FORTIFICATIONS IN AFRICA: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

Alexander Sarantis

General Discussion

In contrast with other regions of the West and (in the case of Cyrenaica) the East, the publications on the fortifications of Africa have merited their own paper. This is down to the fact that it is not as easy to summarise the major works on fortifications in all of the North African provinces, from Cyrenaica to Mauretania Tingitana, for the 3rd to 6th c., as it is in the case of other areas. Work on each of the major African provinces, and on the periods before and after the Vandal era, tend to be treated separately in the literature.1 Although, as will be seen in this paper, limited major exca- vation work has taken place on military sites in these regions, a substantial body of literature exists for each of the major areas, mostly based on field survey and textual evidence. Because this paper deals chronologically with developments across the period, referring in the same sections to refer- ences from various regions, its text will appear at the outset, and biblio- graphic entries organised by region will follow. Mattingly and Hitchner (1995) 174–76 and 211–13 is a good introduc- tion to research on fortifications and the army in Roman and late antique North Africa. Le Bohec (1991) offers a more detailed review of work since 1979, and Krimi (2004) and Bel Faïda (2004) survey recent literature on Roman Tripolitania and North African frontier studies, respectively. Welsby (1990) contains useful references to work on Early and Late Roman military architecture. The best bibliographic survey of the numismatic, epigraphic, archaeological and literary work on ‘post-Vandal’ fortifications is provided by Pringle in the second edition of his The Defence of Byzantine Africa (Pringle (2001) 693–707). Many of the secondary works on Roman and Late Roman fortifications in North Africa survey the chronological development and location of for- tifications within the various provinces without detailed ­archaeological

1 Referred to as the ‘Late Roman’ and ‘Byzantine’ periods in the secondary literature and, for the sake of ease, this essay.

A. Sarantis, N. Christie (edd.) War and Warfare in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives (Late Antique Archaeology 8.1–8.2 – 2010–11) (Leiden 2013), pp. 297–315 298 alexander sarantis analysis. Aerial photography and survey archaeology constitute the prin- cipal sources of evidence for these works’ identification of watchtowers, fortified farms, forts and urban fortifications within a broader frontier strategy. Baradez’s Vue-aérienne de l’organisation romaine dans le Sud- Algérien: Fossatum Africae (1949) (which revealed hitherto unknown linear defensive walls, or fossata, in Numidia) and Morizot’s Archéologie aérienne de l’Aurès are the most prominent works on aerial photography of the North Africa frontier. Meanwhile, Goodchild’s articles on the for- tifications of the limes zones of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (Goodchild (1950a), (1950b) and (1953)) are based largely on the author’s or earlier travellers’ personal observations of archaeological remains and geogra- phy, as are those of Rebuffat on Mauretania Tingitana and Tripolotania (Rebuffat (1979) and (1999)). In its discussion of the changing configura- tion of frontier fortresses in Mauretania Caesariensis between the 1st and 3rd c. A.D., Salama (1977) adopts a similar approach. For broader stud- ies of the administration, armed forces, geography and function of the limites, Laporte (1999) and Le Bohec (1999) on Mauretania Caesariensis, Hamdoune (1995) on Mauretania Tingitana, and the articles in Leppelley (1999) on frontier studies in North Africa are essential reading. There are a number of more detailed treatments of fortifications in specific regions, describing in greater depth the material remains of forts, cataloguing in tables, maps and indexes architectural traits, dimensions and dating evidence. Good examples are Euzennat (1989) on the south- ern limites of Mauretania Tingitana, Peyras (1991) on the Tell region of modern Tunisia, in the province of Africa, Trousset (1974) on the western Tripolotanian frontier, Fentress (1979) on Numida, and Pringle (1981) and (2001) on the 6th to 7th c. fortifications of the lands reconquered from the Vandals—mainly Africa Proconsularis, Zeugitana, Byzacena and Numidia. Mattingly’s Tripolitania (1995) includes similar material on Roman and Late Roman fortifications in Tripolitania, and also has chapters on the socio-economic and political history of the region. However, a number of gaps exist in the secondary literature to date. First, much less work has been carried out on Mauretania Ceasariensis and Cyre- naica than on the other North African provinces; no major monograph has been published on the archaeology of fortifications in either region. The literature on Mauretania Caesariensis is dominated by ‘frontier studies’, on administrative borders and the configuration, ethnicity and etymology of military forces (Le Bohec (1999); Laporte (1999); Deviijver (1995)). Salama (1977) discusses fort locations, but without going into detail regarding their remains and dating evidence. Only a small number of publications have