the treaty of

201 BCE clearly demonstrates Roman aggressive imperialist foreign policy. The lack of

annexation of this territory does not indicate a lack of political hegemony or economic

control over the region, both aspects of imperialism. Henceforth, Carthage only existed as a

vassal state to Rome with some domestic autonomy. Also, the Roman installment of

Massanissa to the Numidian throne as a vassal illustrates the Roman subjugation of Carthage

and Numidia, a large portion of North Africa. The elimination of the largest commercial and

political rival in the Mediterranean was the primary defensive motivation of Rome since the

Mamertine-Syracusan conflict led to these wars. In the Second Punic War, a true threat was

123

Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 15.1-19.5.

124 Ibid., 15.1.

125 Ibid.

38

presented to Rome, but the postwar actions were imperialist and aggressive. Rome was not

unique in the ancient world in seeking vindication for crimes against their state. The Roman

political hegemony over North Africa resulted from their aggressive foreign policy towards

rivals (Carthage) and lesser states (Numidia).

By 149 BCE, Rome internally decided to eradicate Carthage with little or no

provocation. The Third Punic War (149-144 BCE) began from a dispute between two

prominent Roman patricians, Cato the Elder and Scipio Nasica. Cato argued for war and the

destruction of Carthage while Nasica disagreed.126

The Romans claimed that Carthage broke

the treaty of 201 BCE through an illegal naval buildup and initiated a war against the

Kingdom of Numidia without consulting Rome.127

The Carthaginians surrendered themselves

to Rome, but Cato’s opinion prevailed and Rome went on to destroy Carthage.128

Despite

Rome’s previous subjugation of Carthage, the Roman state eliminated Carthage and annexed

the region as a province. These actions clearly fail to conform to the arguments for defensive

imperialism and were not defensive actions, but were a political maneuver to impose greater

control over the territory and commerce.

The Jugurthine War represents a change in Roman foreign policy in North Africa.

The Roman state directly intervened in a foreign internal dispute regarding succession of the

monarchy. Rome established Numidia as a client kingdom in 201 BCE when they installed

Massanissa as king. The proximity to actual Roman territory, the province of Africa, further

motivated Rome to action. Adherbal and Hiempsal (Micipsa’s sons) disputed the inclusion of

Jugurtha (whom Micipsa adopted) in the succession and division of the Numidian

territory.129

This dispute led to a power struggle in the region and Jugurtha’s successes

triggered Adherbal to request Roman intervention.130

Adherbal’s speech to the Roman senate in c. 116 BCE clearly demonstrates that the

Numidian kings were mere governors for Rome. In his opening, Adherbal declared that he

promised to treat the Roman state as family since the Numidian royals owed their positions

126

Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 49.1-7.

127 Ibid., 49.8-10.

128 Ibid., 49.2.

129 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 2.7-3.2; Micipsa was the king of Numidia and son of

Massanissa whose death began the succession dispute between his biological sons and his adopted son.

130 Sallust, Jugurthine Wars, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 3.1-3.5.

39

to Roman power.131

Then, Adherbal equated Jugurtha’s attacks on him and his brother as

“contempt for Rome’s imperial power.”132

He begged for Roman military assistance despite

the fact that he never performed a service for Rome, but promised future allegiance.133

Finally, Adherbal exclaimed to the senate, “I always believed my father’s assurance that

those who diligently cultivated your friendship were recompensed for the arduous tasks…by

the enjoyment of unequalled security.”134

His lengthy speech played to Roman sensibilities

and egos in order to gain favor against Jugurtha, who had already quickly defeated

Hiempsal’s and Adherbal’s army. For Adherbal, this speech was for self-preservation and

political gains. Despite his pleading the Numidian kings had acted somewhat autonomously

in their domestic sphere. The Numidians stood to lose this domestic autonomy if their actions

disrupted Roman commerce or threatened Roman interests in their province of Africa.

Jugurtha’s actual service to Rome in Spain with Scipio Africanus the Younger during the

Numantine War clearly created a problem for Adherbal in gaining the senate’s favor.

Another issue of this speech is that Sallust may have framed it in a favorable way to explain

Roman power over North Africa in his own time. Sallust was a lieutenant of Caesar and

made governor of the newly annexed Africa Nova province, so in many ways this speech

may have justified his position and wealth acquisition there after 46 BCE.

Sallust’s depiction of the Jugurthine War demonstrated that Numidia was already

integrated into the Roman state. Jugurtha bribed noblemen and the upper classes to gain the

Roman oligarchy’s favor, but also disrupted Roman commerce in North Africa. These

actions brought the plebeian and equestrian classes against him. The tribune Gaius

Memmius, who fervently opposed the nobility, sought war against Jugurtha and convinced

the people to vote for intervention.135

This event showed that the Roman people, who should

be regarded as a powerful branch of the government, had an aggressive foreign policy. Their

aggressive foreign policy was similar to the previous response of the Roman people to

Appius Claudius’s call to intervene in the Mamertine-Syracusan conflict. This confrontation

131

Ibid., 4.2.

132 Ibid.

133 Ibid., 4.3.

134 Ibid., 4.6.

135 Ibid., 5.1.

40

was a political action to impose the power of the people over the senate and maintain Rome’s

dominance over North Africa. The war concluded with the capture of Jugurtha through

Rome’s first diplomatic dealings with the Mauri of Mauretania.136

Sallust never provided

details for the outcome of the war other than the internal political events of Rome.137

Livy

ended his history of this war with Jugurtha and his two sons being marched in Gaius

Marius’s triumph and subsequently executed in 105 BCE.138

Although Rome restored the

Kingdom of Numidia, the Roman state chose the rulers and maintained political hegemony

over the region, which fails to follow the narrative of defensive imperialism. The primary

threat that Jugurtha presented was that he disrupted trade and threatened Roman power in

Carthage. Despite Jugurthine threats, the Roman state’s actions in North Africa exemplified

imperialism because Rome enforced their political and economic hegemony over the region.

The Kingdom of Numidia continued to exist as a client kingdom, with kings

designated by the Romans, until the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar performed the ultimate act

of imperialism in the region. From late 47 to 46 BCE, Caesar campaigned in Africa to hunt

down the Senatorial leaders, known as the optimates, and their military forces in a Roman

civil war. Although Caesar was primarily fighting Romans, the optimates had Mauri and

Numidian armies fighting on their side.139

Caesar utilized a system of clemency, which

brought a large number of defectors to him from the opposing forces.140

When Caesar took

Utica without opposition, many of the optimates’ leaders and the Numidian client king, Juba,

killed themselves because of their failure to repel Caesar from Africa.141

The dissenters

against Caesar fled to North Africa in order to be away from the main event, Caesar versus

Pompey. But these dissenters fled to this region because they could be viewed as allies of the

client kings and likely promised autonomy for assistance against Caesar. After defeating the

remaining opposition forces, Caesar returned to Zama, capital of Numidia, rewarded the

citizens that kept King Juba from entering the city, sold the property of Roman citizens who

136

Ibid., 12.17.

137 Ibid., 12.18.

138 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 67.2.

139 Julius Caesar, De Bello Africo, trans. by A.G. Way, 3.4-5, 18.1-2.

140 Ibid., 92.1-20.

141 Ibid., 93.15-94.10.

41

fought against him, and turned the territory into a Roman province, Africa Nova.142

Previous

to this point, a province was a region still being subdued through military force. For instance,

Hispania (Spain) was a province many decades before full subjugation with many ongoing

annual campaigns. The concept appears to change sometime in the first century BCE in the

sense that the governors of provinces began to extract huge riches from these regions. In

Numidia, Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust) was left behind with an occupying force to

maintain order and political control.143

Betty Radice commented that Sallust was “only saved

from condemnation by Caesar’s protection” for “blatantly enriching himself at the province’s

expense.”144

Earlier in the century similar problems arose from Varro’s provincial

governorship in Sicily, and when Sertorius arrived in Spain many mistrusted Romans

because of previous governors’ greed and mistreatment.145

The extractions of wealth from

provinces only appeared to be considered wrongdoing during this period. This new

immorality issue indicates that the Roman people no longer considered these provincial

peoples as foreign, these prosecutions were political assaults on the enriched individuals, or

both. Many governors plundered while their enemies in Rome viewed these actions as

stealing from the state more than simply mistreating foreign locals. In this province, most of

Caesar’s enemies were eliminated and those remaining (clearly not all) supported Caesar to

carry on their existence. Caesar annexed the region because he viewed the patron-client

system as not functioning since the former leaders supported the opposition. The governors

and new allies would defensively reinforce the region and bring Numidia under the direct

rule of Rome.

After Augustus Caesar became the most powerful politician of the Roman Republic,

North Africa’s integration into the Roman state was complete. In his Res Gestae Divi

Augusti, Augustus boasts of territorial and political expansion of Rome through conquest and

annexation. He declared, “I settled colonies of soldiers in Africa,” in addition he added Egypt

and Cyrene to the empire.146

These expansions were the final Roman claims to the territories

142

Ibid., 94.1-17, 97.1-9.

143 Ibid., 97.10-12.

144 Betty Radice, “Gaius Sallustius Cripsus,” 1.

145 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Dryden Translation, 2.1.1-2.1.6.

146 Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, trans. by Thomas Bushnell, 27.1, 27.9, 28.1.

42

in North Africa, other than quelling later rebellions. For the remainder of the first century

CE, Roman policy became more defensive, but not until increased economic exploitation and

incorporation of the region into the Roman Empire occurred.

Under the Julio-Claudian Dynasty (30 BCE to 68 CE), the Roman state consolidated

power and attempted to integrate the people of North Africa into the empire. In 17 CE,

Tacfarinas, a Numidian who served in the African auxiliary forces for Rome, drew the

neighboring Mauri and Cinithii into war.147

Rome treated this event as a rebellion, which

reinforces the idea that North Africa is completely integrated into the Roman Empire already.

Furius Camillus, a proconsul of Africa, brought together his legion with allied forces in the

region to put a stop to this rebellion.148

In order to restore order, Rome rewarded King Juba II

with the throne of Mauretania in 23 CE.149

At this time, Africa contained only two Roman

legions for the defense of Numidia, Cyrene, and Carthage because of the utilization of local

socii forces.150

Despite being defeated in his 17 CE rebellion, Tacfarinas continued to cause

rebellions in Africa against Rome until his death, which resulted from his final defeat in 24

CE.151

By 68 CE, Roman governors ruled in Mauretania, which had been divided into two

provinces: Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana.152

Furthermore after the

Flavian Dynasty came to power, North Africa integrated fully into the Roman system of laws

and politics, but not with citizenship for natives.153

Tacitus’s works reveal that the Julio-

Claudians worked towards the consolidation of their power in Africa through strengthening

defenses in reaction to rebellions, such as Tacfarinas’s, and rewarded allies for support

against such insurrections.

Archaeological research into republican settlements in North Africa would provide

more answers about Rome’s defensive interest in this region, since most archaeological focus

has been on imperial period sites. Settlement studies on the locations, cultural materials, and

defensive structures of these sites may indicate their defensive nature or purpose. The

147

Tacitus, Annals, trans. by A.J. Woodman, 2.52.1-3.

148 Ibid., 2.52.

149 Ibid., 4.5.

150 Ibid.

151 Ibid., 4.26.

152 Tacitus, Histories, trans. by Kenneth Wellesley, 2.52.

153 Ibid., 4.50.

43

location of settlements indicates the selection of commercial locations rather than defensive.

Roman expansion into North Africa provided control of trade routes, transshipment ports,

and markets in addition to new resources for its growing population. David J Mattingly’s

Tripolitania, a focused work on a single province from first to third centuries CE, interprets

the archaeological and historical evidence from Cyrene. Mattingly explained that several

types of settlements existed across North Africa and Cyrene, which included “tents (tecta),

huts/villages (mapalia), towers/refuges (pyrgoi, turres, and munitiones), and hillfort tribal

centers and urban settlements (oppida, urbes, and castella).”154

While the literary sources

primarily describe Numidia (which existed since at least the second century BCE), the

archaeological evidence from Tripolitania illustrates the prominence of two of these site

types: urban settlements and hillforts. Of these, the hillforts are best preserved because they

lack continued occupation while the urban centers were occupied over a long period of time

and contain more evidence from the latest occupations or are destroyed by modern use.155

The biggest difficulty with the archaeological research is the lack of work done on the

hillforts of these regions. Aerial photography provides nearly all of the details about these

sites. The hillforts occupied high ground positions that were more easily defended, yet had

little access to water. The interior urban sites (with continued Roman occupation) were trade

centers that facilitated trans-Saharan and interior-to-coastal trade.156

Also, Rome maintained

many coastal ports along the Mediterranean. This archaeological evidence indicates that

settlements under Roman control were maintained for commerce rather than defensive

purposes. Outsiders to the south, the Garamantes, were economically connected to these

Roman-controlled settlements and adopted Roman building techniques.157

These interactions

further demonstrate the non-defensive nature of these settlements.

As Roman economic and political power expanded across the limes of the empire, the

Garamantes and other Saharan peoples began to oppose this projecting Roman authority and

power. In response, the Roman principate built defensive structures in North Africa, which

154

David J. Mattingly, Tripolitania, 41-42.

155 Ibid., 42.

156 Ibid., 44.

157 Ibid., 49.

44

included coloniae, roads, and large systematically fortified ditches (Fossatum Africae).158

The Roman state utilized colonization through the settlement of military veterans and

relocation of the landless poor for political, offensive, and defensive purposes in Italy and

abroad including North Africa. This process is known as centuriation, which included port

construction and road networks.159

During the Late Republic through the end of the reign of

Augustus, the prominence of veterans’ colonies and the relocation of unwanted

demographics from Rome to conquered territories increased. Still, the paucity of

archaeological evidence for these early settlements provides difficulties for examining their

defensive structures and locales because of the long-term occupations at these sites.160

These

foundations are in essence defensive events because the Romans sought to reinforce regions

that needed to be stabilized. In addition to the defensive purposes, these settlements were also

places to conduct commerce and launch military operations. Sallust’s Jugurthine War

describes the Roman province of Africa as the location of winter camps and staging sites for

this conflict. The Romans constructed roads to connect Roman settlements (coloniae),

commercial centers, and the Roman limes imperii as networks for defense, trade, and

political control.161

As Jean Baradez’s aerial photography indicates, these roads eventually

paralleled a large structure that defined the North African boundaries of the Roman state, the

Fossatum Africae.162

Similar to the Fossa Regia, the Fossatum Africae appears to have had a

political function rather than defensive function. Although discussed further in chapter three,

the political function was to demarcate Roman political control from the unincorporated

peoples to the south.163

The roads that paralleled this structure had some defensive utility

during the first century CE. They allowed the region to be more easily policed. These

questions remain: what other function did this Fossatum Africae serve? What does the dating

of this structure say about its function and Roman defensive strategy?

158

The name of this structure is singular, which indicates that the individuals who named the structure did

not view it as a network of ditches. The later mapping and Baradez’s photographs indicate that this is a series of

interconnected ditches.

159 David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of Africa in the Roman Republic,” 510.

160 Ray Laurence, Simon Esmonde Cleary, and Gareth Sears, The City in the Roman West, 37.

161 David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of the Roman Republic,” 513-517.

162 Jean Lucien Baradez, Fossatum Africae.

163 Another political function of the Fossatum Africae was to communicate the boundary to the outside

populations.

