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68-532: Numidia was a Roman province on the North African coast, comprising roughly the territory of north-east Algeria . The people of the area were first identified as Numidians by Polybius around the 2nd century BC, although they were often referred to as the Nodidians. Eastern Numidia was annexed in 46 BC to create a new Roman province, Africa Nova . Western Numidia was also annexed as part of
136-653: A provincia was assigned did not mean the Romans made that territory theirs. For example, Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus in 211 BC received Macedonia as his provincia but the republic did not annex the kingdom, even as Macedonia was continuously assigned until 205 BC with the end of the First Macedonian War . Even though the Second and Third Macedonian Wars saw the Macedonian province revived,
204-546: A "permanent" provincia in the scholarship, emerged only gradually. The acquisition of territories, however, through the middle republic created the recurrent task of defending and administering some place. The first "permanent" provincia was that of Sicily, created after the First Punic War . In the immediate aftermath, a quaestor was sent to Sicily to look out for Roman interests but eventually, praetors were dispatched as well. The sources differ as to when sending
272-474: A luxury commodity and Rome is recorded to have imported many to Italy. In Roman mythology , Iarbas was the son of a North African god, Jupiter Hammon , and a Garamantian nymph . Iarbas became the first king of Gaetuli. In Virgil 's Aeneid , Iarbas falls in love with the Carthaginian queen Dido , but is rejected as Dido prefers the suitor Aeneas . From the period of Late Antiquity until
340-477: A majority of people in Rome's provinces venerated, respected, and worshipped gods from Rome proper and Roman Italy to an extent, alongside normal services done in honor of their "traditional" gods. The increasing practices of prorogation and statutorily-defined "super commands" driven by popularis political tactics undermined the republican constitutional principle of annually-elected magistracies. This allowed
408-471: A military crisis occurred near some province, it was normally reassigned to one of the consuls; praetors were left with the garrison duties. In the permanent provinces, the Roman commanders were initially not intended as administrators. However, the presence of the commander with forces sufficient to coerce compliance made him an obvious place to seek final judgement. A governor's legal jurisdiction thus grew from
476-479: A multitude of laws had been passed on how a governor would complete his task, requiring presence in the province, regulating how he could requisition goods from provincial communities, limiting the number of years he could serve in the province, etc. Prior to 123 BC, the senate assigned consular provinces as it wished, usually in its first meeting of the consular year. The specific provinces to be assigned were normally determined by lot or by mutual agreement among
544-432: A praetor became normal: Appian reports 241 BC; Solinus indicates 227 BC instead. Regardless, the change likely reflected Roman unease about Carthaginian power: quaestors could not command armies or fleets; praetors could and initially seem to have held largely garrison duties. This first province started a permanent shift in Roman thinking about provincia . Instead of being a task of military expansion, it became
612-486: A process which saw the republic return to "normality": he shared the fasces that year with his consular colleague month-by-month and announced the abolition of the triumvirate by the end of the year in accordance with promises to do so at the close of the civil wars. At the start of 27 BC, Augustus formally had a provincial command over all of Rome's provinces. That year, in his "first settlement", he ostentatiously returned his control of them and their attached armies to
680-406: A reaction from the senate, which reacted with laws to rein in the governors. After initial experimentation with ad hoc panels of inquest, various laws were passed, such as the lex Calpurnia de repetundis in 149 BC, which established a permanent court to try corruption cases; troubles with corruption and laws reacting to it continued through the republican era. By the end of the republic,
748-695: A recurrent defensive assignment to oversee conquered territories. These defensive assignments, with few opportunities to gain glory, were less desirable and therefore became regularly assigned to the praetors. Only around 180 BC did provinces take on a more geographically defined position when a border was established to separate the two commanders assigned to Hispania on the river Baetis . Later provinces, once campaigns were complete, were all largely defined geographically. Once this division of permanent and temporary provinciae emerged, magistrates assigned to permanent provinces also came under pressures to achieve as much as possible during their terms. Whenever
