The Roman Africa

Having entered under the Roman protection in 146 B.C., on the morrow of the third Punic war, Africa was going to remain Roman until the arrival of the Vandals in 429-439; proclaimed "ager publicus populi romani", that is to say property of the Roman people, she was first a small 25,000 square km province essentially spread out in the valley of Medjerda and Meliane wadi as well as in the region of the Sahel; then, she won in expanse, reaching a big unity that covered and overflapped the present Tunisia. Full of episodes of all kinds, this process resulted in numerous cultural interactions that culminated in the formation of a particular civilization where African -Carthaginian and Numidian- values and Roman ones were hamoniously placed side by side! Today, concerning the vestiges of that long period, the archaeologists try to work at double speed while searching but also while prospecting a country the archaeological potentiality of which is worthy of its past: majestic!

The wealth of the Proconsulate became commonplace; however, more than through the topics of the Antiquity authors, this prosperity is revealed today by the Tunisian soil itself which, day after day, with the ongoing works of the archaeologists, delivers its riches to us again and again : there are thousands of places ranking from city to villa, thousands of mosaic pavements, thousands of inscriptions, objects which some are as attractive as the others…

In those times as before, the Africans knew how to take and how to give and so it is in all walks of life: architecture, sculpture, letters… Won over to Christianity, they adhered to it so well that the church of Africa came to vie with those of the Occident and the Orient. Carthaginian was Tertullian, Carthaginian was Saint Cyprien!
However, victim of her own repute as a granary, Africa excited the lust of the Germanics, the Vandals who crossed the strait of Gibraltar in 429 . Tunisia was the sought-after Eldorado; in 439, they settled there for one century, only to be dislodged in their turn by the Byzantines come from the Orient!
What hard times those fifth and sixth centuries which recorded a strong Berber tribes' comeback as well as a sort of " religious war" between the Aryan Vandals and the Catholic Africans. However, although Africa didn't shine its lights of yesteryear anymore, the country had kept important potentialities; oil and the Tunisian steppe ceramics continued to flood the Mediterranean markets!
From this late Antique period, Tunisia kept many vestiges, notably fortresses and small forts erected by the Byzantines at Ammaedara (Haïdra), Thignica (Aïn Touna), Sufetula (Sbeïtla) and elsewhere… Also, from this era - a paradox of these troubled times - date many gold coin treasures today exposed in the museums, particularly at the one in Mahdia!