45

From 300 BCE to 100 CE, the structures and systems utilized in North Africa had

greater political and economic motives, but defensive motives existed. During the republican

period, the Roman strategy illustrated greater concern with economic and political expansion

once their largest commercial, political, and military rivals were eliminated. Certainly, the

Roman state developed new defensive motives in North Africa from the first century CE

onwards. In Edward Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, he described the

defensive strategies of the Roman Empire in various periods including the early principate.

Under the Julian-Claudian Dynasty (27 BCE to 68 CE), Luttwak argued that the Roman state

created a buffer zone between itself and its external enemies with a series of client states

surrounding the empire’s boundaries.164

Luttwak was commenting on the entire empire, not

just North Africa. In North Africa, the buffer states were annexed into the empire and no

longer existed. The Roman state experienced many attacks from natives to the south of their

limes, which sometimes included peoples inside the empire. The instability in this region

along with the increased economic exploitation led to an increasingly defensive strategy that

included construction of the Fossatum Africae, increased troops, and greater divisions of

provinces for improved administration. These changes illustrate a state no longer concerned

with expansion, but consolidation of their power within their boundaries. Between the

Roman limes and Sahara Desert were vast numbers of fragmented tribal peoples seeking

survival, but to some extent they were being incorporated into the Roman economic system.

The tribal rejection of Roman power led to attacks from the south and a need to control the

boundaries. The construction of the Fossatum Africae and the defensive structures along this

network of ditches occurred during the reign of Hadrian (117-138 CE) onwards. These

structures illustrate the shift to a defensive strategy from an aggressive strategy in reaction to

these tribal attacks, which were detrimental to the economy and political control of North

Africa for the Roman state.

In sum, Roman motives and interests changed between 300 BCE and 100 CE. The

paramount defensive concern from 264 to 149 BCE was the elimination of Carthage as a

rival empire. From 200 BCE to 14 CE, the motives for Roman imperialism focused on

political and economic interests in North Africa. The centuriation of North Africa began after

the destruction of Carthage (146 BCE), which carried defensive, economic, and political

164

Edward N. Luttwak, Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, 7.

46

implications. The Roman state sought to politically and economically integrate the North

African peoples through the placement of soldiers in defensive positions. After the massive

territorial expansion of the republic and the reign of Augustus through annexation, the

principate policies in North Africa from 14 to 68 CE shifted to a policy of domestic defense.

Rome’s expansion into North Africa proliferated through the individual ambitions of

politicians, merchants, and the eradication of economic and political competitors. Clear

defensive motives and strategy can be found throughout the first century CE and beyond, but

political and economic motives were at the forefront of Republican Roman thought.

47

CHAPTER 3

POLITICAL MOTIVES

For if one fixed one’s eyes on the power of the consuls, the [Roman] constitution

seemed completely monarchial and royal; if on that of the senate it seemed again

aristocratic; and when one looked at the power of the masses, it seemed clearly to

be a democracy.

-- Polybius, Histories

In this passage Polybius described the hierarchy and structure of the Roman

government as he saw it in the mid-second century BCE from a Greek point of view. The

Roman state consisted of different tiers of government and power structures that allowed a

system of checks and balances, to some extent. The Roman Republic’s territorial conquest,

government structure, and politics of the individual led to a continuing shift in the balance of

power within the Roman state from the electoral assemblies and senatorial class to individual

magistrates with imperium (military command). The conquest of North Africa provided

many of these opportunities for the advancement of personal agendas in the political arena of

Rome. The rewards of military prowess included the titles, fame, and extended political clout

of the Scipiones and Cato the Elder. From 300 BCE to 100 CE, the Roman state expanded

into the Carthaginian sphere of influence and power, which led to increased imperial political

competition, Roman individual power, and Roman dominance in North Africa through their

unique, but evolving, political administration systems and military dominance. The political

motives for Roman imperialism were rooted in their desire for the elimination of nearby

imperial rivals and expansion of political and territorial hegemony over the Mediterranean

while individual political ambitions directed the state’s actions in accomplishing these goals.

The past scholarship on Roman imperialism during the republican period tended to

have a very limited scope in terms of period and region. This chapter will focus on the

political actions of the Roman state and the ambitions of political individuals. Furthermore,

this chapter examines the political structures utilized to administer and rule the conquered

48

territories in North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE. Previous historians have given North

Africa little attention on this subject, and thus ignore important events and details of Roman

expansion and imperialism. By examining a broader period of time, different patterns of

imperial behavior and policy changes become more evident, especially with the emergence

of the principate government. The works of Ronald Syme, Ernst Badian, and William Harris

continue to be the standards on the subject of Roman politics and imperialism during the late

republican period for historical scholarship, but some more recent commentaries have

emerged from archaeological studies that should also be included in the study of Roman

imperialism.

Earlier scholarly works on the political history of Rome focus on the violent end of

the Roman Republic. In 1939, Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution was published with a

focus on the transformation of the Roman political system. He claimed, “The period [44 to

23 BCE] witnessed a violent transference of power and of property; and the Principate of

Augustus should be regarded as the consolidation of the revolutionary process.”165

Ronald

Syme severely limited his scope of investigation in order to gain a better perspective on the

events that allowed the political maneuvering of Octavian. Overall, this work is more about

the internal political aspects of Rome, but still illustrates the importance of warfare in gaining

political position and power for the individual. As Syme detailed, “The political life of the

Roman Republic was stamped and swayed, not by parties (political) and programmes of a

modern and parliamentary character…but by the strife of power, wealth, and glory.”166

Syme

described the workings of Roman political life as a quest for political dominance, riches, and

familial merits. In this argument, he did not take a stance on the foreign matters of the state,

but helped with gaining an understanding of the Roman political character during the

transformation of the Roman state from republic to principate.

The Roman political character is important for understanding Roman actions abroad

including annexation, military decisions, and the creation of client states. While Syme

provided a picture of internal struggle in Rome, William Harris created the image of Rome as

a war-mongering state with internal agreement on conquest. Harris operated with a broader

scope than Syme; Harris examined the period from 327 to 70 BCE and included warfare

165

Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, vii.

166 Ibid., 11.

49

events across the Mediterranean. In Harris’s examination of the Roman political system, he

declared, “The consulship entailed not only political power and responsibility, but also

warfare.” Despite Mommsen’s defensive imperialism stance, Harris agreed with Mommsen

that the consulship was the ultimate political goal of political individuals but the real power

of the position was rooted in warfare and conquest.167

Harris also agreed with Syme that the

military actions of Rome abroad increased the power of individuals.168

This fact explains

Rome’s constant warfare and successes in conquering abroad including North Africa. In all

these works little attention was given to North Africa explicitly, despite the Punic Wars and

Jugurthine War having been of utmost importance to the shaping of politics in Rome from

the mid-third century to 100 BCE. In this region, the Scipiones, Metelli, and the many novi

homines of the late republic (including Gaius Marius) became formidable powers in the

Roman political arena in addition to transforming the political interests of Rome. Harris

highlighted the need to examine the individual and state interests of Roman expansion into

North Africa. His argument swayed excessively in the opposite direction from the supporters

of defensive imperialism. He believed all Roman actions were for territorial conquest,

political hegemony, and economic exploitation. While Harris’s interpretations on the nature

of Roman imperialism are debatable, he did move the conversation away from the defensive.

Since Harris, the argument of political motives of Roman imperialism has progressed

little. In 2013, Andrew Erskine claimed that aggressive imperialism applied to most cases of

Roman expansion, but the “defensive argument was not dead.” Erskine provided

commentary on the past arguments of the subject, but offered little new argument to the

subject, especially for North Africa. He took a very moderate approach, but Erskine argued

that the primary political motivation for Roman imperialism was individual political

ambition.169

In the recent past, historical scholarship still has not examined Roman

imperialism in North Africa and continues to straddle a moderate position between the

concepts of Harris and Badian.170

167

William V. Harris, War and Imperialism, 15.

168 Ibid., 17.

169 Andrew Erskine, Roman Imperialism, 37.

170 Ernst Badian was discussed in chapter two; he argued in favor of Roman defensive imperialism. While

both Harris and Badian argue for opposite extremes, imperialism encompasses both concepts not just defensive

or aggressive.

50

In the past several decades, archaeological research has offered more focus on North

Africa, but has mostly examined evidence from the imperial period. In 2013, David L. Stone

argued from an historical-archaeological perspective that Roman imperialism in North Africa

was a long-term process that occurred in stages from the middle republic to early empire. He

highlighted that the archaeological evidence for Roman imperialism in North Africa

illustrates massive building projects from Augustus Caesar onward.171

These projects were

clearly for economic exploitation (see chapter four), but Stone argued that for this massive

building to occur suddenly, political and military dominance would already have needed to

be in place, and it was.172

Stone brought together invaluable evidence, but presented

imperialism as an inevitable and natural evolutionary process rather than the actions of

political actors making decisions based on their militant-political culture. This explanation

ignores human agency in the conquest of North Africa. Roman policy towards North Africa

altered as the state’s relationship to the region and the Roman government itself evolved, but

these changes were motivated through imperial conquest and individual political ambitions.

An examination of the internal political traditions and designs of the Roman Republic

is required to understand how imperial rivalry, individuals, and the class system were behind

the political motives and interests of Roman imperialism. The political individual, the

classes, and the Roman state maintained an always changing, symbiotic relationship with

each other. The political individual had to maintain a course of increasing political position

(cursus honorum), which required military honors, access to wealth, and illustrations of

piety. These features led to a state of constant warfare, internal political strife, and the

transformation of the state from the republic to the principate government structure. The

classes, plebeian and patrician, were in a constant struggle for power and prominence in

control of Roman society, wealth, and political policy. The Roman state cannot be simply

described as the senate because this political body was deliberative not legislative, though

wielding influence over the people and legislature. The greatest political power of the senate

was maintained through the control of religion and allowing audience for diplomatic

relations, including treaty submission.173

Another important branch of government was the

171

David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of Africa in Republican Rome,” 507-511.

172 Ibid., 510.

173 Eric Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics, 211; the senate did not directly vote on treaties, but did

51

people, which participated in voting assemblies (comitia centuriata, comitia tributa, and

concilium plebis) that decided on war, peace, leaders, and laws of society. Politically, the

richest individuals had the most power in terms of vote, influence through campaigning, and

increasing the wealth of the men who fought in wars. In the middle to late republican periods,

commerce across the Mediterranean led to acquisition of wealth and power for the equestrian

class (see chapter four). The Roman state is made up of many pieces and had a constant

altering of policy through annual elections, but the acquisition of wealth and power for the

individual often motivated imperialist actions, including the Roman state’s political

domination of North Africa.

The First Punic War proved to be a major political event that increased the prestige of

families, increased the political power of individuals, and offset the balance of power

between the classes. At the war’s end in 241 BCE, an individual commander, Lutatius,

decided to establish a peace treaty with Carthage. The treaty read, “There shall be friendship

between the Carthaginians and Rome on the following terms. Carthage must completely

evacuate from Sicily, make no wars on King Hiero or his allies, give up all Roman prisoners

with no ransom, and pay 2,200 Euboean Talents to Rome for twenty years.” According to

Polybius, the Roman people did not accept this treaty.174

This decision demonstrates the

power of the people (men who vote) by this time. A vote of the comitia centuriata (an

assembly that provided the greatest power to the wealthiest people in Roman society) likely

refused Lutatius’s treaty. The people decided to assign a ten-man committee to renegotiate

the terms of this treaty in order to impose a more severe punishment on Carthage. The people

endowed this committee (a small group of aristocrats) with the full power of the state. This

group decreased the term of the indemnity payment to ten years, but increased the amount by

one thousand Euboean talents. In addition, Carthage was banished from all islands between

Italy and Libya.175

Lutatius sought an end to hostilities in order to be granted full honors for

ending the war successfully before his single-year political term ended, which brought

familial and personal political prestige to the victor, while the people (including the

have the power not to allow a treaty to be voted on. During several wars (such as the Pyrrhic War) the senate

was said not to accept audience to hear the treaty, which provided them with a lever of control over treaty

approval.

174 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.65.

175 Ibid.

52

aristocracy) wanted to punish Carthage, Rome’s nearest military threat and imperial rival.

This treaty process illustrates the complexities of the relationships between individual leaders

and the men they led, both politically and militarily.176

An important political motivation, interest, and goal for Roman imperialism were

dominance over nearby regions and polities.177

The militaristic character of the Roman

Republic intertwined military and political interests. Political positions were also military

commands, which involved yearly combat and introduction of legislation. The political was

motivated by military issues while most militaristic decisions are rooted in politics. In his

Politics as Vocation, Max Weber defined politics as “striving to influence the distribution of

power, either among states or groups within the state.”178

The Roman state certainly sought

to alter the distribution of power in the Mediterranean from the moment the Mamertines

sought Roman and Carthaginian assistance against the Syracusans. In essence, the

overlapping of political and economic spheres between Roman and Carthaginian territory

served as the political-military motivation to limit the rival empire. The original goal for the

First Punic War was political hegemony over Sicily, but a result of this war was a change in

political motives, interests, and goals. The Roman state now sought political hegemony over

the entirety of North Africa, which required the elimination of the largest power in the

region. While economic and defensive interests could be intermingled in the political

conquest of Sicily, the primary political interest at this point turned to the elimination of

threats and rivals to Roman authority and power, which the Roman state’s militaristic nature

promoted.

Polybius declared that the Roman state’s primary goal and desire was the “universal

dominion” of the known world, which their political design and culture perpetuated.179

Eckstein’s anarchistic model argues that all Mediterranean states had an aggressive-

176

The soldiers and officers below Lutatius could be his political rivals and had some power over whether

a treaty was approved and what process was used to negotiate a treaty (their vote in the comitia centuriata). The

treaty process illustrates the divisions and political ambitions of the different classes and branches of

government.

177 Roman conquest began before 300 BCE, so perhaps the motive for political hegemony cannot be seen

in these actions, but certainly the motives are rooted in gaining resources (including slaves) and perceived

threats, but politically the motivation, interest, and goal are always power.

178 Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation, 1.

179 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.66.

53

militaristic nature, so Rome was not unique. This nature required complete annihilation of

nearby states for the security of Roman sovereignty.180

In the case of the First Punic War,

Rome obtained political control of new subordinate territories (islands surrounding Italy),

while not eliminating their imperial rival in the region. The political gains that resulted from

the conquest of Sicily and the military strength of the Carthaginians instigated Rome’s

political interest in North Africa. The Roman state’s primary political interests and goals

rested in the desire, and perhaps need, to subdue a large and nearby imperial rival.181

From 241 to 219 BCE, both empires focused their military resources on other threats

and imperial ventures. This refocusing on other threats and aims indicates that the

Carthaginian-Roman peace treaty of 241 BCE was a political and military strategy rather

than absolute peace. In the conquest of Italy, Rome often made treaties to concentrate their

military resources on subduing a single foe. During this period of peace, Rome fought in

Greece and with nearby Celtic peoples. These other wars illustrate Rome’s constant warring

while providing some reasons that Rome did not seek complete conquest of Carthage.