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#1732779817647816-469: A simple province in the tetrarchic reorganization, then was divided in two: Numidia Cirtensis , with capital at Cirta , and Numidia Militiana ("Military Numidia"), with capital at the legionary base of Lambaesis . However, after decades, Emperor Constantine the Great reunited the two provinces in a single one, administered from Cirta, which was now renamed Constantina (modern Constantine ). In 428,
884-620: The Annuario Pontificio as titular sees : Roman province The Roman provinces ( Latin : provincia , pl. provinciae ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire . Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as governor . For centuries, it was the largest administrative unit of
952-625: The Bellum Octavianum , a civil war in 87 BC. Possibly in return for land the Gaetulian forces fought for Marius against Gnaeus Octavius . After almost 90 years of documented peace between the Gaetuli and Rome the tribes invaded the Roman occupied area in what became known as the "Gaetulian War" in 3 AD. Some historians describe the war more as an uprising that occurred as a result of possible land incursions and Roman mandated control of
1020-551: The lex Gabinia which gave Pompey an overlapping command over large portions of the Mediterranean. The senate, which had long acted as a check on aristocratic ambitions, was unable to stop these immense commands, which culminated eventually with the reduction of the number of meaningfully-independent governors during the triumviral period to three men and, with the end of the republic, to one man. During his sixth and seventh consulships (28 and 27 BC), Augustus began
1088-634: The Gaetuli Berber tribes of the desert, and which was gradually occupied in its whole extent by the Romans under the Empire. Including these towns, there were altogether twenty that are known to have received at one time or another the title and status of Roman colonies; and in the 5th century, the Notitia Dignitatum enumerates no fewer than 123 sees whose bishops assembled at Carthage in 479. Ancient episcopal sees of Numidia listed in
1156-774: The Godala people is hypothesized to be derived from the word Gaetuli. Getulia was the name given to an ancient district in the Maghreb , which in the usage of Roman writers comprised the nomadic Berber tribes of the southern slopes of the Aures Mountains and Atlas Mountains , as far as the Atlantic , and the oases in the northern part of the Sahara . The Gaetulian people were among the oldest inhabitants in northwestern Africa recorded in classical writings. They mainly occupied
1224-608: The Legio III Augusta . The Musulamii were joined in the conflict against the Romans by the Gaetuli and the neighboring Garamantes . This was the largest war in the Algeria region of Roman Africa in the history of Roman occupation. After the defeat of the Musulamii the Gaetuli ceased to appear in Roman military record. Further records of the Gaetuli indicate that soldiers from the tribes served as auxiliary forces in
1292-760: The Vandals began their incursions in the African provinces. They eventually managed to create the Vandal Kingdom that lasted between 432 and 534, the year in which the Vandals fell and the African provinces was reincorporated into (Eastern) Roman domain and formed the Praetorian prefecture of Africa , half a century later the Exarchate of Africa , by the reign of Maurice (r. 582–602). Between 696 and 708,
1360-405: The proconsuls of Africa Proconsularis and Asia through those governed by consulares and correctores to the praesides . The provinces in turn were grouped into (originally twelve) dioceses , headed usually by a vicarius , who oversaw their affairs. Only the proconsuls and the urban prefect of Rome (and later Constantinople) were exempt from this, and were directly subordinated to
1428-560: The see of St. Augustine . To the south in the interior military roads led to Theveste (Tebessa) and Lambaesis (Lambessa) with extensive Roman remains, connected by military roads with Cirta and Hippo, respectively. Lambaesis was the seat of the Legio III Augusta , and the most important strategic centre. It commanded the passes of the Aurès Mountains (Mons Aurasius), a mountain block that separated Numidia from
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#17327798176471496-543: The Gaetuli and is the earliest Roman record of the tribes. During the Jugurthine War the Gaetuli attacked and harassed Roman forces and possessed cavalry regiments that provided a significant challenge to the Roman legions. After a truce negotiated between the Numidians and the Romans led to the end of the war the Gaetuli forces were disbanded. Gaetulian forces next appear as forces loyal to Gaius Marius during
1564-571: The Gaetuli did not discriminate in their targets, as they are recorded invaded both Roman territories as well as other Numidian tribes. The Gaetuli frequently intermarried with other tribes. Apuleius references his semi-Gaetulian, semi-Numidian heritage in the Latin novel The Golden Ass (c. 170 CE). Sallust also mentions that the Gaetuli intermarried with the Persians and gradually merged with them, becoming nomads . Given their nomadic nature,
