REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK
The Roman province of Africa was famed as being the ‘breadbasket’ of the ancient city, for Africa produced the huge quantities of grain needed to feed the plebs of Rome. But why was this region so fecund? Was it due to Roman efficiency or was Africa already well on the way to ‘civilisation’?
In Between Sahara and Sea: Africa in the Roman Empire, David Mattingly argues that our view of Africa has been tainted by colonial perspectives. He therefore tries to take a non-colonial view of Africa in the Roman Empire, and to study these areas from the perspectives of the indigenous population rather than the invaders, which also tends to mean from the point of view of the archaeologist rather than the classicist.
North Africa can be considered under several regions. On the Mediterranean coast, the Phoenicians had long settled, but they mixed with the locals and were called Libyphoenicians. Throughout the Roman period, inscriptions in the Libyphoenician languages rival in number those in Latin.