Carthage maintained power over the nearby North African kingdoms, but often dealt with

resistance, especially on the part of the Numidians. While Rome dealt with Greeks and Celts,

Carthage fought many of their own mercenaries from the First Punic War that settled in

nearby regions and Numidia.182

Once North Africa was back under Carthaginian control,

they expanded into Europe via Spain. Carthage’s expansion into Spain served as a renewed

threat to Rome and its empire. Rome’s political concerns in other regions did not allow

further conquest in North Africa or the ability to keep the Carthaginian Empire from

expanding their power and influence. Ultimately, Carthaginian actions prompted Rome to

seek complete political hegemony over this burgeoning threat.

The Second Punic War and Numidian succession quarrels provided the Roman state

with a pathway for political hegemony in North Africa, but Roman ambitions required the

political and military domination of a formidable power, Carthage. At the end of the Second

180

Arthur Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome, 3.

181 To some extent, this goal or interest could be considered military, defensive, or political. In fact,

economic interests were also intertwined with political interests and goals. In examining this subject, the

historian is left to untangle spheres that are not all that well defined from 300 BCE to 100 CE. The most

important aspect is that political hegemony over other territories driven by economic aspirations and enforced

through military force is “imperialism.”

182 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.91-2.12.

54

Punic War, Rome had obtained their political control over North Africa through the defeat of

Carthage, a peace treaty, and political intervention. The Roman-Carthaginian treaty of 201

BCE stripped all foreign relations powers from Carthage, but allowed the conquered empire

to maintain its African territories. In addition, the treaty granted Rome political control over

the Numidian kingdom (previously dominated by Carthage) through the placement of a king

(Massanissa), who remained loyal to Rome during the Second Punic War, on the Numidian

throne.183

Previous to this, Numidia had been two kingdoms, split between Syphax and

Massanissa, which illuminates the pattern of Numidian succession and internal warfare.

Massanissa joined with the Romans against Carthage out of desperation because he had

already lost his territory to Syphax, who supported the Carthaginians in the Second Punic

War. The tradition of the Numidians was to split the kingdom between the king’s sons, but

often only one son would survive to maintain the entire territory. The Roman state’s

subjugation of Carthage and Numidian patterns of succession continually allowed Rome to

maintain political power over these kings and their territory through political and military

intervention.

The Third Punic War brought the Roman state further into the power structure of

North Africa through the complete elimination of Carthage, creation of a regional province,

and control over Numidian succession and territorial limits. Although Rome had already

subjugated Carthage through military domination and treaty, Massanissa’s complaints about

new Carthaginian hostilities pressed Rome towards total annihilation of Carthage. In these

actions, Massanissa was attempting to increase his territory and power in North Africa, but

brought greater Roman control. From this war onwards, the Roman state increased direct

involvement in Numidian politics as Rome obtained a neighboring territory. According to

Sallust, King Massanissa “remained a loyal friend to the Romans until his death (148

BCE).”184

After his death, his sons Micipsa, Mastanbal, and Gulussa all became kings of

separate Numidian Kingdoms, but Micipsa quickly emerged as the sole survivor of the

succession. Sallust proclaimed, “Micipsa became the sole ruler [of Numidia, r. 148 to 118

BCE] because his brothers…died from disease.”185

No ancient source narrates internal

183

Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 31.7.1.

184 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 2.1; S.A. Hanford, Sallust: The Jugurthine War, 29.

185 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 2.1.

55

warfare between these new kings, but the Periochae offers some insight into possible Roman

intervention and control in this event. Through his will, Massanissa entitled Scipio Africanus

the Younger to divide his territory among his three sons.186

This passage illustrates the plan

for succession involving a Roman arbiter but does not describe the actual events. The Third

Punic War eliminated Carthage and extended Roman power in North Africa through the

establishment of a province, Carthage. Scipio Africanus the Younger established the Roman-

Numidian border with the construction of the Fossa Regia. Furthermore, the Roman state

(actually Scipio Africanus the Younger) was given power over the Numidian succession

from their client-king Massanissa, which provided Rome power over the kingdom while

maintaining his familial hold on the throne.187

Numidian succession continued to draw the Roman state to intervene politically

through military action. Although Micipsa’s succession allegedly was not problematic,

Mastanbal’s illegitimate son (Jugurtha, who was excluded from the succession in

Massanissa’s will) played a crucial role in maintaining Micipsa’s relationship with the

Roman state.188

Jugurtha fought alongside Scipio Africanus the Younger in the Numantine

War in Spain, which won Jugurtha much fame and led to his inclusion in the succession. His

inclusion in the succession led to a similar internal power struggle as Syphax and Massanissa

experienced. As mentioned earlier, the succession battle between Syphax and Massanissa

drew Roman intervention because it directly related to the Second Punic War with these

leaders taking opposite sides. The succession of Micipsa supposedly required no military

action, but likely involved Roman political intervention with Scipio Africanus the Younger

establishing the border between the Roman province of Africa and Numidia. Immediately

after Micipsa’s death, Jugurtha was able to eliminate Hiempsal without trouble, but Adherbal

escaped defeat to enlist the protection of the Roman state. The events that followed illustrate

the differences in motives between class and political individuals. Jugurtha knew that paying

off patricians in the senatorial class and his past assistance with Roman success in warfare

186

Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 50.2.

187 While Scipio Africanus the Younger was made arbiter of the succession and boundaries through

Massanissa’s will, Scipio also held imperium, which made his actions equal to the state (discussed further later

in this chapter).

188 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 2.1.

56

would afford him some support to be the sole ruler of Numidia. He chose to ignore the role

of the lower classes in the political system, which proved to be a catastrophic mistake.

The Roman internal struggle for power between the upper and lower classes in

addition to individual power-mongering resulted in intervention in North Africa against

Jugurtha.189

In this conflict, the patricians were bribed and the conflict had not yet upset

commerce, which led them to support Jugurtha and a non-intervention policy. Gaius

Memmius, an individual seeking power, worked tirelessly to convince the plebeians to

support intervention in order to upset the patrician class.190

Sallust depicted Memmius as

always being opposed to the nobility and their avarice, which spoke to lower-class sentiments

of the time.191

Memmius’s actions could be described as campaigning for power in order to

obtain an elected position or gain more fame in Rome for his oratorical skills – two common

methods of increasing individual political power. The class system, voting systems, and the

Roman mob’s tendency to break out into murderous riots provided a need for the political

individual to gain support from the plebeians in order to achieve political aims. In the Roman

Republic, class needs and wants were often exploited to obtain support for political and

militant ambitions that also brought virtus, gloria, and wealth.

From the Jugurthine War to the reign of Augustus, the Roman state’s political actions

were motivated directly from agendas of political individuals (such as Scipio Africanus the

Elder and Younger, Cato the Elder, Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and Julius Caesar)

and the execution of political hegemony over North Africa. The many wars of conquest and

the massive expansion of the Roman state during the republican period provided many

individuals with great power within their society and government. The first to gain great

fame according to Polybius was Scipio Africanus the Elder. His successes and famous

actions during the Second Punic War against Hannibal already made him able to become

aedile prior to the proper age from 214 to 213 BCE.192

Between 211 and 210 BCE, Scipio

189

Although the power struggle of the classes was considered settled by many because the “Struggle of the

Orders” was over in 287 BCE, Rome continued to experience a back-and-forth power struggle, and much of the

internal conflict of the late republican period was related to class, but motivated by powerful politicians and

commanders.

190 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 4.1-5.1.

191 Sallust’s depiction of Memmius could be a moralistic ideal view of him because Sallust likely favored

his populist cause.

192 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 25.1; aedile was a political position that required the

57

Africanus the Elder was given command of Spain at a younger age than tradition and perhaps

law allowed.193

This figure, similar to many of the later famous political individuals of the

late republican period, gained power through a relaxation of Roman law and tradition, which

set precedents for new political allowances. These precedents changed the Roman state’s

internal political balance, from which successful generals gained the most power because the

masses supported them and their soldiers were becoming loyal to the individual commander

thanks to plunder. Polybius described Scipio Africanus the Elder as “the most famous man of

all time,” whom everyone desired to know. Furthermore, “Scipio…made the men under his

command more sanguine and ready to face peril…by instilling into them the belief that his

projects were divinely inspired;” however, “everything he did was done with calculation and

foresight.”194

Essentially, Polybius viewed Scipio Africanus the Elder to be a great general

and politician that closely followed mos maiorum, especially in front of his troops. In one

episode, the peoples of Iberia began to call Scipio the Elder “king” after he defeated the

Carthaginians in the region, but he refused the title in concordance with mos maiorum.195

Scipio Africanus the Elder was said to be the first Roman general to be titled after the region

he conquered. This title illustrates the fame and power that came with conquering Carthage

for a single individual of the Roman Republic. This set a precedent for future individuals

seeking political power through warfare and North Africa provided many opportunities for

this type of fame.

Individual ambitions became more prominent after Scipio Africanus the Elder’s

victory in the Second Punic War against Hannibal. Plutarch’s biography of Cato the Elder

offers an example of the political rise of a novus homo in Roman affairs through warfare and

political rhetoric. In reference to Cato the Elder, Plutarch declared, “Now it being the custom

among Romans to call those who, having no repute by birth, made themselves eminent by

their own exertions, new men.” Cato the Elder came from Tusculum and was brought up in

the Sabine territories.196

Despite his non-Roman beginnings, Cato became a powerful leader

construction or maintenance of public buildings and other public-use structures, such as aqueducts and roads.

193 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 26.1.

194 Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 10.2.1.

195 Ibid., 10.6.10.

196 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Dryden Translation, 1.25.1.

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in the Roman Republic through military successes that were utilized to bolster popularity. As

Cato fought under Fabius Maximus in Tarentum, he showed great curiosity and learning of

Greek philosophies. Through his moral living, advanced philosophical learning, and bravery

on the battlefield Cato the Elder gained Valerius Flaccus (an influential patrician) as his

patron.197

Most of Plutarch’s descriptions of Cato in these passages strictly follow a Roman

moralist point of view to determine the reasons for his successes. He also gained fame

through oratory in his prosecutions, such as charges he brought against Scipio Africanus the

Elder (victor of the Second Punic War) for lavish expenses on his soldiers.198

Most of Cato

the Elder’s fame came from the battlefields in Spain and Greece, but the power he gained

drastically altered North Africa’s political situation. Plutarch blamed, at least in part, the end

of Carthage on Cato’s political power, but “what Scipio [Africanus] the Younger did by his

valour gave it the last blow.” Cato the Elder allegedly discovered Carthage well-equipped for

major war as they waged relentless attacks on Massanissa’s Numidian Kingdom, which is

described as part of the “Roman confederacy.” This view might exist because of

Massanissa’s complaints mentioned earlier. Cato the Elder’s arguments for war clearly called

for the complete annihilation of Carthage in a preemptive strike. In front of the senate, Cato

the Elder “shook his gown as he dropped African figs and proclaimed that the place that bore

these was only a three-day’s sail from Rome, Carthage.” He argued that for these reasons

“Carthage must be destroyed.”199

Cato the Elder exerted his power to alter the Roman state’s

political relationship with North Africa further. Cato the Elder utilized the North African

threat to bolster his own political career, which brought him great fame and power. Cato’s

rhetoric led to the destruction of Carthage and the first directly ruled territory in North Africa

for Rome, which projected Roman imperialism further into the region.

The Third Punic War resulted in the Roman state’s direct rule in North Africa over

Carthage as a province, which clearly changed Rome’s relationship and political interests in

the nearby kingdoms and regions including Cyrene, Numidia, and Mauretania. The Roman

state’s intervention in the Numidian succession problems after 118 BCE illustrates the nature

of Roman political interests in North Africa. Rome allowed Jugurtha to eliminate his rivals

197

Ibid., 1.25.5.

198 Ibid., 1.25.6.

199 Ibid., 1.25.35.

59

without contest until his brother Adherbal requested assistance. A few Roman individuals

convinced the greater masses that intervention was necessary, which allowed for individual

military success to translate into Roman political power. In addition, Rome was already the

master of this lesser kingdom, but began a path to direct rule in the region. In this war,

several individuals’ political and military careers were launched while a few others were

completely destroyed. The two most prominent individuals to gain power from the

Jugurthine War were Gaius Marius (who went onto six consulships) and Sulla (who became

one of the most powerful dictators of Rome).

Gaius Marius was another novus homo (similar to Cato the Elder) who rose to power

through warfare in North Africa once he underhandedly gained command in North Africa,

which undermined his patron’s, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, ambitions. Metellus

had command in Numidia from 109 (as consul) through 108 BCE (as proconsul), but

Jugurtha fled to the protection of King Bocchus of Mauretania instead of continuing peace

negotiations, which eliminated Metellus’s chances of ending the war and receiving honors.200

These events and Gaius Marius’s seeking political support for imperium against his patron’s

wishes led to his successful command in Numidia.201

Marius’s consulships in North Africa

transformed the Roman state through military reforms and setting a precedent for multiple

consulships. His election to consul in 107 BCE represents a major change in the Roman

political oligarchy and the power of the lower classes to affect elections.202

Many plebeians

became wealthy from warfare, expansion, and trade while extravagant spending had

diminished the wealth of many patrician families. Marius pressed for political and military

changes that would further alter the political climate of Rome, which led to the absolute

power of a few individuals during the late republican period, such as Sulla, Pompey the

Great, Gaius Julius Caesar, and Gaius Julius Octavius (Octavian or Augustus after 27 BCE).

Plutarch provided a narrative that Marius started his career under Scipio Africanus the

Younger in the Numantine War in Spain.203

Marius, being from outside Rome, required fame

200

Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 62.1-63.6.

201 Sallust claims that Marius was acting on auguries and haruspices, which justifies his actions as divinely

inspired.

202 Marius’s military reforms allowed and funded equipment for the proletarii (landless poor) in addition

to reorganizing unit structures and the soldiers constructing roads along the way.

203 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Dryden Translation, 1.31.3.

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through battle and an influential patron to obtain a political career. Ultimately to be credited

with success in war, the individual must end the conflict through a treaty acceptable to the

people and senate or achieve complete conquest. Marius accomplished absolute conquest in

all of his ventures. Sulla also gained fame as the captor of Jugurtha, which would prove

deadly to Marius’s followers in the coming decades. North Africa remained a safe place for

Marius during Sulla’s dictatorship and the resulting proscriptions. Roman conquest in North

Africa granted vast amounts of power to individual leaders during the late republican period,

which further motivated conquest.

The theme of individualistic power in the Roman Republic through conquest and

imperialism in North Africa continued into the principate period. Julius Caesar’s extended

dictatorship and annihilation of his political enemies (optimates) affected North Africa in

several ways. Caesar like his predecessor as dictator, Sulla, and his triumvirate partners

(Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus) illustrates the rise of the individual. Although Caesar

annexed Numidia into the Africa province (Africa Nova), Rome had already conquered and

subjugated North Africa through client-kings, besides Mauretania.204

King Juba II’s (of

Numidia) harboring of Caesar’s political enemies was the primary reason for the end of that

kingdom. Caesar allowed the people who disobeyed the king in this conflict to retain their

properties and divided the king’s riches among them.205

Caesar’s popularity and power were

built through warfare and support of populist legislation in Rome. Most of the warfare he

conducted was in Spain and Gaul until he crossed over to Africa in order to end the civil war

with the optimates and bring that part of the Roman state under Caesarian control. Plutarch

narrated that Cato the Younger and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio fled to Africa

after Pompey’s defeat at the Battle of Pharsalus (48 BCE).206

An oracle had prophesied that

no Scipio could lose in Africa, but Caesar proved this wrong in defeating this dissenting

faction.207

Caesar’s dictatorial victories in North Africa led to his death, but also to Roman

direct rule over a large portion of North Africa including Numidia (Africa Nova) and

204

The original Africa province remained separate from Africa Nova, but was renamed Africa Vetus (Old

Africa).

