ABSTRACT
The harvester of Mactar grew up and spent his working life in the countryside; but as soon as he had enough money he went to live in the town. There was no question in the second century AD of him or any other rich African wanting to become a country gentleman, living in a mansion in the middle of his land. The very rich might have a suburban villa in order to escape the heat of the towns in the height of summer, or a hunting lodge in the hills; but even the proconsul's villa was in the suburbs of Carthage, hardly more than a mile or two from his palace in the city itself. The Carthaginians had made permanent homes of their country houses; but the Roman-African rich of the first three centuries were essentially city-dwellers. The great country villas which are so familiar from the mosaics of north-west Africa all belong to the late third and early fourth centuries AD, when life in the towns had become a great deal less agreeable.
