AFRICA, ROMAN, comprised the whole of the continent known to the ancients, except Egypt and Ethiopia. The official and administrative language used the word Africa in a narrow sense, as noticed below. The term was borrowed by the Romans from the language of the natives. In Latin literature it was em ployed for the first time by the poet Ennius, who used it of the territory of Carthage and the eastern group of the Atlas. Numer ous conjectures have been made as to the etymology of the term Africa; the best is that of Charles Tissot, who sees in the word "Africa" the name of the great Berber tribe, the Aourigha (whose name would have been pronounced Afarika), the modern Aouraghen, in ancient times the principal indigenous element of the African empire of Carthage (Tissot, Geogr. comp. i. 389). Africa was, in the eyes of the Romans and Carthaginians alike, the country inhabited by the great tribe of Berbers or Numidians called Afarik: At the time of the Third Punic War the Africa of the Cartha ginians was but a fragment of their ancient native empire, the rest of Africa having passed into the hands of the kings of Numidia, who were allies of the Romans.
After the capture of Carthage by Scipio (146 B.c.) this terri tory became a Roman province, and a trench, the fossa regia, was dug to mark the boundary of the Roman province of Africa and the dominions of the Numidian princes. The remains of this ditch, protected by a low wall or a stone dyke, have been dis covered (1907) ; some of the boundary stones which marked its course, and inscriptions mentioning it, have also been found. From Testur on the Mejerda the fossa regia can be followed by these indications for several miles along the Jebel esh-Sheid. The ditch ran northward to Tabarca and southward to Tina. The ditch which in later times divided the provinces of Africa vetus and Africa nova was at the time of the Third Punic War the boundary of Carthaginian territory. The government of the Roman province thus delimited was entrusted to a praetor or propraetor. The towns which had fought on the side of the Ro mans during the Third Punic War were declared civitates liberae, and became exceedingly prosperous, e.g., Utica, Hadrumetum and Thapsus.
After the Jugurthine war in 1°6 B.c. the whole of the regio Tripolitana on the littoral of the two Syrtes, was annexed to the Roman province. The battle of Thapsus in 46 B.C. made the Romans definitely masters of Numidia which was converted into a new province called "Africa Nova": the old province of Africa was known as "Africa Vetus." In 31 B.C. Octavius gave up Numidia, or Africa Nova, to King Juba II. Five years later Augustus gave Mauretania and some Gaetulian districts to Juba, and received in exchange Numidia, which thus reverted to direct Roman control, no longer forming a distinct government, but attached to the old province of Africa. From 25 B.C. the Roman province of Africa comprised the region between the mouth of the Ampsaga (Wad Rummel, Wad el Kebir) on the west, and the two tumuli called the altars of the Philaeni, the immutable boundary between Tripolitana and Cyrenaica, on the east (Tissot ii. 261). In the partition of the government of the provinces of the Roman empire between the senate and the emperor, Africa fell to the senate, and was hence forth administered by a proconsul.
The province of Africa was the only senatorial province whose governor was originally invested with military powers. The pro consul of Africa had command of the legio III. Augusta and the auxiliary corps. But in A.D. 37 Caligula deprived the proconsul of his military powers and gave them to the imperial legate (legatos Augusti pro praetore provinciae Africae), whose special duty it was to guard the frontier zone (Tacitus, Hist. iv. 48; Dio Cass. lix. 2o). The headquarters of the imperial legate were originally at Cirta and afterwards at Lambaesa (Lambessa). The military posts along the frontier of the desert formed an immense arc extending from Cyrenaica to Mauretania. A network of military routes, constructed and kept in repair by the soldiers, led from Lambaesa in all directions, and stretched along the frontier as far as Leptis Magna. The powers of the proconsul scarcely extended beyond the ancient Africa Vetus and the towns on the littoral. Septimius Severus detached from the province of Africa the greater part of Numidia to constitute a special province governed by a procurator, subordinate to the imperial legate and resident at Cirta (Tissot ii. 34). This province was called Numidia Cirtensis.
In Diocletian's reform, the whole of Roman Africa, with the exception of Mauretania Tingitana (which was attached to the province of Spain), constituted a single diocese subdivided into six provinces. Changes were necessitated by the wars with the Moors and the Vandals. By a treaty concluded in A.D. 476, the Emperor Zeno recognized Gaiseric as master of all Africa. Re conquered by Belisarius in 534, Africa formed, under the name of praefectura Africae, one of the great administrative districts of the Byzantine empire. In A.D. 647 the Arabs penetrated into which was destined to fall for ever out of the grasp of the Romans. In A.D. 697 Carthage was taken.
The population of Roman Africa was composed of three chief elements : the indigenous Berber tribes, the ancient Carthaginians of Phoenician origin and the Roman colonists. The Berber tribes, whose racial unity is attested by their common spoken language and by the Berber inscriptions that have come down to us, bore in ancient times the generic names of Numidians, Gaetulians and Moors or Maurusiani. Besides the Afri (Aourigha) of the terri tory of Carthage, the principal tribes that took part in the wars against the Romans were the Lotophagi, the Garamantes, the Misulani or Musulamii, the Massyli and the Massaesyli. African epigraphy has revealed the names of some of their deities : dens invictus Aulisva; the god Motmanius, associated with Mercury; the god Lilleus; Kautus pater; the goddess Gilva, identified with Tellus (Tissot i. 486). There were also local divinities in all the principal districts. The rock bas-reliefs and other monuments showing native divinities are rare, and give only very summary representations.
During the Roman period the ancient Carthaginians of Phoe nician origin and the bastard population termed by ancient au thors Libyo-Phoenicians, formed the predominant populations of the towns on the littoral, and retained the Punic language until the 6th century of the Christian era. The municipal magis trates took the title of suffetes in place of that of duumvirs, and in certain towns the Christian bishops were obliged to know the lingua Punica, since it was the only language that the people un derstood. Nevertheless, the Roman functionaries, the army and the colonists from Italy soon brought the Latin element into Africa, where it flourished with such vigour that, in the 3rd cen tury A.D., Carthage became the centre of a Romano-African civili zation of extraordinary literary brilliancy, which numbered among its leaders such men as Apuleius, Tertullian, Arnobius, Cyprian and Augustine.
Carthage regained its rank of capital of Africa under Augustus, when thousands of Roman colonists flocked to the town. Utica became a Roman colony under Hadrian, and the civitates liberae, municipia, castella, pagi and ,turres were peopled with Latins. The towns of the ancient province of Africa which received colonise were very numerous.
The province of Numidia was at first colonized principally by the military settlements of the Romans. Cirta (Constantine) and Bulla Regia (Hammam Darraj), its chief towns, received colonise of soldiers and veterans, as well as Theveste (Tebessa) and Thamugas (Timgad). The fine ruins which have been dis covered at the last-mentioned place have earned for it the sur name of the African Pompeii.