205 Julius Caesar, De Bello Africo, trans. by A.G. Way, 91.1-98.13.

206 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Dryden Translation, 2.8.45; Plutarch, “Caesar’s African Campaign,”

trans. by Robin Seager.

207 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Dryden Translation, 2.8.46.

61

Carthage (Africa Vetus). Caesar’s attitude towards and actions in North Africa illustrate that

the Roman state already controlled North Africa, but the client-state relationship was

replaced with direct rule in response to rebellion against individual rule in Rome. Caesar’s

conquest of other Romans in North Africa and subsequent change in imperial administration

of the region further illustrates individual political ambitions as a motivation of Roman

imperialism.

Julius Caesar’s victory over the optimates in North Africa (and in general) in addition

to his relentless imperial ventures in other regions provided the funds and reputation for

Octavian’s civil war and governmental reforms in Rome. In an attempt to avoid civil war, a

ruling triumvirate was created that consisted of Marcus Antonius, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus,

and Octavian. These men were all closely allied to Caesar, but Marcus Antonius and

Octavian gained their power directly through their relation to him. Lepidus’s father was

closely allied to another victor of Africa, Sulla, previous to his dictatorial reforms. Despite

his connection to Sulla, Lepidus’s father and family renewed the populares in rejection of

Sulla’s brutal proscriptions and conservative reforms. This new style of government quickly

gave way to renewed civil war in which Octavian transformed the Roman political system

with political power consolidated under a single individual. Roman imperialism in North

Africa was closely related to the advancement of individual power, while direct rule over a

greater African territory brought the fame and riches that altered the Roman government

from republic to principate.

The transformation from the republic to principate government altered the Roman

state’s policies towards North Africa and further incorporated more territory under direct

rule. Resistance to direct rule resulted in greater changes to Roman policies towards North

Africa. In order to understand why Roman imperial policies changed in North Africa, an

examination of the new Roman political system and Augustus’s reforms must be considered.

From 30 BCE to 14 CE, Augustus introduced reforms to the state political system that shifted

the balance of power from the republican institutions to himself, while a façade of the

republican institutions and traditions remained intact. The Res Gestae Divi Augusti boasts

that Augustus increased the number of patricians and the senate.208

This increase of patricians

was closely related to rewarding those who supported him and altered the political landscape

208

Ibid., 2.8-14.

62

of Rome through the dilution of senatorial power. Augustus’s maintenance of republican

institutions, such as the voting assemblies and senate allowed for a smooth transition to

essentially a dynastic military dictatorship. When Augustus transferred power to Tiberius (his

stepson and chosen successor) the Roman state was officially something new with a dynastic

individual who pushed the decisions of state through recommendations and decrees.

Augustus and his successors began a program of imperial integration of the North African

territories and beyond.

In North Africa, annexation and integrations of peoples became the new Roman

imperial policy under the principate, but this had already been initiated through the

individualistic power of Julius Caesar. Augustus’s annexation of Cyrene, Julius Caesar’s

previous annexation of Numidia, and Scipio Africanus the Younger’s annexation of Carthage

formally incorporated nearly all of North Africa into the Roman state – only Mauretania

remained as a client-state. Political hegemony over client-states gave way to direct rule

through provincial governors in North Africa starting in 146 BCE, well before Augustus

Caesar’s rule. Augustus expanded this system across the Roman Empire, except in

Mauretania.209

The imperial policy of the empire shifted from political control at a state level

(kings) to a more localized rule through local authorities based in coloniae Romanorum and

provincial governors of increasingly smaller provinces. This shift to local rule brought about

resistance and rebellions in North Africa to Roman authority. The development of frontier

zones began to limit the damage and problems caused by the locals who were not willing to

be integrated into the empire. As mentioned in chapter two, these rebellions led to defensive

and perhaps political structures being created, both physical and administrative. For example

several scholars have argued that the Fossatum Africae was a political structure (physical

border), not a defensive structure (blockade). The archaeology of North Africa further

verifies these changes to imperial Roman policy in North Africa from military and political

conquest to consolidation of power as part of the imperial state from c. 30 BCE onwards.

A major problem for Roman consolidation of North Africa into its empire was that

the region consisted of many fragmented peoples of differing ethnic identities. These varying

peoples did not approve of the Numidians’ acceptance of Roman power and authority, which

209

Mauretania’s king, Juba, cooperated with Rome in order to maintain power, but centuriation of his

territory began under Augustus with many colonies founded in the region.

63

resulted in revolts. These rebellions against Roman imperialism led to new political motives

and policies involving North African ruling structures, which included provinces, coloniae,

and boundary ditches. Pliny the Elder mentioned that North Africa included a large number

(“516 peoples”) of peoples that were subjected to the Roman state by the first century BCE.

In the regions of this vast number of differing peoples, six Roman colonies existed.210

He

described the diversity of North Africa, but also the importance of Roman coloniae as

structures for the production and maintenance of political power. These structures housed

people with Roman citizenship (veterans and others that were given land) and culture in

addition to military forces who were to continue to subjugate this territory to Roman

authority at a local level. This evidence demonstrates the methods of subjugating territories

in already established provinces, but often more had to be done to bring these societies into

the Roman political system after the end of client-kingdoms. In essence, the provinces were

regions still being subdued on a local level in order to incorporate the people into the Roman

Empire since the client-kingdoms only subjected the rulers.

Another problem in North Africa was the resistant and uncooperative peoples on the

limits of the Sahara Desert. Some were nomadic peoples connected to trade with the former

client-kingdoms who now were shut out of the new provincial system. Roman power to some

extent excluded these peoples from interacting with these provinces, politically and

economically. Pliny the Elder described the peoples south of Numidia and Mauretania in the

coastal (Atlantic) and interior regions of North Africa. He portrayed many of these peoples

with legendary characteristics, but most importantly these regions were inhabited by people,

such as the Gaetulians, who resisted Roman power.211

As mentioned in chapter two, Tacitus

wrote about many rebellions in North Africa during the first century CE, such as those of

Tacfarinas (who was from south of the Roman limes in North Africa). These rebellions were

important for the restructuring and building of Roman imperial political structures in North

Africa for the purpose of keeping aggressive outsider populations out. In this sense, the

Fossatum Africae, though dates are not well established with most arguing for the

construction occurring after Hadrian’s reign, was a political structure similar to Scipio

Africanus the Younger’s Fossa Regia.

210

Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories, trans. by John Bostock, 5.4.

211 Ibid., 5.8.

64

Although many have argued for the creation of frontier zones as part of Trajan’s and

Hadrian’s imperial policies, Pliny the Elder showed that the concept already existed in the

Roman mind by at least 79 CE. He claimed that Scipio Africanus the Younger had a trench

dug, Fossa Regia, to divide Numidia from the new Roman province of Africa.212

This trench

had a political rather than defensive purpose, which can also be applied to the Fossatum

Africae. In the 1940s, Jean Baradez published aerial photographs with analysis of the

Fossatum Africae, which was a network of trenches, walls, and forts throughout North

Africa.213

The trench does not appear deep enough from Baradez’s photos to illustrate a

defensive structure, but difficulty remains in regards to sections that include walls or forts

(likely from after 100 CE).214

Elizabeth W.B. Fentress rehashed the arguments and evidence

available for this massive structure and noted that the Fossatum Africae served as the

southern limes of Numidia. The epigraphy and architecture of the fort structures were used to

date the Fossatum Africae to approximately the 120s CE.215

Historical evidence, such as

Sallust’s and Pliny’s works, indicates the roads and sites that developed into this massive

structure were already existent or being created prior to 120 CE. Ultimately the dating of the

structure is problematic because the digging of a ditch cannot be dated, so reliance on fort

style has been primarily used. Despite the difficulties involved in this evidence, the structure

depicts a change in imperial policy in North Africa from expansion to the consolidation of

power and authority in politically controlled regions. The lack of depth and indefensible

geographical locations (often low-ground positions) of the ditch indicate this was the political

limit of the Roman Empire, not a defensive structure.

Tacitus’s description of rebellions in North Africa, such as Tacfarinas’s, indicates that

some local peoples south of Numidia rejected Roman authority. These rebellions were taking

place in a period after Rome had added colonies throughout these territories and increased

economic exploitation. David L. Stone argued that the colonies were part of the centuriation

of North Africa, which was part of the infrastructure expansion in the region beginning

212

Ibid., 5.3.

213 Jean Lucien Baradez, Fossatum Africae.

214 Ibid., 40-41.

215 Elizabeth W.B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army, 83-40.

65

around 100 BCE and continuing well beyond 100 CE.216

Centuriation (derived from

centuriatio in Latin) refers to the division and redistribution of land to Roman citizens or

supporters in order to establish cultural dominance, urbanization of rural zones, and political

hegemony (on a local level). In essence, these redistributed lands, related to coloniae and

already existent settlements, served as political centers of the Roman state in North Africa,

which divided populations of subjects from those with citizen rights. Fergus Millar argued

that military roads were equally importance in Rome political control as centuriation.217

Baradez’s photos support Millar’s argument and show that many of these roads run parallel

to the Fossatum Africae.218

Centuriation and road building show the changing nature of the

political motives and interests of Roman imperialism in North Africa, which sought to extend

political control across North Africa.

The establishment of Roman coloniae, roads, and the continuation of Roman

imperialism in North Africa led to the Kingdom of Mauretania’s end. Over the course of the

Julio-Claudian Dynasty many colonies were established in Mauretania, at least eleven during

Augustus’s reign (see Appendix B). Fergus Millar argued that these colonies culturally and

politically influenced the client-king Juba (by 14 CE), which allowed the Romans greater

power over Mauretania.219

King Ptolemy (son of Juba) attempted to end the patron-client

relationship with Rome during Gaius Caesar’s (Caligula) reign (c. 37 to 41 CE), but this

attempt led to his execution and the annexation of Mauretania into two provinces.220

This

completed the annexation of North Africa into the Roman Empire. By this period, North

Africa was divided into several provinces with governors in charge of each region. The

smaller political units allowed for better military control and political administration, which

was the result of changing Roman policy in North Africa in order to defend against rebellions

and desert peoples expanding northward.

216

David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of Africa in the Roman Republic,” 510-517.

217 Fergus Millar, The Roman Empire and its Neighbors, 170-171; these roads branched from Carthage and

connected all the active settlements in Roman North Africa.

218 Jean Lucien Baradez, Fossatum Africae; the roads likely were built prior to the ditch, just as forts were

likely built near or on existing settlements.

219 Fergus Millar, The Roman Empire and its Neighbors, 170.

220 Ibid., 171.

66

As mentioned earlier in the chapter, Roman provinces (provinciae) were political

units controlled by a Roman governor, which sought to subjugate and incorporate the local

peoples into the Roman state. This system was a republican institution that was maintained

throughout the principate period, as is clearly illustrated in North Africa with provincial

Carthage established in 146 BCE, Numidia in 46 BCE, Cyrene between 30 BCE and 14 CE,

and Mauretania between 37 and 41 CE.221

Caligula divided Mauretania into two provinces

and by this time North Africa consisted of three provinces: Mauretania Tingitana,

Mauretania Caesariensis, and Africa Proconsularis (previously Africa Vetus, Africa Nova,

and Western Numidia). The smaller divisions of provinces illustrate problematic regions,

where local control must be wrested away from the local elite through military domination.

The consolidation of multiple provinces typically indicated political stability in a region.

Later in Roman history, these regions were divided into smaller provinces again around the

onset of the Third-Century Crisis, which further illustrates the smaller divisions relating to

political instability. The province was a Roman political unit utilized to incorporate and

integrate foreign peoples into the Roman imperial system as subjects. The establishment of

provinces in North Africa in lieu of client-states illuminates a change in Roman imperial

policy in this region to serve new political interests – complete and absolute Roman political

control at all levels of society.

In sum, the political motives, interests, and goals for Roman imperialism from 300

BCE to 100 CE were the elimination of imperial rivals, domination of the North African

kingdoms, and the acquisition of individual political power. The structure of the republican

government rewarded individuals for military conquest with political power, which

perpetuated territorial and political expansion. Overlapping imperial spheres of Rome and

Carthage led to a series of wars that increased Roman political and economic interests in

North Africa. The destruction of Carthage led to Roman political hegemony through client-

states in North Africa, but also direct rule in the former Carthaginian mainland. Individual

political motives instigated imperial conquest and changes to the Roman state that influenced

the political policies in North Africa. As the Roman state transformed from republic to

principate, imperial policy favored direct rule through provinces and colonies rather than

relying on client-kings. The provinces and colonies served as political centers of power to

221

Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories, trans. by John Bostock, 5.1.

67

subjugate at the local level. The political motives for Roman imperialism in North Africa

changed over time, but the Roman political motives were the elimination of major imperial

rivals, individual ambitions for political power, and direct rule through provincial political

structures.

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CHAPTER 4

ECONOMIC MOTIVES

Suetonius Paulinus, whom we have seen Consul in our own time, was the first

Roman General who advanced a distance of some miles beyond Mount Atlas…he

has stated that the lower parts about the foot of it [Mount Atlas] are covered with

a dense and lofty forest composed of trees of species hitherto unknown to us…by

the aid of art, a fine cloth might easily be manufactured, similar to the textiles

made from the produce of the silk-worm.

-- Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories

Pliny the Elder provided a lengthy and thorough description of North Africa from

Mauretania to the Cyrenian-Egyptian border in addition to the Atlantic coast of Africa and

the interior regions north of the Sahara Desert. These descriptions in part came from the

accounts of earlier explorers, such as Hanno the Carthaginian and Polybius. Pliny the Elder

described the products, people, political units, municipalities, villages, lifeways, and the

methods and circumstances of Roman conquest in North Africa. His Natural Histories

illuminates the economic commodities that motivated Roman expansion into North Africa.

Not only did he describe these trees that could produce luxury fabric, Pliny the Elder wrote

about ancient ruins of plantations and vineyards in addition to the other products that were

available from other regions, such as marble from Numidia.222

In this work, Pliny exhibited a

dislike for the luxury of the upper classes, as he stated, “the equestrians’ love of luxury had

left forests ransacked of ivory and citron wood and all the rocks of Gaetulia searched for

murex and purple.” Furthermore, Pliny reported that King Juba, father of the last king of

Mauritania, knew of an herb that grew in this region, “known as euphorbia, which a milky

juice can be extracted from that improves sight and cures poisonous and venomous attacks of

all sorts including serpent bites.”223

Economic motives for Roman imperialism included

222

Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories, trans. by John Bostock, 5.1, 5.2.3.

223 Ibid., 5.1.

69

many of the items discussed by Pliny in Natural Histories, which included the acquisition of

people for slavery, exotic commodities, agricultural production, arable land, luxury exports,

and raw materials for construction. Pliny’s descriptions, archaeology, and other historical

sources illustrate that throughout North Africa the Romans exploited many commodities

including arable land, olive oil, grapes, figs, and grains.