1632-553: The Gaetuli were ignarum nominis Romani ( Iug. 80.1), ignorant of the Roman name. Sallust also describes the Libyans and Gaetuli as a "rude and uncivilized folk" who were "governed neither by institutions nor law, nor were they subject to anyone’s rule." Later accounts contradict that description. Pliny the Elder claims that the Gaetuli were essentially different from other indigenous North African Numidian tribes despite sharing
1700-568: The Gaetuli were largely self-sufficient. According to Sallust the Gaetuli would feed "on the flesh of wild animals and on the fruits of the earth." Following the Battle of Carthage (c. 149 BC) , Roman merchants were able to increase contact with the indigenous Berber tribes and establish trade. In Deipnosophistae , Athenaeus mentions several desired crops native to the Numidia and Gaetulia regions. The Gaetuli grew and traded asparagus which
1768-454: The Roman army, while the tribes themselves provided the Empire with a range of exotic animals and purple dye among other goods through trade. Records indicate that many of the animals used in Roman games were acquired through trade connections with the Gaetuli. The region of Gaetulia hosted a multitude of climates and thus forced the Gaetulian tribes to adopt several different means of habitation. They are documented living in huts, presumably in
1836-530: The area of modern-day Algeria as far north as Gigthis in the southwestern region of Tunisia and Southern Tripolitania . They were bordered by the Garamantes people to the east and were under the coastal Libyes people. The coastal region of Mauritania was above them and, although they shared many similar characteristics, were distinct from the Mauri people that inhabited it. The Gaetulians were exposed to
1904-525: The arrangements during this period is contained in the Notitia Dignitatum (Record of Offices), a document dating from the early 5th century. Most data is drawn from this authentic imperial source, as the names of the areas governed and titles of the governors are given there. There are however debates about the source of some data recorded in the Notitia , and it seems clear that some of its own sources are earlier than others. Some scholars compare this with
1972-647: The coast, apparently both in the Syrtes and on the Atlantic. The writings of several ancient Roman histories, most notably Sallust , depict the various indigenous North African tribes as a uniform state and refer to them collectively as the Libyans and Gaetuli. The misinformation is partly because of the linguistic and cultural barriers. At the beginning of Roman colonization in North Africa, Sallust writes that
2040-429: The commanders; only extraordinarily did the senate assign a command extra sortem (outside of sortition). But in 123 or 122 BC, the tribune Gaius Sempronius Gracchus passed the lex Sempronia de provinciis consularibus , which required the senate to select the consular provinces before the consular elections and made this announcement immune from tribunician veto. The law had the effect of, over time, abolishing
2108-441: The conditions of the harsh African interior near the Sahara and produced skillful hardened warriors. They were known for horse rearing, and according to Strabo had 100,000 foals in a single year. They were clad in skins, lived on meat and milk, and the only manufacture connected with their name is that of the purple dye that became famous from the time of Augustus , and was made from the purple shellfish Murex brandaris found on
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2176-467: The consulship in exchange for a general proconsulship – with a special dispensation from the law that nullified imperium within the city of Rome – over the imperial provinces. He also gave himself, through the senate, a general grant of imperium maius , which gave him priority over the ordinary governors of the public provinces, allowing him to interfere in their affairs. Within the public and imperial provinces there also existed distinctions of rank. In
2244-401: The demands of the provincial inhabitants for authoritative settlement of disputes. In the absence of opportunities for conquest and with little oversight for their activities, many praetorian governors settled on extorting the provincials. This profiteering threatened Roman control by unnecessarily angering the province's subject populations and was regardless dishonourable. It eventually drew
2312-487: The emperor. The emperor Diocletian introduced a radical reform known as the tetrarchy (AD 284–305), with a western and an eastern senior emperor styled Augustus , each seconded by a junior emperor (and designated successor) styled caesar . Each of these four defended and administered a quarter of the empire. In the 290s, Diocletian divided the empire anew into almost a hundred provinces, including Roman Italy . Their governors were hierarchically ranked, from
