North Africa

Administration and defense

For more than a century from its acquisition in 146 bc, the small Roman province of Africa (roughly corresponding to modern Tunisia) was governed from Utica by a minor Roman official, but changes were made by the emperor Augustus, reflecting the growing importance of the area. The governor was thenceforward a proconsul residing at Carthage, after it was refounded by Augustus as a Roman colony, and he was responsible for the whole territory from the Ampsaga River in the west to the border of Cyrenaica. The proconsul also commanded the army of Africa and was one of the few provincial governors in command of an army and yet formally responsible to the Senate rather than to the emperor. This anomaly was removed in ad 39 when Caligula entrusted the army to a legatus Augusti of praetorian rank. Although the province was not formally divided until 196, the army commander was de facto in charge of the area later known as the province of Numidia and also of the military area in southern Tunisia and along the Libyan Desert. The proconsulship was normally held for only one year; like the ... (200 of 24,330 words)