The economics of ancient Rome has been the focus of many scholarly works since the

beginning of the twentieth century. A majority of these studies examine the overall economic

system of the Roman Empire during the principate and dominate periods. Few scholars have

researched the Roman economic interests that motivated expansion into North Africa and

other regions during the republican through the early principate periods. These periods

represent the greatest expansions in Roman history, which were accompanied by an

increased concentration of commodity exploitation and construction of economic structures

in North Africa. This chapter considers the previous explanations of the Roman economy, the

economic structures for agricultural exploitation, commodities acquired, and individual

economic motives in North Africa. The lack of historical scholarship in this area requires the

utilization of ancient historical source material in conjunction with archaeological and

general economic studies to understand the products and circumstances that motivated

Roman economic expansion into North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE.

In 1920, Tenney Frank published a large multi-volume work, An Economic History of

Rome, which examines economic themes throughout the entirety of Roman history. In this

work, Frank argued that Rome required expansion in order to obtain arable land for grain

production because excessive farming had destroyed the Latium soils by the third century

BCE.224

This economic argument for Roman expansion provides a viable reason for the

middle republican conquest of Italy and later expansion into North Africa. Frank also

discussed the Roman colonization process that began in the fourth century BCE and

continued on through the reign of Augustus. He described colonization as an effective

method of imposing control over conquered farmlands.225

He concluded that “the results of

Rome’s expansionistic ventures” allowed the Roman citizens “to settle new lands and to

invest their excess capital in real property.” Roman expansionism made “farmers and

224

Tenney Frank, An Economic History of Rome, 36-37.

225 Ibid., 38-39.

70

capitalists” the most important Roman citizens in the middle to late republican periods.226

Frank’s economic study provides a strong starting point for the discussion of the Roman

economy in general.

In 1926, Mikhail Rostovtzeff published The Social and Economic History of the

Roman Empire, which was a large work similar to Frank’s but focused on the principate and

dominate periods. His purpose for this book was to explain the social and economic

evolution of the Roman Empire from a historical perspective. He claimed that all previous

works fail to provide anything more than speculation and hypothetical conclusions.227

This

work provided later economic historians of Rome with a new perspective that opposed

Frank’s concepts. Also, this text provided the foundation for smaller thematic works, such as

administrative or agrarian histories.

For much of the twentieth century, archaeological research also focused on general

economic arguments, but provided some focused studies on late republic to the early

principate periods in North Africa. These studies on the Roman economy provide new

perspectives for Roman trade, colonization, and imperialist motives in foreign territories.

Kevin Greene claimed that archaeological evidence provides the missing pieces of

information that historians and anthropological archaeologists have been debating for the last

century.228

In 1986, Kevin Greene produced an archaeological work about the Roman

economy in general from the archaeological perspective. Greene analyzed the evidence from

all the regions of the Roman Empire through the lens of economic models developed in

earlier archaeological, historical, and anthropological studies.229

The models were derived

from actions of principate and dominate governments after 100 CE. These economic

concepts offer different perspectives to examine the economic motives for Roman

imperialism from the middle republic to early principate periods, but are either

overspecialized for the imperial period or provide an oversimplified structure. Despite the

problems of these models, the archaeological evidence provided in Greene’s work does have

significance for this period, 300 BCE to 100 CE.

226

Ibid., 38-40.

227 M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, xi; this work included a

Marxist structure that brought about most of its criticisms.

228 Kevin Greene, The Archaeology of the Roman Economy, 13.

229 Ibid., 14-15.

71

Greene’s examination and analysis were derived from Keith Hopkins’s Roman

economic model, which was part of a body of research that rejected Rostovtzeff’s arguments

about the Roman economy.230

In Greene’s view, Hopkins developed his concept in

attempting to add more complexity to the Finley-Jones model which argued that:

1. Agriculture was the dominant economic activity of the Roman Empire.

2. Most products were consumed locally and not traded.

3. Most urban centers were financed through taxes and rents.

4. The lack of a mass market meant that luxuries were primarily the objects of trade.231

From these ideas, Hopkins developed his model, which argued that:

1. “Agricultural production” increased, which meant “more land was cultivated.”

2. A massive population boom occurred that was unseen for a millennium prior or five

centuries after “the first two centuries” CE.

3. ‘The excess population” led to more “non-agricultural labor and production in towns

and rural regions,” which increased the “divisions of labor” and a “high-point in the

distribution of luxuries and mundane goods from 1 to 200 CE.”

4. The “per capita production increased in nearly all economic activities as a result of a

wide range of stimuli including taxation, slavery, business practices, prolonged peace

and technical developments.”

5. During this period, “the intensity of exploitation increased because of the amount and

proportion of production which was diverted in the form of taxes or rents.”

6. The republican conquests “allowed for the excess levying of money taxes in core-

provinces, which were spent on the frontiers (to pay armies) or in Rome (for state

activities).”

7. This tax spending “stimulated long-distance trade, means of transport, production of

goods for sale, the use and volume of coinage, and the importance of towns.”232

Greene claimed that these arguments for this period can be corroborated or discredited

through the archaeological evidence. The Hopkins model that Greene employed fails to

properly view the events of the republic because it ignores the massive expansion of territory,

population, labor force (slaves included), commerce, and production. The available written

and archaeological evidence demonstrates that political changes to accommodate population

growth and increased economic needs began as a result of the republican conquest of the

230

Ibid., 14.

231 Ibid., 14-15.

232 Ibid.

72

Italic peninsula. The subsequent conquest of North Africa through the Punic Wars not only

furnished new commodities and increased slave labor, but also eliminated Rome’s largest

and nearest commercial rival, which, combined with the Augustan reforms, allowed for the

prosperous period Hopkins described in his work.

In 1990, Richard Duncan-Jones published The Structure and Scale in the Roman

Economy, which builds on the theories in A.H.M Jones’s earlier works, while overlooking

Finley’s and Hopkin’s updates to these theories. Prior to this book, Duncan-Jones published a

quantitative data study of Roman economic activity, to which Structure and Scale acts as a

sequel in order to develop a “more accurate picture of the Roman Economy.”233

Similar to

Greene’s archaeological work, Duncan-Jones examines transportation, demography,

agricultural patterns, cities, and the tax system of the Roman principate and dominate

periods. His purpose is to “explore the central areas of the Roman economy.”234

Other studies

illustrate that similar types of resources were sought and exploited during the republican

period as the periods examined by Duncan-Jones.

In a follow-up to all of these previous models, Greg Woolf’s 1992 article,

“Imperialism, Empire and the Integration of the Roman Economy,” considers the models for

regional and empire-wide economies juxtaposed with the archaeological evidence from long-

distance trade to develop a mid-point hypothesis. Woolf argued that Roman conquest

integrated regional economies into a large network of trade.235

The regional economies and

empire-wide long distance exchange existed in the same periods, but the greatest integration

occurred from the end of the Second Punic War to the end of the republican period, 201 to 30

BCE.236

In Woolf’s view the period of Roman imperialism, the republican period, brought an

empire-wide economic system with regional economies continuing to exist. Woolf’s

argument illustrates that economic motives were at the heart of the Roman state’s urge to

expand. The exploitation of important regional commodities from North Africa for trade and

manufacturing proved to be especially important to Roman conquest. The archaeological

evidence for North Africa corroborates this hypothesis.

233

Richard Duncan-Jones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy, xiii.

234 Ibid., 1.

235 Greg Woolf, “Imperialism, Empire and the Integration of the Roman Economy,” 283-293.

236 Ibid., 289.

73

The study of coins, or numismatics, is another archaeological method of examination

that can provide ideas of where and how money was being utilized in a given region or state.

In 1995, Kenneth W. Harl published a large study of Roman coinage, Coinage in the Roman

Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, in order to provide answers for the monetization of the

economy in addition to territorial expansion during the republican period. This study differs

from numismatic studies because Harl examined coins as evidence for the Roman economy

rather than cultural objects. He argued that as Roman political, military, and commercial

power grew, so did the extent of coinage throughout their world.237

The beginnings of

provincial coinage occurred in 200 BCE, which illustrates Rome’s growing economic and

political, as mentioned in the previous chapter, power in these regions. One problem is that

local coinage remained in some of these regions, but studies on these sets of data are

lacking.238

Harl’s work helps the understanding of the imperialist actions in North Africa and

other provincial regions. While coins have an obvious economic role, they also serve

political purposes in these regions.

Previous to Harl’s work, Elizabeth W.B. Fentress’s work utilized numismatics and

many other types of archaeological and historical evidence to illustrate the economy of the

Roman military frontier, specifically the limes Numidiae. In her theory, the Roman military

created the money economy in the frontier regions of the empire, as can be shown from the

evidence of the coloniae, Lambaesis and Thamugadi.239

Her evidence shows that the military

brought an influx of money, but long-distance trade of goods would be expensive from these

regions due to fact that the only available transport method was by road.240

This work shows

that the army and coloni (settlers) in addition to locals could be considered a market for

Roman manufactured goods. Evidence does exist for the “export of olive oil and wool, or

woolen garments” from this region.241

One method of long-distance exchange often

overlooked, as Fentress did, is down-the-line trade, which does not require one group of

traders to travel a long distance; instead, the product goes through local or regional exchange

237

Kenneth W. Harl, Roman Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, 1.

238 Ibid.

239 Elizabeth W.B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army, 175.

240 Ibid.

241 Ibid., 186.

74

systems. This system provides a lower overland cost for the exchange of goods. Also, south

of Numidia many nomadic peoples resided which could have carried the goods to other

trading centers. Fentress provided direct arguments for the integration of regional North

African economies into the Roman economy during the principate periods onwards.

The most recent works on the Roman economy focus on agricultural studies and often

utilize either a capitalist or Marxist structure. These focused agrarian studies are important

for developing an understanding of agriculture as an economic motive for Roman

imperialism in North Africa. Like many of the other works, many of these types of studies

focus on the principate and dominate periods. In 2005, Paul Erdkamp produced The Grain

Market in the Roman Economy: A Social, Political, and Economic Study, which closely

examines the various aspects of the grain markets of the Roman state. This study provides

some ideas about how grain was used politically and socially, but also depicts arable land for

grain production as an imperialist motivation for the conquest of territory.242

This book

provides more evidence for Frank’s argument that a need for arable land was a primary

motivation for Roman imperialism.

In 2007, Dennis P. Kehoe examined the relationship between law and economy

during the height of the Roman Empire in Law and Rural Economy in the Roman Empire.

This work focuses on the first three centuries of the empire starting with Pax Romana. Kehoe

argued that the “imperial peace fostered…increased commerce, and…the development of a

flourishing urban culture.”243

Essentially, this study assumes that the pacification of a large

territory under the Roman Republic allowed for peace and economic expansion in the

subdued regions in the principate period. This work demonstrates a change in policy in the

Roman state to consolidate economic power within regions previously subjugated.

Only two scholars argue directly about the economic motives for Roman expansion

during the Republican period. Ernst Badian’s Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic laid

the foundation for examining Roman foreign policy in relation to the internal customs of the

ruling classes. He approached Roman imperialism through “politics, strategy, social ethos

and even psychology.”244

In addition, he rejected the Marxist view of imperialism as being

242

Paul Erdkamp, The Grain Market in the Roman Economy.

243 Dennis P. Kehoe, Law and Rural Economy in the Roman Empire, 1, 5.

244 E. Badian, Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, 16.

75

related to markets, exports, and exploitation. Furthermore, Badian prefers not to view the

events of Roman expansion as economic at all, but political.245

His argument seeks to

simplify the Roman expansions and annexations of foreign territories as political maneuvers

that were defensive in nature. Clearly, economic and political motives persisted in Roman

foreign policy throughout the republican period, but they are difficult to disentangle from

each other. Historians should not seek to simplify complex events and developments. Instead,

scholars ought to examine the relationship between economic, political, and defensive

motives in relationship to the internal society. In Rome, the equestrian class certainly sought

economic expansion while the senatorial and plebeian classes had political and economic

needs. These political and economic needs fed into the territorial, political, and economic

expansion of Rome, especially into North Africa.

In opposition to Badian, William V. Harris’s War and Imperialism in Republican

Rome, 327 to 70 B.C. discusses the economic motives of the Roman state and problems of

the previous arguments. Harris claimed that the primary problem of the earlier arguments

against aggressive imperialism is the failure to answer for the “large tracts of land, silver,

gold, and plunder of every kind” that Rome obtained through warfare in its overall conquest

of the known world.246

Harris also highlighted the overall lack of importance applied to

economic motives in Republican Rome.247

The two prevailing attitudes, at Harris’s time,

were the Italian scholars’ argument for a mercantilist Roman policy and Badian’s anti-

mercantilist argument. Badian completely rejected economic motives for anything that

occurred in Rome in the late republic.248

Clearly, a major difficulty in the study of Roman

imperialism is the application of modern ideas in retrospect. Another matter to consider is

whether economic motives are on an individual, class, and/or state level.

In the Roman Republic, state expansion resulted from the economic motives of the

equestrians and was intricately connected to the political motives of the upper classes.

Furthermore, the plebeian class had economic motives for supporting warfare and expansion,

including the ability to obtain plunder and advance politically and socially. From 300 BCE to

245

Ibid., 17.

246 William V. Harris, War and Imperialism, 54.

247 Ibid., 55.

248 Ibid.

76

100 CE, Roman policy towards expansion changed, but economic motives persisted as a

determining factor in these policies. In the middle republican period (300 to 146 BCE), the

Roman state expanded into North Africa through political interventions that were also

connected to economic interests in the region, which can be defined as imperialism. The

methods of economic exploitation were connected to the foundation of economically viable

colonies and provinces, which the archaeological and historical evidence illustrate. During

the late republican period (145 to 30 BCE), the Roman oligarchy changed through the

economic advantages of warfare and expansion, which led to novi homines gaining greater

political authority in Rome and its provincial territories. In the early principate period (30

BCE to 100 CE), the Roman political structure and imperial policy were reformed while the

economic motives of the equestrian and senatorial classes were utilized to maintain

Augustus’s and his successors’ control of the state and class hierarchies.

The Roman economy was an agrarian system that required large tracts of arable land,

but also required many resources to conduct large-scale warfare and to accommodate the

growing population. In Max Weber’s 1891 book, Roman Agrarian History, he argued for the

methods and reasons for the formation, survey, and distribution of coloniae. Weber

established that the purpose and legal status of a colony could be determined by the method

of survey and distribution that was utilized, the colony design essentially.249

The older

designs were for tax-free veteran colonies, which substituted land for payment and provided

defensible territories that produced food commodities. Weber also determined that taxable

provincial colonies were not developed until the reign of Augustus, which was during a

period in which Rome had already annexed most of North Africa as provinces.250

During the

middle republican period, the Roman state created coloniae in recently conquered territories

to reduce the financial burden of the city of Rome and the plebeians, who were in Italy

primarily at this time.251

In his Ab Urbe Condita, Livy described the differences between

colonies founded in the years 302 to 292 BCE. He described the placement of military

colonies in recently defeated peoples’ territories for the purpose of extending Roman

249

Max Weber, Roman Agrarian History, 17.

250 Ibid., 18, 35.

251 The term colonia was derived from the verb to cultivate (colere), which indicates the colony’s

economic purpose for the Roman state.

77

hegemony.252

Beyond political hegemony, Livy also described colonies founded later in this

same period with the intention to “better the financial circumstances of the plebeian class.”