2380-451: The end of the republic and was regardless in inferior status to a proconsul. More radically, Egypt (which was sufficiently powerful that a commander there could start a rebellion against the emperor) was commanded by an equestrian prefect, "a very low title indeed" as prefects were normally low-ranking officers and equestrians were not normally part of the elite. In Augustus' "second settlement" of 23 BC, he gave up his continual holding of
2448-428: The end of the republic, all governors acted pro consule . Also important was the assertion of popular authority over the assignment of provincial commands. This started with Gaius Marius , who had an allied tribune introduce a law transferring to him the already-taken province of Numidia (then held by Quintus Caecilius Metellus ), allowing Marius to assume command of the Jugurthine War . This innovation destabilised
2516-583: The foreign possessions of ancient Rome. With the administrative reform initiated by Diocletian , it became a third level administrative subdivision of the Roman Empire, or rather a subdivision of the imperial dioceses (in turn subdivisions of the imperial prefectures ). A province was the basic and, until the Tetrarchy (from AD 293), the largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside Roman Italy . During
2584-470: The fourth century, it adhered to the Donatist heresy , despite giving rise to men of Orthodox faith as illustrious as Saint Augustine , bishop of Hippo Regius (present Annaba ). After 193, under Septimius Severus , Numidia was officially detached from the province of Africa and constituted a province in its own right, governed by an imperial legatus pro praetore . Under Diocletian , it constituted
2652-599: The large desert region south of the Atlas Mountains , bordering the Sahara . Other documents place Gaetulia in pre- Roman times along the Mediterranean coasts of what is now Algeria and Tunisia , and north of the Atlas. During the Roman period, according to Pliny the Elder, the Autololes Gaetuli established themselves south of the province of Mauretania Tingitana , in modern-day Morocco . The name of
2720-431: The list of military territories under the duces , in charge of border garrisons on so-called limites , and the higher ranking Comites rei militaris , with more mobile forces, and the later, even higher magistri militum . Justinian I made the next great changes in 534–536 by abolishing, in some provinces, the strict separation of civil and military authority that Diocletian had established. This process
2788-463: The middle and late republican authors like Plautus, Terence, and Cicero, the word referred something akin to a modern ministerial portfolio: "when... the senate assigned provinciae to the various magistrates... what they were doing was more like allocating a portfolio than putting people in charge of geographic areas". The first commanders dispatched with provinciae were for the purpose of waging war and to command an army. However, merely that
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2856-407: The middle republic, referred not to a territory, but to a task assigned to a Roman magistrate. That task might require using the military command powers of imperium but otherwise could even be a task assigned to a junior magistrates without imperium : for example, the treasury was the provincia of a quaestor and the civil jurisdiction of the urban praetor was the urbana provincia . In
2924-483: The more mountainous, inland portions of Gaetulia and also under the hulls of overturned ships in the coastal regions. The mobility and varying living styles likely contributed to the difficulty of Roman historians to accurately define the Gaetuli in both a political and cultural sense. Sallust and Pliny the Elder both mention the warlike tendencies of the Gaetuli, which is supported by the frequent accounts of Gaetuli invasions. These accounts appear to demonstrate that
2992-434: The movement of the semi-nomadic Gaetuli. In response to the attack, forces led by Cossus Cornelius Lentulus were dispatched to put down the invasion which they successfully accomplished in 6 A.D. Cossus Cornelius Lentulus was given the surname Gaetulicus for his successful campaign. In 17 AD the Musulamii tribe, a Gaetulian sub-tribe, fought back against the Romans over the building of a road across Musulamii territory by
3060-427: The other hand normally served several years before rotating out. The extent to which the emperor exercised control over all the provinces increased during the imperial period: Tiberius, for example, once reprimanded legates in the imperial provinces for failing to forward financial reports to the senate; by the reign of Claudius, however, the senatorial provinces' proconsuls were regularly issued with orders directly from
