What Animal Did The Romans Introduce In North Africa?
At its fullest extent, the Roman Empire stretched from effectually modernistic-day Aswan, Egypt at its southernmost signal to Cracking Britain in the north but the influence of the Roman Empire went far beyond fifty-fifty the borders of its provinces every bit a result of commerce and population movements. Reverse to popular belief which holds that the Sahara Desert was an incommunicable obstruction to trade prior to the Middle Ages, the Romans had a robust and dynamic network of connections to Sudanic and Sub-Saharan Africa. Slaves, gold, foodstuffs, and spices were transported from complex urban settlements on the Niger river, onwards to haven cities in the Sahara, earlier finally reaching Rome's bustling ports on the coast of North Africa. Going in the contrary direction, gemstones, textiles, and coins reached cities along the fertile banks of the Center Niger.
Roman Mosaic of an Aethiopian Fisherman
Classical Greek and Roman writers refer to all of Sudanic and Sub-Saharan Africa equally 'Aethiopia', while the term 'Africa' originally referred merely to the Maghreb region on the northwestern coast of the continent. Well-nigh Aethiopians in the Roman Empire likely came from East Africa through Egypt and Nubia simply new evidence has also highlighted the role of trade and military interactions between West Africa and the Roman Empire.
Roman Exploration in Due west Africa
Roman expeditions into the Sahara were well documented beginning in the early on Regal period, though they decreased in Late Antiquity as a result of the accelerating desertification of North Africa. In 19 BCE, the Roman proconsul Cornelius Balbus led a force of ten,000 legionaries into Libya to punish the Garamantes, a Berber people who inhabited the Fezzan region of the Libyan Desert in the northeast Sahara, for rebellious activity. Balbus conquered the city of Ghadames before marching on Garama (Germa) and conquering it. Afterwards this, he penetrated the continent further south until reaching what is believed to be the Niger River.
The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus quelled a rebellion in Mauretania in 40 CE, before embarking on a celebrated trek across the Atlas Mountains and into the Fezzan region of the Sahara (c. 41 CE). In 50 CE a general named Septimius Flaccus led a military expedition against nomadic bandits who were troubling Leptis Magna in modern-day Libya. His expedition proved successful but what was nigh impressive was that his journeying went far further s than the Saharan desert. In fact, Flaccus made it as far every bit an enormous lake surrounded by elephants and rhinoceroses (Lake Chad) earlier returning.
Roman Terra cotta Oil Lamp with a Rhinoceros Image
According to the 2nd-century CE Alexandrian historian Ptolemy, a Roman merchant named Julius Maternus led an trek to retread Flaccus' footsteps and open up new merchandise routes in Westward Africa. This journey is thought to have been sometime around 83 CE and plotted through what is now Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya to the city of Garama. The Garamantian king immune Maternus to accompany him on an trek south and sent letters of introduction to the African kings in the south on behalf of the Roman. Maternus ultimately travelled to Lake Republic of chad before returning to Rome with a two-horned rhinoceros which was displayed in the Colosseum. This animal would have been either a black or white rhino from Central Africa and was a awareness in Rome - due to its performance in the arena. The Roman Emperor Domitian (81-96 CE) was and then impressed with the fauna and its reception that he minted coins begetting its prototype sometime between 83 and 85 CE.
SOURCES OF TRADE ON THE NIGER RIVER
Ancient cities and polities in West Africa which had developed along the Eye Niger were participants in the desultory trans-Saharan trade relations of antiquity. These settlements developed independently in Due west Africa and are based on a radically different economical, social, and architectural model than the urban centres of Mesopotamia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. These cities and settlements traded appurtenances like locally grown crops with Saharan contacts for rare strange imports.
Terracotta Head from Mali's Inland Niger Delta Region
Djenne-Djenno, congenital almost modern-twenty-four hour period Djenne, Mali by the Fe Age Nok culture in the early 3rd century BCE, has some of the oldest known evidence of Classical Mediterranean merchandise in W Africa. Traders in Djenne-Djenno were importing glass chaplet of Roman or Hellenistic origin equally early on equally the 3rd century BCE. Testify of trans-Saharan trade has been found in Kissi, Burkina Faso and Dia Shoma, Mali which means that this merchandise did non bargain exclusively with the cities of the Middle Niger but extended to the Niger Bend as well.
Saharan Intermediaries
The extent of trans-Saharan contact between the peoples inhabiting the Sahara desert has long been debated despite the frequent allusions of the Greek and Roman accounts, including sources like The Histories by the 5th-century BCE Greek author Herodotus and Pliny the Elderberry'southward 1st-century CE Natural History.
Between the 1st and 4th centuries CE, Rome was trading closely with the Garamante Kingdom, which had become a client state of Rome. Graeco-Roman stereotypes of the Garamantes often dismissed them equally unruly nomads:
On its [Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya's] borders dwell the Garamantians, a lightly clad, active tribe of tent-dwellers subsisting mainly by the chase. (Lucian of Samosata, Dipsas the Thirst-Snake, Ch. two, translated by Fowler, p. 27)
Archaeologists have uncovered a different picture by demonstrating that they had permanent settlements which were supported by advanced irrigation techniques. Excavations at Garama have revealed a dynamic trade center with a population of around ten,000.
Mediterranean amphorae containing olive oil and wine as well as imported pottery attest to frequent merchandise with the Roman Empire. Further evidence of Roman influences comes in the form of Roman-style marble, concrete, and vino presses. About striking, all the same, is the presence of a big mausoleum with very clear architectural inspiration from its Roman counterparts.
