Map 35 Tripolitana Compiled by D.J
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Map 35 Tripolitana Compiled by D.J. Mattingly, 1996 Introduction Tripolitana was the name of the fourth century province constituted from a region of Africa Proconsularis that had always been somewhat separate geographically and culturally (Merighi 1940; Haynes 1959; Buck 1985; Mattingly 1989; 1994). Although parts of the coastal zone and the chain of hill ranges to its south (the Tripolitanian Gebel) benefit from a Mediterranean climate and flora, a large proportion of the area shown on the map can be classified as desert or pre-desert lands. It is a region of very few perennial streams and of generally poor water resources, with great ingenuity being shown by its inhabitants in the exploitation of the meager rainfall (Vita-Finzi 1969; Barker 1996). Tripolitana is best known for its wealthy coastal cities, Lepcis Magna, Oea, Sabratha, Gigthis and Tacape, although there were also several minor towns, mostly along the littoral (Gascou 1972; 1982; Lepelley 1979; 1981). The western part of the map covers southern Tunisia, but the eastern part lies within modern Libya, thus causing archaeological research to follow two separate traditions, French-influenced in the former case, Italian and British in the latter. Modern place names reflect this division for the most part; those in the east generally follow Italian conventions of transliteration (normally those given in Governo della Tripolitania 1916), those in the west French ones. For the Tunisian part, there are only a few sketchy sheets of AAT available, together with the published notes of the French Brigades Topographiques responsible for recording the sites noted there and on their 1:100,000 and 1:200,000 series maps (Toutain 1903; Toussaint 1905; 1906; 1907; 1908). More recent research has focused either on the frontier, or on the coastal sites (Trousset 1974; 1992). For the Libyan part, all research owes a great debt to the work of Goodchild (1976), who systematized earlier knowledge of roads and settlement and carried out many pioneering surveys. His TIR Lepcis Magna covers the eastern half of this map. Hafemann’s (1975) historical map of North Africa, centered on Tunisia, covers the western zone in part, but is generally less useful. Brogan’s work (1965; 1971; 1977; 1984) has been of great significance for the exploration of the Libyan pre-desert, and is now supplemented by the results of the Libyan Valleys survey (Barker 1996; Mattingly 1996). In addition, I have relied heavily on the American Map Service 1:250,000 and 1:50,000 series. For the Syrtic coast eastwards from Lepcis Magna, Purcaro Pagano (1976) has reviewed the ancient testimony for toponyms, though many of the precise identifications remain unsubstantiated on the ground. E.W.B. Fentress and P. Trousset gave advice and information on a number of controversial identifications. Broadly, Tripolitana may be divided into four zones: a coastal plain of varying depth, the hill ranges, the pre-desert beyond, and finally the true desert comprising sand sea in the west and a desolate rock plateau in the south (Hamada el-Hamra, ancient Ater M.). In all four zones, spring-fed oases have been important foci for human settlement, and the map seeks to reflect this. Most of the coastal cities had their own oases, even where rainfall permitted dry cultivation. The major inland settlements were almost invariably attached to oases, as in the dense grouping in the north-west corner of the map around Turris Tamalleni (modern Nefzaoua), or around Cidamus (modern Ghadamès) to the south-west. Most evidence for dispersed human settlement is to be found in the coastal plain (Gefara) and the Gebel, though in antiquity as today it was not evenly spread. In the pre-desert and desert areas the preservation of sites can be spectacular (Brogan 1984, for the well-known site of Ghirza), but in comparison with many other parts of the Greco-Roman world there has been little excavation either of rural sites or of urban centers apart from Lepcis Magna, Sabratha and Gigthis. In mapping rural settlement, which for the most part lacks ancient toponyms, I have followed two principles: first, to show major sites (typically villas, large farms, fortified farms, mausolea) by their modern names so that they may be easily located; second, to include a number of other sites (not named individually) in order to give an impression of overall settlement trends. This seems the best means of indicating the state of current knowledge since to some extent the major gaps on the map are representative of ancient reality. For instance, the 530 MAP 35 TRIPOLITANA central area of the great coastal plain enclosed by the curving line of the Gebel marks a notable northward advance of arid conditions, and thus divides the region into eastern and western zones. The Gebel hills provided the best possibilities for non-irrigated agriculture, with olive cultivation of particular importance, and consequently the eastern coastal