3128-482: The permanent seat of the government. In Italy itself, Rome had not been the imperial residence for some time and 286 Diocletian formally moved the seat of government to Mediolanum (modern Milan ), while taking up residence himself in Nicomedia . During the 4th century, the administrative structure was modified several times, including repeated experiments with Eastern-Western co-emperors. Detailed information on
3196-402: The powerful men to amass disproportionate wealth and military power through their provincial commands, which was one of the major factors in the transition from a republic to an imperial autocracy . The senate attempted to push back against these commands in many instances: it preferred to break up any large war into multiple territorially separated commands; for similar reasons, it opposed
3264-426: The province Africa Nova after the death of its last king, Arabio , in 40 BC, and subsequently the province (except of Western Numidia ) was united with province Africa Vetus by Emperor Augustus in 25 BC, to create the new province Africa Proconsularis . During the brief period (30–25 BC) Juba II (son of Juba I ) ruled as a client king of Numidia on the territory of former province Africa Nova . In AD 40,
3332-450: The provinces had been assigned to sitting praetors in the earlier part of the second century, with new praetorships created to fill empty provincial commands, by the start of the first century it had become uncommon for praetors to hold provincial commands during their formal annual term. Instead they generally took command as promagistrate after the end of their term. The use of prorogation was due to an insufficient number of praetors, which
3400-406: The public provinces, the provinces of Africa and Asia were given only to ex-consuls; ex-praetors received the others. The imperial provinces eventually produced a three-tier system with prefects and procurators, legates pro praetore who were ex-praetors, and legates pro praetore who were ex-consuls. The public provinces' governors normally served only one year; the imperial provinces' governors on
3468-486: The region occurred for nearly thirty years and what administration occurred was ad hoc and emerged from military necessities. In the middle republic, the administration of a territory – whether taxation or jurisdictrion – had basically no relationship with whether that place was assigned as a provincia by the senate. Rome would even intervene on territorial disputes which were part of no provincia at all and were not administered by Rome. The territorial province, called
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#17327798176473536-462: The region was conquered again, this time by the Arab Muslims (Umayyad) , and became part of Ifriqiya . Numidia as the other African provinces became highly Romanized and was studded with numerous towns. The chief towns of Roman Numidia were: in the north, Cirta or modern Constantine , the capital, with its port Russicada (Modern Skikda ); and Hippo Regius (near Bône ), well known as
3604-413: The remaining provinces, largely demilitarised and confined to the older republican conquests, became known as public or senatorial provinces , as their commanders were still assigned by the senate on an annual basis consistent with tradition. Because no one man could command in practically all the border-regions of the empire at once, Augustus appointed subordinate legates for each of the provinces with
3672-436: The republic and early empire, provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors . A later exception was the province of Egypt, which was incorporated by Augustus after the death of Cleopatra and was ruled by a governor of only equestrian rank, perhaps as a discouragement to senatorial ambition. That exception was unique but not contrary to Roman law, as Egypt
3740-519: The same language. Contemporary historians acknowledge the significant ethnic divisions between the Berber tribes and the existence of individual kings and separate political spheres. Roman records of the Gaetuli first emerge during the Jugurthine War when the group of tribes served as an auxiliary force in Jugurtha ’s army against the Romans. This was the first recorded contact between the Romans and
3808-611: The senate settled affairs in the region by abolishing Macedonia and replacing it with four client republics. Macedonia only came under direct Roman administration in the aftermath of the Fourth Macedonian War in 148 BC. Similarly, assignment of various provinciae in Hispania was not accompanied by the creation of any regular administration of the area; indeed, even though two praetors were assigned to Hispania regularly from 196 BC, no systematic settlement of
3876-602: The senate, likely by declaring that the task assigned to him either by the lex Titia creating the Triumvirate or that the war on Cleopatra and Antony was complete. In return, at a carefully-managed meeting of the senate, he was given commands over Spain, Gaul, Syria, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Egypt to hold for ten years; these provinces contained 22 of the 28 extant Roman legions (over 80 per cent) and contained all prospective military theatres. The provinces that were assigned to Augustus became known as imperial provinces and