Aerial View of the Ruins at Germa (Garama)
Carbuncles, Golden & Ancient Grains
1 of the nigh important items that the Garamantes had to offer both Roman and West African traders were semi-precious stones similar carnelian and amazonite. These minor stones (referred to as carbuncles) were highly prized by Romans and are the primary article referenced in literary accounts of this substitution. Carbuncles and other semi-precious stones are the almost well-represented objects from the trans-Saharan trade in W Africa. These carbuncles likely acted equally a regional commodity and status symbol to locals of the Niger Bend given their rarity and the difficulty involved in obtaining them.
The Garamantes provided the Romans with foodstuffs, exotic Sub-Saharan slaves & possibly textiles, common salt, gold & ivory in substitution for Roman wine, olive oil & pottery.
In addition to this, the Garamantes provided the Romans with foodstuffs, exotic Sub-Saharan slaves, and peradventure textiles, salt, aureate, and ivory in exchange for Roman wine, olive oil, and pottery. Although a big amount of Sub-Saharan appurtenances made it to the Mediterranean, Mediterranean goods did not accomplish the Sub-Sahara in the same volume. The reason for this was that the Garamantes and other intermediaries tended to keep the expensive Roman products for themselves rather than exchanging them with their contacts in the south. Instead, they provided their West African neighbours with common salt, food, and textiles. Drinking glass beads and copper items from the Roman Mediterranean were also traded but only occasionally.
The Garamantes imported a wide range of Due west African crops like rice, sorghum, cotton fiber, and pearl millet, and some of these crops were cultivated at Garama. Leather and ivory from animals similar hippopotami were besides imported from Sub-Saharan Africa. Domesticated animals from N Africa such every bit camels, chickens, and donkeys were commencement brought across the Western Sahara in the 4th century CE every bit a outcome of trans-Saharan trade.
A W African golden trade route is thought to accept opened up to the Roman Empire for a brief time during Belatedly Antiquity. Gold ore was mined in the Niger Bend before beingness transported upriver and ultimately reaching Roman cities in Northward Africa. The existence of this pre-Islamic golden trade has been reinforced by the fact that Roman aureate coin mintage in Carthage and Alexandria only began in 295 CE and lasted until 429 CE when it was disrupted past the Vandal invasion of North Africa. This gold trade explains the advent of Roman drinking glass, carnelian, and textiles in Kissi, near the Sirba goldfields on the Niger Bend during the tardily 3rd century CE. This trade was a precursor to the medieval gold trade which was carried out in West Africa past Islamic traders kickoff in the 7th century CE.
Gold & Carnelian Ring, Herakleia
Archaeological finds of Roman coins in Sub-Saharan Africa are extremely rare but the same is true of Standard arabic coins, despite the enormous scale of the medieval Islamic trans-Saharan merchandise. This is largely due to the fact that West African societies did not use a system of minted coinage as currency and so any imported coins would most likely be recirculated back due north or melted down for their precious metals.
Slave Trade
More than than rice and gemstones were brought n of the Sahara, however, and, in many ways, the motion of people has left a more enduring impact on the archaeological record than gilt. Sub-Saharan slaves fulfilled an of import function every bit labourers in Garama, where vast amounts of manpower were needed to maintain the expansive canal systems. Garamantian raiding activity confronting their Sub-Saharan neighbours may well have been an important source for the trans-Saharan slave trade of antiquity, more than and so than voluntary exchange. The Garamantes were reported to routinely hunt their southern neighbours from equus caballus-drawn chariots:
These Garamanteans of whom I speak hunt the "Cavern-dwelling" Aethiopians [Troglodytes] with their four-horse chariots... (Herodotus, The Histories, Book Iv, Ch. 183, translated by Godley p. 387)
Saharan rock paintings which portray Garamantian chariots take been pointed to as testify of periodic raids. The Garamantes as well exported slaves to their Roman trading partners. Certain "Aethiopians" within the Roman Empire were associated with the Garamantes which implies Roman familiarity with Sub-Saharan Africans in Garamantian society. These slaves were transported as role of merchandise caravans which embarked from cities like Garama and travelled through the Sahara to the N African coast.
Hellenistic Bronze Statuette of an Aethiopian Youth
The Roman merchandise in Sub-Saharan slaves dealt primarily in children and was conducted through port cities like Alexandria and Roman Carthage before reaching Europe and the Almost Due east. In the Royal Period, this trade seems to take been heavily weighted towards the Roman sex industry every bit in that location were far less expensive sources of slaves for agricultural or other manual labour, such as Italy, Gaul, and the About East.
While most West Africans in the Roman Empire likely ended upwardly in the Mediterranean as a issue of slavery, doubtless others lived within the borders of the empire every bit free people. "Aethiopians" are known to have served in the Roman military, were living in territories captured by the Romans, and travelled to Roman territories under their ain initiative as traders or envoys. Even foreigners originally enslaved past Rome could find themselves freed and enfranchised. "Aethiopian" scholars, soldiers, athletes, and performers are known to have contributed to Roman club based on art, literature, remains, and inscriptions from throughout the Roman globe.
A New Perspective on 2 Aboriginal Worlds
In the popular imagination, European and Middle Eastern contact with Sub-Saharan Africa is a relatively recent development but this is clearly non so; the intermittent relationship between the Roman Mediterranean and W Africa discussed above shows how very different cultures attempted to reach far exterior the horizons of their known earth much earlier than many suppose. Through merchandise networks like these, aboriginal civilisations were able to overcome the Sahara desert, 1 of the greatest natural barriers in the world, an accomplishment which was rewarded by material and cultural wealth for those involved.
This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.
Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1199/the-roman-empire-in-west-africa/
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