These two scenarios illustrate that the colonies founded around newly conquered regions

expanded Roman political influence while reducing the population in the capital to decrease

landlessness, unemployment, and resource needs. The latter economic policy is difficult to

separate from the political realm since the plebeians were rebellious against the upper classes

during this period.253

The Roman aristocracy struggled with the plebeians as a few gained

political power and wealth through warfare and commercial activity during the Italian Wars,

300 to 264 BCE.

The colonies in North Africa served economic, military, political, and defensive

purposes from the late republican period and beyond.254

These purposes exist for all of the

Roman colonies created, not just in Africa. Most of the early colonies in North Africa (see

Appendix B) were ports that allowed the control of inland and sea trade in their respective

regions, sometimes not new settlements but ones that had been taken or willingly realigned in

favor of the Roman state. Weber mentioned that the legal status of the colony often illustrates

who was living there. The original property owners became commoners while the

redistributed lands would be given to the new landed elite of a settlement. In other cases of

willing realignment urban centers were given municipium or oppidum status, which were

legal statuses that provided certain rights to the existing peoples, sometimes citizen rights and

other times Latin rights.255

The differences in rights provided to a settlement were directly related to how the

people or place came into the empire. An examination of how the North African territories

came into Roman possession is required to further understand the economic importance of

colonization. Pliny the Elder’s Natural Histories is the best available primary source for

specific information about colonies in the Roman Empire by the first century CE. In this

252

Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, trans. by Rev. Canon Roberts, 10.1.

253 Ibid., 10.2.

254 All colonies in Africa came after the province of Africa (formed from the Carthaginian territory in

Tunisia) was created; Utica came to Roman control in c. 149 BCE, but as a municipium, not a colonia, and

served as the Roman capital of the province. Other cities, towns, (oppida), and other designations also went to

Rome in hopes of clemency during the Punic, Jugurthine, and Civil Wars.

255 Max Weber, Roman Agrarian History, 46-172.

78

work, he listed the colonies and municipia of Rome in North Africa and their legal rights,

which for colonies are regarded as either coloniae civium Romanorum (Roman Citizen

rights) or coloniae Latinae (Latin rights).256

The process of colonization provided arable land

to Roman citizens, grain to the empire, and loyal settlements in new and sometimes

rebellious territory. Also, this process shows that arable land and grain were important

motives for Roman imperialism in North Africa.

As mentioned earlier, the Roman and Carthaginian economic and political spheres

overlapped in 264 BCE and led to the Punic Wars. The First Punic War was essentially

fought over the control of Sicily, which served as an important point in the Mediterranean for

trade, grain production, and access to North Africa, but brought no African territory for

Rome. Previous to 264 BCE, the Greeks and Carthaginians were the primary Mediterranean

commercial powers. The defeat of Pyrrhus in southern Italy and long-term war with Carthage

began a shift in the balance of Mediterranean power towards Rome. This fact and the full

subjugation of Italy began a new phase of Roman expansion to a new region, North Africa.

The Carthaginians were economically engaged in the islands surrounding Italy including

Sicily, which served as an access point between North Africa and Europe in addition to

Mediterranean sea-lanes. Furthermore, this Mediterranean power also controlled the ports of

Spain and access to the Pillars of Hercules. Access and control of the sea-trade lanes were an

important economic motivation for Rome, which led to conquest of port cities in Italy, its

surrounding islands, and eventually Africa.257

When the Romans crossed the Mediterranean into North Africa, the focus of their

economic motives turned to the available arable land, grain, and the control of trade routes,

but also highlighted individual economic issues for those fighting in these long-term

engagements. The Romans entered North Africa for the first time during the First Punic War

in c. 256 BCE. Commander Atilius Regulus requested to be released from duty to handle

affairs of his small farm.258

Regulus’s financial matter demonstrates the economic problems

of long-term warfare for Roman soldiers who were also small landowners. Larger

256

Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories, trans. by John Bostock, 5.1-5.6; Jona Lendering, “Colonia.”

257 Previous to 241 CE, Carthage was the most prominent commercial entity in the islands surrounding the

Italic peninsula.

258 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 18.1.

79

landowners would often confiscate these farms for debts, which eventually led to changes in

military participation and personal economic problems for plebeian individuals. Soldiers and

commanders gained plunder from warfare, but often lost real property due to inefficient

workers or unpaid debts. This loss of land in the homeland led to the expansion of Roman

colonies, which continued to be multi-purpose ventures throughout the republican period.

The first Roman possession in North Africa was Utica at the beginning of the Third Punic

War, c. 149 BCE. The Periochae says, “Before any troops were loaded onto ships,

representatives from Utica came surrendering themselves and all their property.”259

Utica

provided not only a militarily strategic point in North Africa against Carthage, but also an

economic stronghold as a port along the northern promontory of Tunisia. Roman expansion

into North Africa focused on correcting the internal problems caused by constant warfare and

gaining economically important locations, seaports and arable land. These seaports offered

income from trade and taxation on exports.

Sallust’s Jugurthine War discusses Utica and the province of Africa, which was

created after the city of Carthage’s destruction in 146 BCE but only encompassed the

peninsula of northern Tunisia.260

Sallust referred to Utica as the capital of the province to

which ambassadors were sent in order to oversee negotiations of terms during the Numidian

civil war.261

During the war, Gaius Marius is mentioned as “performing rituals” in a temple

in Utica and “discussing the war with the large community of traders.”262

Another episode

from this work mentions Marius as winning the support of “Gauda [son of Mastanabal and

grandson of Massanissa] and the equestrians, who were engaged in trade or military service,

at Utica.”263

These passages depict Utica as a place of Italian and Roman commerce by 116

BCE.264

While many of the ancient sources for the late republic highlight the political aspects

259

Ibid., 49.2.

260 This province included many previously Carthaginian cities and towns including Hippo Zarytus,

Hadrumetum, and Leptis Minor, which are all coastal ports (S.A. Hanford, Jugurthine War, 234).

261 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 4.25.3.

262 Ibid., 7.63.6, 7.65.4.

263 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 7.65.4; equestrians and other economic classes will be

discussed after the colonies.

264 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 9.85.48.

80

of Roman warfare and expansion, the economic events and issues are clearly embedded into

these narrations.

From the end of the Jugurthine War to beginning of the Pompeian-Caesarian civil war

of the 40s BCE, the sources do not elaborate much of events or changes in North Africa. In

North Africa, Rome exponentially increased colonization efforts after Julius Caesar’s

annexation of Numidia into the province of Africa Nova. The period from 145 BCE to 46

BCE was a time of turmoil in Rome and the surrounding regions with constant warfare in

Spain, Gaul, and Asia. Prior to this period, Africa was well-subdued through the patron-client

system, which provided economic resources from the Kingdom of Numidia and Carthage. In

addition, many existing cities, towns, and villages were colonized by military veterans,

proletarii (landless poor of Rome), equestrians, and Italic peoples for commerce, agriculture,

and land. During this period, Rome was involved in all North African political affairs.265

In

the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Augustus described his creation of colonies for over 500,000

citizens who took an oath of allegiance to him. He also sent some back to their original

municipia because these locations were also important for trade, defense, and military

purposes.266

In addition to the creation of colonies, Augustus sent a large amount of funds for

the construction of infrastructure to these places, which were important for trade as markets

and ports. During the reign of Augustus (30 BCE to 14 CE) many provincial regions,

including the North African territories of Cyrenaica (Cyrene) and Egypt, fully became part of

the Roman Empire rather than client kingdoms. Despite Augustus’s full annexation, Julius

Caesar’s earlier declaration of the African province already achieved the occupation and

governorship of the region. Augustus further developed greater integration of these peoples

as Romans since they had over a century to adapt to Roman rule.

From 300 BCE to 100 CE, the Roman state experienced massive population growth,

including conquered peoples, those granted citizenship, and many more born into a system of

ever-increasing agricultural success.267

Also, this period witnessed many wars and much

265

Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 51.1-114.1.

266 Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, trans. by William Fairley, 3.13-20.

267 Some of these categories could be overlapping, at least conquered peoples and those granted

citizenship. But most that are actually conquered were not incorporated as citizens. Many of the peoples that

willingly accepted Roman rule were given Latin rights. Territorial expansion led to many settlements being

integrated as municipia, but also brought many slaves into the Roman world that needed to be fed. Their

expansion also brought many crop-producing territories, which increased available food. The increased food

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death, but the Roman state still managed to gain population. The Romans were capturing

territory and people for the purpose of agricultural production, trade domination, and access

to luxury resources. Archaeological studies and the ancient sources provide some ideas of the

resources Rome sought in its massive territorial expansion. By the late republican period,

Roman territories had a large slave population with many working on large rural plantations

operated by wealthy landowners. In addition, exports and imports are shown to increase in

the principate period when a subdued but stable Mediterranean world emerged after civil

war. The Roman state’s expansion into North Africa through warfare with Carthage clearly

illustrates Rome’s economic motives, including resource acquisition and control of

Mediterranean trade.

Archaeological studies on Roman amphorae and Cato the Elder’s De Agri Cultura

demonstrate the importance of Roman olive oil and wine production for export. Most of the

evidence for wine production has been found in southern Italy, where many villas once were.

This evidence corroborates the details about wine-pressing in Cato’s work on agriculture.268

Similarly, archaeological and written evidence provides details about olive oil production.269

Wide areas of North Africa were integral to the large-scale production of olive oil.270

In light

of these details, North Africa should be seen as a commodity-rich region for important

exports and food production. These commodities provide economic motives for Roman

expansion. Kevin Greene’s archaeological study illuminates the significance of African and

Egyptian grain and olive oil to Roman trade and food supply.271

In Libya, pollen studies

show that the Romans grew plants for food production that required more water than rainfall

could provide in this region. In these same areas, the Romans built cisterns to store water for

agricultural production.272

The archaeological evidence indicates that the Roman state

adapted the conquered territories of Africa for excess food production for trade and internal

production brought increased populations.

268 D.P.S. Peacock and D.F. Williams, Amphorae and the Roman Economy, 31-33.

269 Ibid., 33-35.

270 Ibid., 35.

271 Kevin Greene, Archaeology of the Roman Economy, 72.

272 Ibid., 73.

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economic aid. Expansion into this region allowed for increased food production that offset

the lack of production in other regions in addition to trade exports.

In Polybius’s narration of the First Punic War, he only mentions economic activities

in relation to warfare. While the Romans and Carthaginians fought in Sicily, Polybius

mentioned the collection of grains and supplies.273

The text shows that this territory was full

of supplies, especially foodstuffs. This island also served as a gateway to Italy that controlled

the nearby straits and contained important ports. These straits undoubtedly provided tolls

from commercial ships. The state that controlled this territory would have access to large-

scale grain production and control of the northern Mediterranean sea-lanes. These advantages

illustrate some of the resources that motivated expansion towards North Africa.

The Roman state’s constant warfare provided another major agricultural resource,

slaves. Plutarch described Cato the Elder as “purchasing a great many slaves out of the

captives taken in war.”274

This passage indicates the importance of slaves as a commodity

produced through warfare during the middle republican period. During Marius’s first

campaign against Jugurtha (c. 107 BCE), Sallust wrote, “the town was set on fire, the adult

men massacred, the remainder of the population sold into slavery, and the booty divided

among the soldiers.”275

Slaves continued to be an important commodity in the late republican

period, though the adult males were killed as they are described as “untrustworthy.”276

Moreover, the soldiers’ taking slaves as plunder to be sold illustrates the economic motives

for warfare and expansion on the individual and plebeian class levels – financial gains. On

the state, equestrian, and senatorial levels of Roman society control of territory, access to

excess grains for the Roman poor, and increased available export products demonstrates

economic state and individualistic motives for Roman imperialism in North Africa.277

As

273

Polybius, Histories, trans. by W.R. Paton, 1.19.

274 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Dryden Translation, 2.20.7-21.2.

275 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 10.90.2.

276 Ibid.

277 Territory control allowed for colonization and agricultural production while alleviating Rome from

excess population. During this period, the increase in slavery caused mass unemployment, but large landowners

continued to purchase slaves – large landowners that had distinct power in the Roman state as senators and

merchants. Increased grain supplies kept the landless poor and plebeians from revolting – certainly a concern

for the state. The increased exports and imports were important for merchants (equestrians) while senators were

definitely financially enriched for assisting the equestrians in their ventures. In the late republic, the state was

interested in all these issues because the state is in the republican form with many voices, motives, interests, and

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expansion slowed during the principate period, the Roman state purchased slaves from other

societies beyond its frontiers and increased infrastructure for export production and

commodity processing, which in turn promoted defensive production to protect these

economic interests.278

The economic gains for Roman individuals and the various economic classes

(plebeians, equestrians, and patricians) through warfare and expansion were an important

factor for imperialist actions during the middle republican through early principate periods in

North Africa. Individual men motivated expansion in this region through persuading the

lower classes to vote for warfare and to support their political machinations. Territorial

expansion into North Africa brought military honors through warfare, which allowed for

upward socio-economic mobility for the plebeian class. Military honors in warfare often led

to increased social, economic, and political position. As the evidence shows, warfare and

expansion, especially in the Punic Wars and subjugation of North Africa, provided new

opportunities for novi homines, but also cemented the power of older patrician families, such

as the Scipiones.

Scipio Africanus the Elder and his successors are exemplary of patrician individuals

consolidating their power over the Roman state and people through warfare and expansion

into North Africa.279

Already from a rich and famous patrician family, these brothers

expanded the gloria of their family, which allowed the later generations of the family to gain

political office and military commands. These imperial actions on the individual level

increased the wealth of the family. Scipio Africanus the Elder was made famous for his

battles against Hannibal and the Carthaginians that led to the end of the Second Punic War in

201 BCE.280

The honor of being named after their conquests was something new in Roman

goals. Equestrian and senatorial classes needed the support of lower-class individuals and access to cheap labor,

while the plebeians needed income, food, and pathways for socio-political advancement.

278 While wealthy individuals provided the infrastructure for the public for political support during the

republican period, Augustus, as the princeps senatus, and his successors provided infrastructure building during

the principate period. Much of this infrastructure was built with slave labor, especially in North Africa. This

change in government demonstrates that the princeps senatus and the supporting bureaucracy became the state.

Therefore, the state purchased and took people as slaves – certainly criminals were subjected to slavery also.

279 Other individuals did the same in other regions, such as Africanus the Elder’s brother, Lucius Scipio

Asiaticus, which illustrates an empire-wide imperialist methodology among the upper classes for economic and

political advancement. My examination and narrative in this section will focus on those actions in North Africa,

as the region provides some of the greatest examples of these actions, which led to complete subjugation.

280 Livy, History of Rome, trans. by J.C. Yardley, 21.46.

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society, which illustrates the change in Rome towards individual political power. His son

earned the Africanus distinction for the destruction of Carthage and was constantly involved

in political discourse against Cato the Elder and the Gracchi in their reforms.281

This

patrician family serves as the best example for patrician familial and individual riches gained

through warfare and territorial conquest (especially in connection to North Africa), which led

to their increased political power in Rome. In addition to the destructions of Carthage, Scipio

Africanus the Younger was also known for creating a division between the province of

Africa and Numidia in 145 BCE, the Fossa Regia.282

He also gained political positions below

the legal age and often revealed publicly gifts accepted from foreign kings to increase his war

treasury, which could be returned to Rome, divided among his soldiers for greater individual

allegiance, or vowed to the gods for the building of temples that brought success to his

campaigns.283

Each of these was a strong economic motive for campaigning because warfare

brought access to wealth to produce gloria, virtus, and potentia. These purposes are

indicative of imperialism, which is defined as economic interests of certain classes promoting

warfare and expansion of the state for hegemony and exploitation.

