North Africa until the 7th Century A.D.

 :
Carthage : Rome : The Vandals : Byzantium.
North Africa in this history refers to what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.
In Roman times Mauretania (the land of the Mauri - or Moors) coincided roughly with
modern Morocco. It is not to be confused with present day Mauritania; which is
further south. And the Roman name for part of what is now Tunisia and Algeria was
Numidia. Western Libya was (and still is) called Tripolitania, and eastern Libya
Cyrenaica.
The Berbers of North Africa in ancient times were largely nomadic, and never united
into a single state. There were also many traders, engaging particularly in the trans-
Saharan trade with the peoples of the Sudan. The traders settled in towns, which
often developed into kingdoms.
During the second millenium B.C. Libyan chiefs periodically raided Egypt. Then,
during the time of Egypt's weakness after the power of the Pharaohs collapsed in the
11th century B.C, Libyan mercenaries in the Egyptian army established the Libyan
Dynasty in Egypt, about 950 B.C. The dynasty lasted for two centuries (followed by a
further period of confusion in Egypt and its conquest by the Kushites).
In the 7th century, B.C. the Greeks colonised Cyrenaica, building the city of Cyrene,
which became famous for its intellectual life, notably its schools of philosophy and
medicine. The Greeks continued to rule there until the Persians conquered Egypt and
Cyrenaica towards the end of the 6th century. In the 330s B.C. the Persian Empire
was destroyed by Alexander the Great; and on the division of Alexander's empire
after his death Egypt and Cyrenaica passed to the Greek Ptolemies.
Meanwhile in Tunisia the sea trading Semitic Phoenicians from Tyre (in Lebanon) had
founded the colony of Carthage about 800 B.C. near the present day city of Tunis. By
the 5th century Carthage had become the capital of a huge trading empire on the
coasts and islands of the western and central Mediterranean, in places, particularly
Sicily, rivalled by Greek colonies.
In Africa, Carthaginian trading ports extended all along the coast from Tunisia to
Morocco, and their ships went through the Straits of Gibraltar and down the Atlantic
coast in search of trade. (They also went as far as Britain, where they traded for tin
from the Cornish mines.) They founded settlements on the west African coast in
Senegal and Guinea. They also took part ill the trans-Saharan trade.
By the 3rd century B.C. Carthage - a republic ruled by an aristocracy based on
wealth - came into conflict with the rising power of Rome, which had taken over from
the Greek colonies as Carthage's main rival in the central Mediterranean. Two long
wars between Rome and Carthage ensued, from 264 to 241 B.C. and 219 to 201
(known as the Punic Wars).
The result of the first war was the cession of Sicily to Rome. There was then a period
of uneasy peace. Carthage had to deal with a revolt of her African mercenaries, who
formed the bulk of the rank and file of her armies and had not been paid. Rome took
advantage of this to seize Corsica and Sardinia. Then the Carthaginian Hamilcar
Barca, having quelled the mercenaries' revolt, proceeded during the next ten years,
until his death in 228 B.C, to build up an empire in Spain (where the Carthaginians
were already established as traders) as a base for a land attack on Rome.
Carthage was now at the height of her prosperity. Her population is said to have
been about a million, fed from the very fertile surrounding district; and her trade and
manufactures were thriving.
In 221 B.C. Hamilcar’s son, the 26 year old Hannibal, became Commander-in-chief in
Spain. As a child he had pledged to his father his dedication to the cause of revenge
against Rome. In 219 he picked a quarrel with Rome and led an army of some
25,000 African and Spanish troops - and some war elephants - through Gaul and
across the Alps to Italy, raising an army of Gauls on the way as his ally.
For 14 years the brilliant Hannibal campaigned against vastly more numerous Roman
forces without defeat; but without siege equipment he could not capture Rome.
Meanwhile the Roman general Scipio had evicted the Carthaginians from Spain, and
in 204 B.C. he invaded Africa. Allied to the African King Massinissa of eastern
Numidia, Scipio defeated the Carthaginians. The oligarchy of Carthage recalled
Hannibal from Italy, but with a hastily levied army he suffered his first and only
defeat, at Zama in 202 B.C. This concluded the Second Punic War and Carthage lost
all except her African possessions to Rome.
Hannibal became head of the Carthaginian government, so ably that Rome - which
feared a Carthaginian recovery - forced him to be exiled. After many adventures, in
which he acted as adviser to enemies of Rome, he committed suicide, in 182 B.C, to
avoid falling into Roman hands.
