The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
Such centres of Roman life in the north-west were Augusta Asturica, Bracara Augusta, Lucus Augusti, memorials of the Spanish visit of Augustus, and still surviving under their old names as Astorga, Braga, and Lugo. The chief inland town of eastern Tarraconensis was the work of the same statesman; Saragossa, on the Ebro, still preserves the name of the colony of Casar Augustus.
But the Emperor had not left Spain long (24 B.C.), when new disturbances broke out. They were promptly put down, but in 22 B.C.another rebellion of the Cantabrians and Asturians called for the joint action of the governors of Tarraconensis and Lusitania. The last war, and perhaps the most serious of all, was waged two years later, and demanded the leadership of Marcus Agrippa himself (20-19 B.C.). The difficulty was at first aggravated by the mutiny of the soldiers, who detested the weary and doubtful warfare in the mountains; and it required all the military experience of the general to restore their discipline and zeal. After many losses the war was successfully ended (19 B.C.), and the hitherto “untameable” Cantabrian people reduced to insignificance. A few disturbances occurred four years later, but were easily dealt with; yet it was still felt to be needful to keep a strong military force in northern Spain.
Roman civilization had soon taken a firm hold in the south of Spain. The contrast of Narbonensis with the rest of Gaul is like the contrast of Baetica and the eastern side of the Hither province with the rest of Spain. But Roman policy was very different in the two countries; and this was due to the circumstance that Spain was conquered and organized at an earlier period. The Latinizing of Spain had been carried far under the Republic; the Latinizing of Gaul had practically begun under the Empire. In Gaul the tribal cantons were allowed to remain; this was the policy of the Caesars, father and son. In Spain, the tribal cantons were broken up in smaller divisions; this was the policy of the republican senate. In Gaul, excluding the southern province, there were no Roman cities except Lugudunum; in Spain Roman colonies were laid here and there in all parts. The Gallic fellows of Baetic Gades, Corduba and Hispalis, of Lusitanian Emerita and Olisipo, of Tarraconese Carthage, Cassaraugusta and Bracara, must be sought altogether (under the early Empire) in the smallest of the four provinces of Gaul.
In Lusitania, Augustus founded Emerita Augusta, a colony of veterans, on the river Anas (Guadiana), and made it the capital of the province. The other chief Roman towns of Lusitania were Olisipo, since promoted to be the capital (Lisbon) of a modern kingdom, and Pax Julia, now represented by Beja. Spain was not a network of Roman roads, like Gaul. The only imperial road was the Via Augusta, which went from the north of Italy along the coast to Narbo, then across the pass of Puycerda to Ilerda, and on by Tarraco and Valentia to the mouth of the Baetis. The other road-communication necessary in a fertile and prosperous country, was provided by the local communities. The Spanish peninsula was rich not only in metals, but in wine, oil, and corn. Gades (Cadiz), which now received the name of Augusta Julia, was one of the richest and most luxurious towns in the Empire.
SECT. IV. — AFRICA, SARDINIA, SICYLY
From Spain one naturally goes on to Africa. Augustus never visited either the African province or the African dependency, but, before he left Tarraco (25 B.C.), he was called upon to deal with African affairs. In history Spain and Africa have always been closely connected. Sometimes Spain has been the stepping-stone to Africa, oftener, as for the Phoenicians and the Arabs, Africa has been the stepping-stone to Spain. The western half of Mauretania was really nearer to the European peninsula which faced it than to the rest of the African coast; and under the later Empire this region went with Spain and Gaul, not with Africa and Italy. There was no road between Tingis in western and Caesarea in eastern Mauretania: the communication was by sea. And so it was that the Moorish hordes, crossing to Baetica in their boats, were more dangerous to Roman subjects in Spain than to those in Africa. A poet of Nero’s time describes Baetica as trucibus obnoxia Mauris. For though Spain, as has been already said, had no frontier exposed to a foreign power, her southern province had as close neighbor a land which, first as a dependency and then as a province, was inhabited by a rude and untamed population.