During the Jugurthine War, Gaius Marius set the example for future novi homines in

gaining power and wealth through military campaigns. In this case, a military intervention in

North Africa, an already subjugated region, led to the rise of Gaius Marius. His successes in

warfare set an example for future men to make economic and political gains including Sulla,

Julius Caesar, and Octavian. Although Marius mostly gained political position, including his

many consulships, Sallust documented his economic gains that he divided fairly equally with

his soldiers for their direct loyalty.284

In Marius’s second campaign, Sallust narrated a siege

on the Numidian imperial treasury, which indicates he targeted locations that would disrupt

the enemy’s supply lines while also gaining vast plunder.285

Ultimately, warfare in North

Africa provided fame and riches, which allowed Marius’s political campaigning and his

281

Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The Dresden Translation; Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 50.1-

60.1.

282 Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories, trans. by John Bostock, 5.25.

283 Livy, Periochae, trans. by Jane D. Chaplin, 57.1; this detail is given as a positive because most

concealed these gifts for themselves, but he publicly did this for the purpose of turning wealth into power over

his men.

284 Sallust, Jugurthine War, trans. by S.A. Hanford, 10.90.2.

285 Ibid., 11.94.1.

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allegedly setting the precedent for future novi homines. As mentioned earlier (chapter three),

many men, including Cato the Elder, were novi homines who came to power in Rome, and all

were from propertied Italic families. In addition, the division of wealth among troops can be

found in Scipio Africanus the Younger’s actions in the Numantine War. In many ways,

economically and politically Marius was not the first to achieve these changes in Roman

traditions, but he did propitiate individual power in the Roman state. Marius increased the

political and economic power of individual imperatores through including a wider section of

the lower classes in warfare and plunder and providing the necessities of war to the

proletarii, which greatly altered the voting demographic and offered increased wealth to

people who had none. Overall, the discourse against the novi homines in the late republic was

political rhetoric of the optimates, including Cicero who was also a novus homo.286

In many

cases these men were as wealthy as the upper classes or had upper-class patrons, whom they

eventually turned against. Marius turned against Quintus Caecilius Metellus (Cos. 109 BCE),

who was his patron prior to and commander in the Jugurthine War, whom Marius

undermined to gain political and military power that also brought his own wealth. The

discourse against these non-Romans gaining power in the state and city became prominent as

Publius Cornelius Sulla, Marius’s subordinate in the Jugurthine War and nemesis in later life,

rose to his dictatorship and eradicated Marius’s political supporters.

The ancient sources remained silent about North Africa until the civil war between

Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. Although patrician, Julius Caesar was from an unknown

family at the time of his rise. He rose to power and wealth through borrowing from patrons

and territorial conquest in Gaul and Spain. Ultimately, Caesar furthered individual power

through territorial conquest and civil war with Pompey. The conquest in North Africa of the

political dissenters and their local supporters (Numidia and Mauretania) produced wealth for

the successful general to promote political popularity and future conquest, and provided the

wealth for a political transformation. In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar entered Africa during this

civil war between the Roman political factions, optimates and populares. Although the

Roman state controlled North Africa by this time, Julius Caesar conquered other Romans and

286

Cicero was not from Rome, but used his oratorical skills in prosecutions to gain fame and position, a

novus homo. He also was in the optimates whom pushed the conservative ideals for the Roman Republic.

Cicero often wrote against others for being novi homines to gain political support in his political faction. Most

of the other novi homines of the late republic, who Cicero wrote against, were of the populares faction.

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their supporting locals in this subjugated territory. After defeating his enemies, Caesar

liquidated their property to fund his Spanish campaign and support of the Roman

population.287

These riches were gained by Octavian as Caesar’s heir. Octavian bestowed the

riches upon the people and built public works for increased employment and economic

stability. In this case, warfare and reorganization of patron-client states into provinces

provided the plunder that was turned into political and state funds that advanced individual

power and prestige. The expanded territories also provided new positions in the empire for

the equestrian classes as tax collectors (publicani). Expansion into North Africa offered new

markets, resources, and positions for many Romans, which increased the personal economies

of the individual.

A prominent class that provided economic interest for expansion into North Africa

was the equestrians (equites). The historical narrative does not often mention them, but they

were often already in places the state was not, especially North Africa. The most prominent

scholarship on these individuals, who were wealthy merchant-soldiers, primarily focuses on

the principate period. During this period, these individuals were the ruling aristocracy only

below the princeps senatus. For the republican period, these individuals affected military and

political decisions through wealth, and fought in the wars for economic and territorial

expansion. According to Ronald Syme, the equestrians “preferred comfort, secret power and

solid profit” to risking their wealth for fame and politics.288

Furthermore, some of this

economic class (many belonged to patrician families but were considered below those of the

senatorial order), acted as tax collectors (publicani) in Italy and the provincial holdings of the

Roman state during the republic. During this period, these businessmen acquired much

greater wealth, which provided much greater power, especially at the onset of Augustus’s

principate government.289

Sallust’s narration of the Jugurthine War illustrates that equestrians

conducted trade and business in the province of Africa after its annexation in 145 BCE.290

Richard Duncan-Jones examined the role of these individuals in Roman North Africa during

the principate period through epigraphic studies and historical sources. Duncan-Jones argued

287

Julius Caesar, De Bello Africo, trans. by A.G. Way, 91.1-98.13.

288 Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, 13-14.

289 Ibid., 14.

290 Sallust, Jugurthine War, 7.65.4.

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that the inscriptions concerning the equestrian rank in the municipia of North Africa suggest

that the rank was conferred upon them from the central government through the census,

while other scholars have claimed hereditary succession was possible.291

The important

factor is that “equestrian” economic status that granted these individuals with specific rights

(in terms of elections) and them to acquire wealth and property through business transactions

including commercial trade and tax collection. During the principate, this economic and

social position allowed for imperial government posts, judging in the local law courts, and

other local municipal administration posts, while requiring specific military duties.292

The

wealth and imperial advice of the equestrian class funded political campaigns and fueled

expansion in addition to economic development of the provincial cities and colonies.

In sum, the Roman state expanded political and economic power over most of North

Africa by 201 BCE. By this time, Rome developed a patron-client relationship with the

Numidian Kingdom, which controlled commercial ports and agricultural resources including

grapes for wine, olive oil, and grain. The wars fought in this region also provided vast human

resources in the form of slaves for agriculture, mining, and household purposes throughout

the Roman state’s territory. As turmoil arose between Carthage and Numidia, the Roman

state finally eradicated its largest commercial rival, which was already subjugated. At the

beginning of the Third Punic War (149 BCE), the Roman state gained the city of Utica,

which provided a commercial port, market, and militarily strategic point in North Africa.

After the razing of Carthage (the city), Rome established a province centered on the Tunisian

peninsula, which increased their arable land, markets, and commercial ports in the region.

The Jugurthine War (111-105 BCE) provided increased resources, greater control over

Numidia, and the establishment of diplomatic and economic relations with Mauretania. The

Punic Wars and Jugurthine War highlight the personal and familial financial gains of

individuals through warfare and expansion.

The annexation of Numidia, Cyrene, and Egypt into the Roman Empire allowed for

more economic gains for the equestrian classes and plebeians favored by Augustus’s

principate. With the complete integration of North Africa into the empire, Rome was able to

develop the economic and political infrastructure of this region. The equestrian class was

291

Richard Duncan-Jones, “Equestrian Rank in the Cities,” 141.

292 Ibid., 151.

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able to gain new positions as tax collectors in addition to ownership of resources and

production facilities in the region. This expansion and development of the African cities led

to greater integration of the people into the empire.

The Roman state had clear economic motives for territorial expansion including

individuals’ gains, the redistribution of excess populations, increase in food production, the

acquisition of commodities, and the addition of economic centers from 300 BCE to 100 CE.

The republican conquest of the known world led to the principate policy of incorporating

regions into the Roman Empire’s economy. During the principate period, North Africa was

fully integrated into the economy of the empire with a personally advantageous tax program

for the equestrian class. This program increased the efficiency of tax collection and

equestrian wealth. The conquering of Italy provided the Roman state with the framework for

its imperial economic policies. After the Second Punic War, these methods were utilized in

North Africa to increase the wealth of individuals and the empire. The Jugurthine War and

Julius Caesar’s conquest of the optimates in North Africa led to new methods of individual

gain for the lower classes, equestrians, and novi homines. While economic motives cannot

fully explain Roman imperialism or be completely separated from politics, the Roman state

clearly had economic motives for territorial and political expansion into North Africa from

the middle republic through the early principate period.

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSIONS

He [Scipio Africanus the Younger] totally destroyed this city [Carthage], which

was hated by the Roman nation from resentment over its power rather than for

any harm it had done them at the time, and Scipio [Africanus the Younger] made

a monument to his own ruthlessness of what had been a monument to his

grandfather’s clemency [Scipio Africanus the Elder]. After standing 666 years,

Carthage was destroyed….Such was the end of the Roman Empire’s rival.

-- Velleius Paterculus, Roman History

Velleius Paterculus portrayed Roman imperialism in the ultimate exemplum of

Roman authority and power in North Africa during 146 BCE. This moment in time is

considered the start of a new era in Roman history by many contemporary historians – the

late republican period. The complete destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 BCE

expressed individual power and Roman imperialism that finally erased these historic rivals to

the Roman Empire from the face of the earth. Scipio Africanus the Younger had followed the

sentiments of Cato the Elder and left Carthage in smoldering ruin. Paterculus narrated a

moment of change in the Roman Republic from a defensive stance (Second Punic War) to

the elimination of imperial rivals for absolute power and domination (Third Punic War). For

Paterculus, the politics of the individual drove Roman imperialism and internal civil war,

which led to the end of the republic and his own time.

During the republican period (509 to 30 BCE), the Roman state conquered most of

Europe, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, and North Africa creating a multicultural empire out of

the entire Mediterranean world. Rome integrated the peoples, economies, and political

systems of these regions into its empire. Most of these regions were not willing or wanting to

be incorporated, but were militarily forced or economically coerced. The military and

economic conquest of North Africa by the Roman state was imperialism, as Hobson defined

the concept. Imperialism is a foreign policy driven by certain classes for their own benefit

that involves economic and political conquest through military force. Although the

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ingredients of imperialism are coercion, conquest, and aggression, the concept should not be

used for derogatory judgment against a state or its leaders. Instead, historians should use the

concept to understand past governments and empires better. The upper classes, including

patricians and equestrians, promoted Roman warfare and expansion for their own political

and economic gains. These classes convinced and coerced the lower classes (plebeians and

proletarii) of the need for imperialist actions through iustum bellum and financial and

political rewards. The Roman Republic was a militaristic and imperialist state that was

focused on conquest for power and wealth, especially in the case of North Africa.

From 30 BCE to 100 CE, the Roman government became a dynastic monarchy that

maintained the institutions of republic, the principate. This governmental change also

coincided with policy changes in North Africa. As David L. Stone argued, this period also

witnessed an increase in economic production and construction of infrastructure in North

Africa, which resulted from the republic’s previous economic and imperial integration of this

region.293

The principate government sought to protect economic interests as the regions in

North Africa were not completely subdued, in the sense that resistances persisted. The

Fossatum Africae represents a response to the rebellious element and North Africans not

integrated into the empire. This political and defensive structure illustrates the limes of the

empire under Hadrian (possibly prior), but many different people still operated and lived on

the outside of the empire at the limits of the Saharan Desert. These peoples led rebellions

against the Romans and continued to resist integration throughout the first century CE.

Elizabeth W.B. Fentress’s archaeological evidence and argument showed that some of these

people on the outside of the limes did economically interact with the Romans.294

The

problems with the rebellious peoples resulted in the construction of more defensive structures

in North Africa and increased forced cultural integration, which all occurred after the first

century CE.

Roman imperialism in North Africa was rooted in aggressive foreign policy relating

to political and economic aims of the upper and lower classes, but also featured some

defensive goals from 300 BCE to 100 CE. The Romans expressed their imperialistic policy

through warfare, territorial expansion, and political subjugation of foreign leaders and

293

David L. Stone, “The Archaeology of Africa in the Roman Republic,” 505-521.

294 Elizabeth W.B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army, 61-115.

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peoples. In the Roman Republic, the people voted for these foreign policies and the military

commanders who implemented them, which indicates the lower classes were convinced to

support these policies. Although wealthier individuals’ votes counted more than those of the

less wealthy, the lower classes acted as a mob to achieve their will. Without support of the

Roman crowd, politicians could be the subjects of lynching and assassination. In this system,

the senate had the power to alter the terms of peace, war, and legislation while some

magistrates had the power to veto these actions. In essence, the power of editing and vetoing

legislation ensured that the people had no choice in the details of peace, war, or legislation:

only rejection or acceptance.

In part, defense played a role in Roman imperialism, which the archaeology and

literary sources illustrate in North Africa from 300 BCE to 100 CE. Many of the ancient

Latin sources illustrate the Roman concept of iustum bellum (Just War), which provided the

appearance that all military actions were the result of defending an ally or reaction to an

assault. Polybius provided details for the Punic Wars, and other wars outside of North Africa,

through a second-century BCE Greek perspective that illustrates Roman aggression through

the goals of territorial and political domination. Many of the Latin historians were closely

linked with the ruling dynasties of their time. These links required these historians to avoid

certain topics, deceive about the reasons for specific imperial actions, or transmit their

feelings and complaints about the current regime through the previous governments.

Although the sources include these biases, certain features of Roman imperialism in North

Africa suggest some defensive aims.

The primary defensive goals of the Roman state, which were already established in

300 BCE, were to place buffer states between the capital and significant threats to Roman

sovereignty and to weaken nearby imperial rivals that posed a military threat. The buffer

zones and threat mitigations were achieved through treaties with nearby peoples and patron-

client relations with newly conquered states. Also, the treaties allowed more resources to be

focused on one or two enemies at a time rather than many, which was problematic for Arthur

Eckstein’s anarchistic model for ancient states. When the Roman and Carthaginian spheres of

power and influence overlapped in Sicily and other islands surrounding Italy, the Roman

defensive reaction was to conduct warfare, but this was a mutual decision since Sicily was a

great commercial interest of Carthage. After each of the first two Punic Wars, Rome utilized

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treaties to set distinct political and economic boundaries combined with punitive monetary

punishments on Carthage. These treaties were defensive in the sense that they enforced a

buffer zone and sought economically to damage Carthage’s ability to rebuild its military. The

defensive motivation behind Roman imperialism in North Africa from 300 to 149 BCE was

to create defensive space between the Roman capital and its political and commercial rival

states.

From 149 BCE to 14 CE, the Romans began the process of integration and complete

annihilation of rival states in North Africa through conquest and annexation. During this

period, Carthage, Cyrene, and Numidia were all annexed into provinces, while only

Mauretania remained autonomous until Caligula’s reign (c. 37-41), although, Augustus’s

many colonies all around the kingdom and Tacitus’s Annals suggest that this state had

become a client-state of the Roman Empire between 30 BCE and 14 CE. From 14 CE to 100

CE, the primary defensive interest of Rome was eradication of rival peoples through

economic and political integration. During this period, the coastal regions of North Africa

were fully integrated into the Roman Empire, but the interior peoples continued to reject

Roman authority. Out of this rejection, a defensive strategy was formed to delineate non-

Roman North Africa (along the edge of the Sahara Desert), which developed into the Roman

Empire’s frontier zones with large-scale defensive structures being built after 100 CE.