3944-515: The system of assigning provincial commands, exacerbated internal political tensions, and later allowed ambitious politicians to assemble for themselves enormous commands which the senate would never have approved: the Pompeian lex Gabinia of 67 BC granted Pompey all land within 50 miles of the Mediterranean; Caesar's Gallic command that encompassed three normal provinces. In the late Republican period, Roman authorities generally preferred that
4012-410: The temporary provinciae , as it was not always realistic for the senate to anticipate the theatres of war some six months in advance. Instead, the senate chose to assign consuls to permanent provinces near expected trouble spots. From 200 to 124 BC, only 22 per cent of recorded consular provinciae were permanent provinces; between 122 and 53 BC, this rose to 60 per cent. While many of
4080-491: The tetrarchs. Although the Caesars were soon eliminated from the picture, the four administrative resorts were restored in 318 by Emperor Constantine I , in the form of praetorian prefectures , whose holders generally rotated frequently, as in the usual magistracies but without a colleague. Constantine also created a new capital, named after him as Constantinople , which was sometimes called 'New Rome' because it became
4148-456: The title legatus Augusti pro praetore . These lieutenant legati probably held imperium but, due to their lack of an independent command, were unable to triumph and could be replaced by their superior (Augustus) at any time. These arrangements were likely based on the precedent of Pompey's proconsulship over the Spanish provinces after 55 BC entirely through legates, while he stayed in
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#17327798176474216-477: The vicinity of Rome. In contrast, the public provinces continued to be governed by proconsuls with formally independent commands. In only three of the public provinces were there any armies: Africa , Illyricum , and Macedonia ; after Augustus' Balkan wars , only Africa retained a legion. To make this monopolisation of military commands palatable, Augustus separated prestige from military importance and inverted it. The title pro praetore had gone out of use by
4284-403: The western portion of Africa Proconsularis, including its legionary garrison, was placed under an imperial legatus , and in effect became a separate province of Numidia, though the legatus of Numidia remained nominally subordinate to the proconsul of Africa until AD 203. Christianity spread there from the 2nd century onwards. During the second century, the province was Christianized , but in
4352-533: Was "the thickness of a Cyprian reed, and twelve feet long". Roman colonies in Gaetulia primarily exchanged goods with the Gaetuli for murex , an indigenous shellfish on the Gaetulia coastline (used to create purple dye) and for the exotic fauna native to the region, notably lions, gazelles and tigers. In Horace's Odes , the image of a Gaetulian lion is used to symbolize a great threat. The ferocity and great size of Gaetulian lions contributed to their status as
4420-611: Was considered Augustus's personal property, following the tradition of the kings of the earlier Hellenistic period . The English word province comes from the Latin word provincia . The Latin term provincia had an equivalent in eastern, Greek-speaking parts of the Greco-Roman world . In the Greek language, a province was called an eparchy ( Greek : ἐπαρχίᾱ , eparchia ), with a governor called an eparch ( Greek : ἔπαρχος , eparchos ). The Latin provincia , during
4488-624: Was continued on a larger scale with the creation of extraordinary Exarchates in the 580s and culminated with the adoption of the military theme system in the 640s, which replaced the older administrative arrangements entirely. Some scholars use the reorganization of the empire into themata in this period as one of the demarcations between the Dominate and the Byzantine (or the Later Roman) period. Cisalpine Gaul (in northern Italy )
4556-425: Was for two reasons: more provinces needed commands and the increased number of permanent jury courts ( quaestiones perpetuae ), each of which had a praetor as president, exacerbated this issue. Praetors during the second century were normally prorogued pro praetore , but starting with the Spanish provinces and expanding by 167 BC, praetors were more commonly prorogued with the augmented rank pro consule ; by
4624-531: Was occupied by Rome in the 220s BC and became considered geographically and de facto part of Roman Italy , but remained politically and de jure separated. It was legally merged into the administrative unit of Roman Italy in 42 BC by the triumvir Augustus as a ratification of Caesar 's unpublished acts ( Acta Caesaris ). Gaetuli Gaetuli was the Romanised name of an ancient Berber tribe inhabiting Getulia . The latter district covered
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