Carthage's commercial ability, however, enabled her revival to continue, to the
extent that she again became a source of fear and envy to Rome. In 149 B.C. Rome
found an excuse for launching the Third Punic War, Carthage having been provoked
into breaking a clause in the previous peace treaty by the aggressive action of the
now aged King Massinissa. Rome sent an army to Africa, and after a heroic
resistance the city of Carthage fell in 146 B.C. The Romans totally destroyed the city,
and the site was ploughed over and salted so that the land would remain infertile.
Only about 50,000 of the population survived, many to be sold to slavery. So ended
the Carthaginian Empire, and all its possessions passed to Rome.
From this time until early in the 5th century A.D. the whole of North Africa was under
varying degrees of Roman rule or influence. Egypt was virtually a Roman
dependency from 168 B.C, and became formally a province of the Roman Empire
after the defeat and suicide of Cleopatra in 30 B.C. Cyrenaica became a Roman
province in 74 B.C, after being bequeathed to Rome by one of the later Ptolemies.
Tripolitania, after the defeat of Carthage, fell to Massinissa and was ruled by
Numidian kings until annexed by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Pezzan, the Libyan desert
area where the native Garamantes had for several centuries dominated the Sahara
caravan route, was conquered by Rome in 19 B.C. Numidia, under King Jugurtha
(Massinissa’s grandson), gave Rome a lot of trouble in a war from 111 to 106 B.C.
After Jugurtha’s defeat Numidia went through various vicissitudes until it finally
became a Roman province. Mauretania appears in history as a kingdom at the time
of the Jugurthine war. The degree of Roman control was less here, with native
kingdoms surviving as allies or subject states of Rome.
North Africa as a whole flourished during the Roman period. Roads and towns were
built, and Tunisia provided a granary for the sustenance of the Roman armies. The
population was a mixture of the indigenous Berbers, the remaining Phoenicians from
the Carthaginian era, and Roman colonists - who intermarried with the Africans.
Carthage itself was rebuilt, the first colonists being sent there by Julius Caesar a
hundred years after its destruction. It became the capital of Roman Africa; and in the
early centuries A.D. it was a Roman/African centre of learning. Among those who
worked there were the writer and philosopher Apuleius and the Christian theologians
Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine, In the early history of Roman Christianity North
Africa was more important than Rome.
Another great city was Leptis Magna in Tripolitania. Originally the most important
Phoenician settlement in Libya (when its name was Lepcis) it became in Roman
times the largest city in Africa after Alexandria and Carthage. Its ruins are now the
remains of many imposing Roman buildings.
In Cyrenaica, Cyrene continued to be a leading city until it declined after repressive
measures taken by the Romans against a Jewish revolt, in the course of which some
of the city was destroyed, in A.D. 115.
The Romans were not great traders, and do not seem to have taken much interest in
the Sahara trade routes. However, it was during the Roman period, about A.D. 300,
that the Arabian camel was introduced into North Africa. This greatly boosted the
Saharan trade, the camel being much more efficient for desert transport than the
horse or donkey.
In the 3rd and 4th centuries the Roman Empire in Europe was increasingly
threatened by the German tribes in the north. At the beginning of the 5th century
one of these tribes - the Vandals took advantage of a weakening of Roman defences
in western Europe, and swept through Gaul into Spain. From Spain a vast horde of
Vandals, under their leader Gaiseric, set sail for North Africa in A.D. 429 - and the
"Roman peace" of the previous centuries was broken.
The Vandals by-passed much of Mauretania, which reverted to Berber chieftains, but
went on through Numidia, Tunisia, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. After five years of
warfare Gaiseric made terms with the Western Roman Emperor*, leaving only
Carthage in Roman hands. In 439 Gaiseric seized Carthage, which he made the
headquarters of a pirate fleet which dominated the western Mediterranean. In 455 an
expedition under Gaiseric looted Rome itself (and 20 years later another German
tribe finally extinguished the Western Empire).
The Vandal kingdom lasted for a hundred years, until in 533 the Byzantine Emperor
Justinian sent an army under his brilliant general Belisarius to re-conquer North
Africa. Belisarius did so, and the Vandals then disappear from history, having left
little impression an Africa. Roman North Africa, except for Mauretania, returned to
Roman (Byzantine) rule until the coming of the Moslem Arabs in the 7th century.
*The Roman Empire had by now split into two - the declining Western Empire with
Rome as capital, and the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire with its capital at
Constantinople.