In part, the Roman coloniae and incorporation of municipia and oppida were

defensive strategies relating to annexing rival territories or protecting state interests in North

Africa. In addition, these structures allowed Rome to relocate military veterans and reinforce

regions with defensive military forces. But these forces were also subduing the peoples of

these regions while also integrating these regions, cities, and towns into the greater Roman

economy. These incorporations and several other strategies have been utilized to bolster the

argument for defensive imperialism. But the concept of defensive imperialism does not

explain the actions of the Roman state in general or in North Africa. The economic and

political motives were at the root of Roman imperialism, as William V. Harris’s aggressive

imperialism concept overstates.

Political authority and power were at the heart of Roman imperialism in North Africa.

From 300 to 201 BCE, the Carthaginians’ large and growing Mediterranean empire came

into conflict with Rome’s quickly expanding spheres of power and influence. The First and

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Second Punic Wars were fought over Mediterranean dominance, not just North Africa.

Previous to 201 BCE, Carthage was the imperial master ruling over the North African

kingdoms in addition to the peoples of Spain. In 201 BCE, the peace treaty that ended the

Second Punic War placed the Roman Republic as the new patron of Carthage and the other

North African kingdoms. This treaty stripped Carthage of all foreign policy and

economically punished the state in order to discourage militaristic buildups. The treaty had

obvious defensive implications, but in whole sought to make Rome the dominant political

and commercial power of the Mediterranean and North Africa.

Early in Roman history, the concept of honor through warfare was a tradition,

whereby militaristic success and acting in concordance with mos maiorum developed one’s

virtus and gloria. These concepts were important for gaining political office and military

commands for individuals and their family members. Roman imperialism in North Africa

was directly linked to Roman tradition, Roman behavioral concepts, and the rise of

individual power in Rome. Scipio Africanus the Elder was one of the most important

Romans who provided the framework and precedents for concentrated individual power in

the Roman state. He was able to gain new honors, fame, and unprecedented authority

associated with the conquest of territory and the subjugation of peoples, Carthage and the

North African kingdoms. His successor, Scipio Africanus the Younger, further developed

individualistic power through gaining offices and imperium at an age below legality and

tradition. In addition, Scipio Africanus the Younger eliminated Carthage in the Third Punic

War and set the limes between Numidia and the new province of Africa with the Fossa

Regia. He was also directly involved in determining royal successions in the Kingdom of

Numidia. These two individuals became the exempla for building individual power in the

Roman Republic. Many of their contemporaries began gaining titles associated with their

conquered regions in Greece and Asia. In the coming generations, Gaius Marius, Lucius

Cornelius Sulla, and Gaius Julius Caesar, extended the power of individuals in Roman

politics through warfare in North Africa and elsewhere, which led to greater integration of

conquered regions into this republican empire.

Gaius Marius, a novus homo, gained unprecedented levels of power within the Roman

state through the Jugurthine War. While his methods of gaining power were not different

than his predecessors’, Scipio Africanus the Elder, Younger, and Cato the Elder (also a “new

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man”), Marius altered the Roman state through military reforms and set new precedents for

the political power of the individual. Many Roman authors attribute the rise of novi homines

during the late republican period to the fall of the republic. But this commentary was political

rhetoric, not reality because many powerful Roman politicians previous to and during this

period were novi homines themselves. Cato the Elder was not from the city of Rome, but

gained power through successful military service and excellent oratorical skills. Through his

military success and skilled speech, Cato the Elder convinced the people and senate that

Carthage must be destroyed, as it was in 146 BCE. The Jugurthine War granted Gaius Marius

a series of consulships that allowed him to vastly change the Roman military and solve

recruitment problems. Under Marius, the state began to supply military provisions to the

landless poor in Rome, which removed unwanted peopled from Rome, increased available

troops, and served to increase the power of individual commanders. The direct loyalty of

soldiers to commanders increased with shared plunder from warfare. This provided the

extremely poor and lower classes with greater motivation (socio-economic mobility and

access to wealth) to fight in wars and altered the voting demographic. Also, the Jugurthine

War provided Sulla with the fame needed to become the most powerful ruler Rome had seen

since the kingship was eliminated. Sulla’s dictatorship altered the political landscape of the

Roman state through the mass murder of his political opposition, which increased

factionalism and set the precedent for the powers of Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar.

From 105 to 46 BCE, the African kingdoms continued to be domestically

autonomous while the province of Africa served to project Roman authority deeper into

North Africa. The decision of the kings of Numidia and Mauretania to protect the optimates

in the Caesarian-Pompeian civil war (40s BCE) ended their domestic autonomy. Clearly,

these kings believed they would gain independence from Rome by assisting the dissenters

against Caesar. Julius Caesar’s defeat of the optimates, Numidian, and Mauri forces led to his

annexation of Numidia as a province in 46 BCE. This event served as the starting point for a

domino effect of annexations across North Africa, which should be viewed as a change in

Roman policy towards the administration of conquered territories. From 30 BCE to 14 CE,

Augustus annexed Cyrene (and Egypt) and began to implement coloniae in Mauretania and

across North Africa, which continued under his successors. These colonies subjugated and

economically exploited Mauretania while providing settlement locations for veterans. In

95

Mauretania, a client-state was developed under Augustus that included colonization to

subordinate the locals to Rome, a design from the Italic conquests from the fourth century to

264 BCE. Caligula had the last king of Mauretania executed and his kingdom annexed into

two Roman provinces. Politically, the Roman state indirectly controlled most of North Africa

by 201 BCE. Many wonder why the Romans did not annex these territories and the many

conquered territories outside of North Africa. This alleged non-annexation policy is directly

related to the defensive imperialism argument. The resources needed (mainly people,

defensive units, and structures of power and authority) to annex a territory were not available

to the Roman state after the massive death toll and financial expense of the first two Punic

Wars. The lack of resources and Rome’s continuing warfare in other regions (such as Gaul,

Spain, and the east) made annexation of North Africa improbable and a horrible decision.

Instead, the Romans implemented the republican patron-client system, which worked well

for a time, but also had many problems during times of succession. The political motives for

Roman imperialism were rooted in individual ambitions, but the elimination of political

rivals and domination over political entities in addition to territory acquisition were primary

motives.

The Roman state expanded political power through the economic motives of certain

classes from 300 BCE to 100 CE. The development of patron-client relationships with the

Numidian Kingdom provided access to a greater number of commercial ports and

agricultural resources including grapes, olives, figs, marble, exotic goods, and grains from

the interior of North Africa. Pliny the Elder described medical products from Mauretania and

marble from Numidia; in addition natural olive trees, vineyards and plantations from

previous cultures, and the agriculturally rich territory of Byzacena (Tunisia, near

Hadrumetum) were found in North Africa. Pliny the Elder’s descriptions and archaeological

evidence for economic infrastructure and agriculture illustrate Roman economic interests in

the region. These commodities were important to the equestrian classes, which already

conducted business ventures in these regions prior to conquest. In addition, these men

became the middlemen for senatorial wealth production since Roman Senators were not

supposed to conduct merchant activities. In fact, the senatorial class was supposed to be

above those activities and wants and even enjoyed a higher level of status over equestrian

ranked men, although maybe not as much wealth.

96

Another important resource in North Africa was people, and the acquisition of slaves

was shown to be a great motivator for Roman warfare and conquest. Soldiers could take

people as plunder and sell them elsewhere as slaves. Every description of the wars conducted

in North Africa describes the enslavement of the conquered, plus capturing slaves occurred in

other subdued territories. The amassing of slaves through conquest led to mass

unemployment in Rome, but also increased production and profits at large villas. The slave

issue in Rome illustrates an economic motivation of Roman imperialism, but also a cause of

the enrichment of large landowners and the increase of individual power. After the fall of

Carthage, North Africa was filled with fragmented societies that could more easily be

exploited. Pliny the Elder also identified the many peoples of the region that were lacking

unification. The capturing of slaves provided opportunities for wealth acquisition to Roman

men of all socio-economic statuses who were conducting warfare.

As Rome began the destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War, many cities,

towns, and villages decided to join Rome rather than fight on behalf of Carthage. In 149

BCE, the city of Utica accepted Roman power and provided the state with a prominent

commercial port, market, and militarily strategic point in North Africa. After the Third Punic

War, Rome established the province of Africa, which incorporated a few other important

ports, such as Hadrumetum, and some agriculturally productive territories in Tunisia.

Territorial expansion into North Africa increased Rome’s arable land, markets, and

commercial ports, which served as important motives for expansion into this region. The

increase of arable land also provided Rome with a place to send retired veterans and the

landless poor for colonization through the redistribution of land.

Another economic function of the equestrian class was tax collection; these men were

known as the publicani. The annexation of Cyrene and Numidia provided more opportunities

for this type of profiteering. Under the principate government, the publicani system of tax-

collection was expanded into all of these annexed territories. These men received a portion of

the taxes collected under contract with the state. Each settlement in North Africa fell under

different legal structure, which includes municipia, oppida, or coloniae administrative

structures. Coloniae Romanorum were related to the redistribution of territories to veterans,

which were not taxed and could occur in already established settlements. Most municipia,

oppida, and other types of foreign occupied structures were taxed, and the publicani profited

97

from these places. For the equestrian and patrician classes, the economic motives for

conquest were immense. The Roman political system required the equestrian and senatorial

classes to provide economic motives to persuade the lower classes to vote and support

warfare in addition to be willing to fight. The economic motives for Roman imperialism were

wealth production of the individual, commodity acquisition for the wealthy and the state, and

access and control of important ports and markets.

In sum, all of the classes often had political and economic motives for conquest. The

patrician class justified their actions in terms of the Roman concept of virtus and mos

maiorum, which falls under the concept of Roman Just War (iustum bellum). As Harris

mentioned, the defensive motives have been greatly exaggerated over the past century in the

study of Roman imperialism. But defensive motives existed and varied at different points of

Roman conquest in North Africa. These motives included the elimination of threatening rival

states during the republican period and protecting political and economic interests during the

principate period. Political motives for Roman imperialism were on an individual (as Badian

argued) and state level, which included military honors for increased prestige and political

power and control over the lesser states of North Africa for economic exploitation. The

economic motives included resource and commodity acquisition, increased tax-collection,

increased ports and markets for manufactured goods, and increased production of exotic and

trade goods (in the principate period). In the study of Roman imperialism, North Africa has

been grossly overlooked by historians who have focused more on Greece and Spain.

Unfortunately, these scholars also have concentrated on periods and events that fit their

argument best, narrow periods of time. Archaeologists have examined North Africa more

thoroughly in regards to Roman imperialism, but the focus has been on the imperial period

and the concept of Romanization. Increasing the scope of time in the examination of Roman

imperialism illustrates the changes in policy that took place and the long-term goals for an

aggressive foreign policy. At this point, archaeological excavations and more complete

settlement studies (especially on republican period sites) could increase our knowledge of

Roman imperialism in North Africa.

98

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APPENDIX A

MAP OF ANCIENT NORTH AFRICA

104

105

APPENDIX B

MAJOR EVENTS IN ROMAN HISTORY

106

c. 753 BCE Foundation of Rome

c. 510 BCE End of the Monarchy in Rome

c. 509 BCE Establishment of the Roman Republic

700 – 400 BCE Apex of Etruscan and Greek City-States in Italy

c. 500 – 287 BCE Struggle of the Orders

c. 450 BCE Twelve Tables Law Code Established

c. 396 BCE Roman Conquest Veii (Etruscan City-State)

c. 390 BCE Gauls Sack Rome

343 – 341 BCE First Samnite War

326 – 304 BCE Second Samnite War

298 – 290 BCE Third Samnite War

264 – 241 BCE First Punic War

218 – 201 BCE Second Punic War

215 – 205 BCE First Macedonian War

200 – 196 BCE Second Macedonian War

192 – 189 BCE Rome Defeated King Antiochus III in the Syrian War

171 – 168 BCE Third Macedonian War

149 – 146 BCE Third Punic War

146 BCE Destruction of Corinth and Carthage

150s – 133 BCE Numantine War

133 BCE Tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus

113 – 101 BCE Cimbric War

112-105 BCE Jugurthine War

91 – 87 BCE Social War

88 BCE Sulla’s First March on Rome

90 – 85 BCE First Mithradatic War

83 – 82 BCE Sulla’s Second March on Rome

74 – 63 BCE Second Mithradatic War

58 – 51 BCE Julius Caesar’s Gallic War

49 BCE Julius Caesar Crossed the Rubicon River

48 – 45 BCE Julius Caesar Supported Cleopatra in Egypt, Eliminates Pompeians

44 BCE Caesar Assassinated, Octavian Defeated Antony at Mutina

31 BCE Battle of Actium

30, 27 BCE Octavian Captured Egypt, Renamed Augustus

30 BCE – 14 CE Reign of Augustus Caesar, Start of the Principate Government

14 – 37 CE Reign of Tiberius

37 – 41 CE Reign of Gaius Caesar (Caligula), Assassinated in 41 CE

41 – 54 CE Reign of Claudius, Establishment of Ostia Harbor

54 – 68 CE Reign of Nero, Committed Suicide in 68 BCE

66 – 73 CE First Jewish Revolt

68 – 69 CE Year of Four Emperors; Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian

69 – 98 CE Reign of the Flavian Dynasty

430s – 460s CE North Africa Lost to Vandals

107

APPENDIX C

ROMAN COLONIES OF NORTH AFRICA

108

Colony Name Location Legal Status Period/Dating

Utica Africa Vetus Citizen Rights 149 BCE

Colonia Iunonia Africa Vetus Citizen Rights 121 BCE

Quiza Xenitana Mauretania Latin Rights

Unknown

Cirta Numidia Unknown

Post-105 BCE

Sicca Numidia Citizen Rights Post-105 BCE

Tabraca Numidia Unknown Post-105 BCE

Carthage Africa Vetus Citizen Rights Post-46 BCE

Maxula Numidia Unknown Post-46 BCE

Uthina Syrtis (Libya) Citizen Rights 30 BCE-14 CE

Tuburbi Syrtis (Libya) Citizen Rights 30 BCE-14 CE

Julia Constantia Zilis Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Julia Campestris Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Valentia Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Cartenna Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Gunugum Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Iol (Caesarea by 79 CE) Mauretania Unknown Unknown

Tipasa Mauretania Latin Unknown

Rusconiae Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Ruzacus Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Salde Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Igilgili Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Augusta Mauretania Unknown 30 BCE-14 CE

Lixos Mauretania Unknown 41-54 CE

Truducta Julia (Tingis) Mauretania Unknown 41-54 CE

Iol (Caesarea by 79 CE) Mauretania Colony Rights? 41-54 CE

Oppidum Nova (Veterans) Mauretania Citizen Rights 41-54 CE

Rusucurium Mauretania Citizen Rights 41-54 CE

Icasium Mauretania Latin Rights 69-79 CE295

295

Pliny the Elder, Natural Histories; Sallust, Jugurthine Wars.