Africa

In his recently composed biography of Augustus, Suetonius had devoted a paragraph to the first emperor’s treatment of the provinces, and there is not one, I believe – except, to be sure, Africa and Sardinia – in which he did not set foot’. Only severe storms had prevented a planned tour in 36 bc. Reason enough for Hadrian to go to Africa, which, indeed, none of his predecessors had ever seen. He had intended a comprehensive tour of the west when he left Rome in 121, it has been argued. But thorough inspection of the North African provinces had had to be shelved when trouble threatening from the Parthians had required his presence at the other end of the empire. The immense fertility of Africa made it a ‘jewel in the imperial crown’. There was much to be seen, both in the prosperous urbanised heartland and on the frontier, where a new limes was already under construction. The colonial élite from the proconsular province had taken a few generations longer than their peers in Narbonensis and Spain to rise to the summit – the ‘first consul from Africa’, a Pactumeius from Numidian Cirta (Constantine), had held office in the year 80. But now, nearly fifty years on, there were plenty of other Africans in high places, descendants both of Italian immigrants and of enfranchised natives, senators and knights. Latin literature, too, had received an injection of new blood from this direction. Suetonius came from Hippo Regius (Annaba), and a young man from Cirta, now approaching the praetorship, M. Cornelius Fronto, was later to be hailed (with no little exaggeration) as another Cicero. Hadrian would not lack cultured company in this part of the west. The ancient history of North Africa, the land of Rome’s greatest rival, may also have had a special appeal. ¹