The commands which Augustus issued from the capital of his Spanish province especially regarded Mauretania. But we must call to mind what had taken place in Africa since the dictator Caesar ordered it anew. He had increased the Roman province by the addition of the kingdom of Numidia, and the river Ampsaga was fixed as the western boundary between New Africa, as Numidia was sometimes called, and Mauretania. This latter country was at that time under two kings. Over the eastern realm of Iol, soon to be called by Caesar’s name, ruled King Bocchus; over the western realm of Tingis ruled King Bogud. Both these potentates had taken Caesar’s side in the first civil war, unlike King Juba; and they therefore kept their kingdoms after Caesar’s victory. But in the next civil war, they did not both take the same side. Bocchus held to Caesar the son, as he had held to Caesar the father; but Bogud supported Antonius, while his own capital Tingis (Tangier) embraced the other cause. In reward, Bocchus was promoted to kingship over the whole of Mauretania; and Tingis received the privilege of Roman citizenship. When Bocchus died (33 B.C.), his kingdom was left kingless for a season, but the Roman government did not think that the time had yet come for a province of Mauretania.
A son of the last king of Numidia, named Juba, like his father, had followed the dictator’s triumph through the streets of Rome, and had been brought up under the care of Caesar and his successor. He served in the Roman army; he was an eager student of Greek and Roman literature, and wrote or compiled Greek books himself. On him Augustus fixed to take the place of king Bocchus. If it was out or the question to restore him to his paternal kingdom of Numidia, he should at least have the next thing to it, the kingdom of Mauretania; and as the descendant of king Massinissa, he would be welcome to the natives. At the same time (25 B.C.) Augustus gave Mauretania a queen. The daughter of Antonius and the Egyptian queen had followed his own triumph, as Juba had followed his father’s. Named Cleopatra like her mother, she had been protected and educated by the noble kindness of Octavia, whom her parents had so deeply wronged. There had been a peculiar fitness, as has been well remarked, in the union of the Numidian prince and the Egyptian princess, whose fortunes were so like. This union brought about the strange circumstance that the last king of Mauretania, Juba’s son, bore the name of Ptolemy.
Thus Roman dominion in Africa, west of Egypt, consisted under Augustus of a province and a dependent kingdom, the river Ampsaga, on which Cirta is built, forming the boundary. The southern boundaries of this dominion it would have been hard, perhaps, for Augustus himself to fix, inasmuch as there were no neighboring states. The real dominion passed insensibly into a “sphere of influence” among the native races, who were alternatively submissive and hostile, or, as the Romans would have said, rebellious.
Against these dangerous neighbors of the interior, Garamantes and invincible Gaetulians, Transtagnenses and Musulami, it was necessary to keep a legion in Africa, which was thus distinguished as the only senatorial province whose proconsul commanded an army. Two expeditions were made in the reign of Augustus against these enemies, the first under the proconsul L. Cornelius Balbus (19 B.C.), against the Garamantes, and a second under P. Sulpicius Quirinius, against the tribes of Marmarica further east. Balbus performed his task ably, and received a triumph, remarkable as the last granted to any private Roman citizen.
In the organization of Gaul and Spain, Rome had no older civilization to build upon. It was otherwise in Sicily and Africa. The civilization of Sicily, when it became Roman, was chiefly Greek, but partly Phoenician; that of Africa, on the contrary, was chiefly Phoenician, but partly Greek. Accordingly Rome built on Phoenician foundations in the lands which she won from Carthage, and accepted the constitution of the Phoenician town communities, just as she accepted the cantons in Gaul. But there was a remarkable likeness in organization between these communities and those of Italy, so that the transition from the one form to the other was soon and easily accomplished. Carthage, whose existence was blotted out by the short-sighted policy of the republican senate, had been revived by the generous counsels of Caesar, to become soon the capital of Roman, as it had been of Punic, Africa. At first the Phoenician constitution was restored to her, but she soon received the form of a Roman colonia, and grew to be one of the greatest and most luxurious cities of western Europe. Utica, jealous of the resurrection of her old rival, was made a Roman municipium. The growth of Roman life in Africa was also furthered by the settlement of colonies