Armed resistance to Roman rule in North Africa, from the time of Augustus to the vandal invasion

ABSTRACT

It is difficult now to determine how much resistance there was to Roman rule in North Africa because of the almost complete absence of evidence for the sentiments of the region’s non-Roman population. A small number of so-called ‘Libyan’ inscriptions survive on stone, but the texts, where they can be deciphered, reveal little. Armed resistance to Roman rule seems to have been sporadic and mostly small-scale, at least in the period before about 250 CE. The most significant threat to the region’s security was the rebellion of the Musulamii led by Tacfarinas, which began in 17 CE and lasted until 24. But Roman rule itself was not seriously threatened, because Tacfarinas could not defeat the Romans in battle. After the death of Tacfarinas, resistance to Roman rule appears to have been centered in the highlands of what is now north-western Algeria. The Roman army, which functioned primarily as an internal security force in north Africa, seems to have had trouble monitoring, and therefore controlling, the tribal peoples who lived in the mountains, and, to a lesser extent, the transhumant, semi-nomadic populations of the region, who moved their flocks and herds north in the summer and south in the winter.

KEYWORDS:

• Roman North Africa
• rebellions
• Roman army
• Tacfarinas
• highland tribes
• transhumance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.2495.

2. All translations of ancient works are my own.

3. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.10230.

4. Bénabou, La résistance africaine.

5. The standard collection is Chabot, Recueil des inscriptions libyques.

6. It may be ancestral to modern Berber: Raven, Rome in Africa, 15.

7. Jugurthine War 78.

8. Concerning Chorography 1.41.

9. On the City of God 16.6.

10. The Romanization of Africa Proconsularis, 228. A typology of indigenous responses to Roman conquest can be found in Bartel, “Colonialism”, especially at 16.

11. The auxiliaries were recruited from non-Roman citizens and served as a complementary force to the legions (Latin auxilia, “helpers”). They were organized in cavalry or infantry units, typically of 500 or 1,000 men. Some units fought with their native arms or specialized techniques (e.g., archers).

12. The campaign is described in Pliny, Natural History 5.36.

13. Histories 4.183.

14. 55.28.3–4.

15. La résistance africaine, 65.

16. Frontiers of the Roman Empire, 79.

17. It is notoriously difficult to track tribal names over time in the historical record. Some disappear without explanation, while new tribes (or maybe just new names) appear constantly. It might be supposed that some names actually represent tribal alliances, or federations.

18. Mauretania was annexed by the Romans in 40 CE, under the emperor Caligula, and divided into two provinces, Mauretania Caesariensis, which corresponds roughly to what is today north-western Algeria, and Mauretania Tingitana, now northern Morocco.

19. Epitome of Roman History 2.31.

20. The course of the war is described in detail in Bénabou, La résistance africaine, 75–84. The main Roman sources are Tacitus, Annals 2.52, 3.20–1, 3.32, 3.73–4, 4.23–6; Velleius Paterculus 2.125.5, 2.129.4; Aurelius Victor, On the Caesars 2.8.

21. Whether Tacfarinas had served in a cavalry or infantry unit is unknown.

22. The Roman sources provide frustratingly little detail about the nature of the raids they record, whether directed against civilian communities or military installations. In Tacitus, Annals 3.20, for example, the raids orchestrated by Tacfarinas in 20 CE are characterized only as “wandering depredations” (vagae populationes). What is reasonably clear is that the attackers were typically horse-mounted and lightly armed, and that they generally fought in small groups, sometimes hid, and prepared traps (insidiae) for the Roman soldiers (Tacitus, Annals 3.74). Of the raid made against Leptis Magna by the Austuriani in 363 CE (below), the historian Ammianus Marcellinus reports that the attackers slaughtered peasants, burned furniture (because it was too heavy to carry), and left weighted down with booty (28.6.4).

23. Tacitus, Annals 2.52.

24. Tacitus, Annals 3.21.

25. Raven, Rome in Africa, 60.

26. Perhaps we’re to understand that this was an attempt to regain control of their traditional grazing lands.

27. Annals 3.73.

28. Tacitus, Annals 4.24.

29. Raven, Rome in Africa, 61.

30. The main Roman sources for the rebellion are Suetonius, Galba 7–8, Aurelius Victor, On the Caesars 4.2–3, and Cassius Dio 60.9.6.

31. Pliny, Natural History 5.14–15.

32. Cassius Dio 60.9.1–5.

33. Raven, Rome in Africa, 62. It’s possible that there were other, localized hostilities that have escaped notice.

34. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.2478 (= 17969), 2479 (= 17971).

35. L’Année épigraphique 1976, 716.

36. Bénabou, La résistance africaine, 121–134.

37. Fossatum Africae, especially at 358.

38. A second section runs about 28 miles from Mesarfelta to Thubunae. The third, which is the longest, at approximately 87 miles, encircles the eastern end of the Hodna mountains.

39. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.2464 (= 17953).

40. Leveau, “L’Opposition de la montagne et de la plaine”.

41. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.2480.

42. L’Année épigraphique 1942/43, 81.

43. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.10937.

44. Camps, “Bavares”.

45. Raven, Rome in Africa, 162.

46. Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania 889.

47. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.9005–6.

48. Ibid., 9255.

49. Latin Panegyrics 7[6].8.6.

50. Jordanes, Goths 110.

51. History 28.6.2.

52. Ammianus Marcellinus, History 28.6.13.

53. Raven, Rome in Africa, 181–182.

54. A schismatic Christian sect that originated in north Africa in the 4^th century, Donatism insisted on sanctity as a requirement for administering the sacraments.

55. Ammianus Marcellinus, History 29.5.

56. Theodosian Code 7.8.7, 9.42.19.

57. The main source for the rebellion is Claudian, On the War with Gildo.

58. Modéran, “Gildon (Gildo)”.

59. Raven, Rome in Africa, 195.

60. It is contradicted, too, by the relatively small size of the Roman military presence in the region.

61. So Bénabou, La résistance africaine, 73.

62. “Autonomy and Tribute”, 69.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Cherry

David Cherry is Professor of History in the Department of History and Philosophy, and Associate Dean of the College of Letters and Science, at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. He taught previously at the University of Toronto, Stanford University, and the University of Puget Sound. He has published extensively on Roman North Africa and the history of the Roman frontiers. He is the author of two books: Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998; and The Roman World: A Sourcebook, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.