ABSTRACT
The creation of the province of Tripolitana related to an empire-wide pattern of sub-division of provinces during the first Tetrarchy under Diocletian and Maximian between ad 294-305. Tripolitania had for long been recognized as a quasi-separate unity, the regio Tripolitana, and the economic growth of Byzacena had demarcated it as a fiscal administrative region separate from that of north Tunisia. Some work on late Roman life in the African provinces and Cyrenaica has proposed a significant revision to the general view that this was a time of degeneration and decline. The Tripolitanian cities seem to have been undergoing the transformation from an earlier date than many other parts of Africa and there is no doubt that some sort of qualitative change in the standard of life was involved. Tripolitana fell from prosperity and influence as fast as the region had earlier risen. The military and socio-economic consequences of such a turn-about were undoubtedly grave.
