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
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.
58
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.
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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.
68
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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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
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.
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