cities competed for control of large hinterland territories (Mattingly 1994, 50-54). However, although the Gebel region south of Lepcis Magna and Oea is reasonably well-known archaeologically, it should be noted that ancient settlement from the Gebel Nefusa (south of Sabratha) west to the Tunisian Gebel is less well-preserved and comparatively unexplored (Corò 1928). Intensive study would be sure to yield many more sites from these areas. In the pre-desert zone, settlement possibilities were more restricted, but the cultivation of the dry river systems of the Wadi Sofeggin and Wadi Zemzem basins in eastern Tripolitana by the Macae tribes is a distinct exception to environmental logic (Barker 1996, where the detailed settlement record for that remarkable region can best be appreciated). Tripolitana was also a frontier zone, and some of the remains of forts, fortlets and linear earthworks and embankments for the control of transborder movement compare with the best preserved examples elsewhere in the Roman world, though a number of key sites remain uninvestigated (Rebuffat 1972; 1975; Trousset 1974; Fentress 1979; Daniels 1987; Mattingly 1994; 1995). Most place-name evidence is summarized by entries in RE, which should be consulted as a matter of course alongside the works cited in the Directory; wherever possible, these seek to pinpoint information on the physical remains of the sites. Several corpora of inscriptions cover all or part of the region (ILAf; ILT; IPT; IRT; Reynolds 1955), with post 1950s material best traced through AE. A large number of the place names have Phoenician (lpqy for Lepcis Magna) or Libyan derivations (for instance, places beginning with Th). The problems of mapping the roads and locating named sites along them is particularly acute in Tripolitana due to a combination of circumstances (Toutain 1903; Donau 1907; Goodchild 1948; 1971; 1976; Salama 1951; Hammond 1967; Rebuffat 1973; Euzennat 1978; Mattingly 1994). With the exception of streets within towns, the roads were not paved, so that outside sectors where milestones have been recorded they leave no physical traces to distinguish them from the myriad dirt roads and tracks of the region. The course of the majority of roads marked is therefore a best approximation, taking account of the topography between places known, or believed, to have been linked in antiquity. Another problem is that many of the road stations named in ItAnt or TabPeut were evidently of a very minor nature, and their names are descriptive of features that can no longer be discerned or differentiated between rival locations (sites such as Ad Puteam, Puteos, Ad Cisternas, Ad Palmam, Ad Ficum). The identification of modern toponyms for sites that lie away from the major fixed points is thus hazardous, although I have sometimes chosen to indicate a best guess. There are two main circumstances where I have done this: first, where the mileage distance when measured from fixed points seems to indicate a fairly secure approximate location (primarily on the coast road between Tacape and Lepcis Magna); second, where I have suggested revised lines for the roads on which the sites lay (as in the region immediately east of Lepcis Magna). I have deliberately not pursued these efforts beyond a certain level of uncertainty, and have thus refrained from identifying all the minor road stations shown by TabPeut on the western side of the Syrtic gulf. Rebuffat (1973) and Purcaro Pagano (1976) summarize earlier views, but their contrasting identifications illustrate the intractability of the problems. Similarly, the identification of many of the sites named by Ptolemy in the interior of the country is to my mind unresolvable because his co-ordinate locations for this part of Africa are exceedingly unreliable. The towns on the island of Gerba present another instance where the conventional identifications cannot be satisfactorily reconciled with the available archaeological evidence (Jerba Actes 1986). Tribal names have caused much confusion in the past, not least because different sources provide a variety of ethnic names for the same general geographic areas (Bates 1914; Desanges 1962; 1980; Brogan 1975; EncBerb). I have proposed elsewhere that this confusion can best be resolved by recognizing the operation of a hierarchy of tribal names, of which the major groupings were the Gaetuli in western Tripolitana (and their major sub-group the Phazanii in the desert to the south), the Macae in the east and the Libyphoenices along the coast, with the Garamantes lying to the south on Map 36 (Mattingly 1994, 17-49). In Late Antiquity, the Laguatan emerged as a major confederation of tribes, expanding from bases in the region of the Syrtis Maior (Mattingly 1994, 173-85). Most of the remaining names in the sources can be seen to relate to sub-groupings of one of these larger units, and although approximate locations can be suggested for some, it must be noted that only a handful are confirmed by independent epigraphic data (Arzosei, Cinithi, Nybgenii).