[293] From the expression in the epitome of Victor, that the emperor Severus was Latinis litteris sufficienter instructus, Graecis sermonibus eruditus, Punica eloquentia promptior, quippe genitus apud Leptim, we may not infer a Punic course of rhetoric in the Tripolis of that time; the late and inferior author has possibly given a scholastic version of the well-known notice.
[294] On the statement of the younger Arnobius, writing about 460 (ad Psalm. 104, p. 481 Migne: Cham vero secundus filius Noe a Rhinocoruris usque Gadira habens linguas sermone Punico a parte Garamantum, Latino a parte boreae, barbarico a parte meridiani, Aethiopum et Aegyptiorum ac barbaris interioribus vario sermone numero viginti duabus linguis in patriis trecentis nonaginta et quattuor), no reliance is to be placed, still less upon the nonsense of Procopius, de bello Vand. ii. 10, as to the Phoenician inscription and language in Tigisis. Authorities of this sort were hardly able to distinguish Berber and Punic.
[295] In a single place on the Little Syrtis the Phoenician may still have been spoken in the eleventh century (Movers, Phön. ii. 2, 478).
[296] More clearly than by the Latin inscriptions found in Africa, which begin too late to illustrate the state of things before the second century A.D., this is shown by the four contracts of patronatus from the time of Tiberius, quoted in next note, concluded by two small places of the proconsular province Apisa maius and Siagu, and two others nowhere else mentioned, probably adjacent, Themetra and Thimiligi; according to which the statement of Strabo (xvii. 3, 15, p. 833) that at the beginning of the last war the Carthaginian territory numbered 300 towns, appears not at all incredible. In each of those four smaller places there were sufetes; even where the old and new Punic inscriptions name magistrates, there are regularly two sufetes. That these are comparatively frequent in the proconsular province, and elsewhere can only be pointed out in Calama, serves to show how much more strongly the Phoenician urban organisation was developed in the former.
[297] The contracts of patronatus from the time of Caesar (C. I. L. viii. 10525), of Augustus (ib. 68 comp. 69), and Tiberius (C. I. L. v. 4919–4922), concluded by the senatus populusque of African communities (civitates) of peregrine rights with Romans of rank, appear to have been entered into quite after the Roman fashion by the common council, which represents and binds the community.
[298] On the coin undoubtedly struck under Caesar (Müller Num. de l’Afr. ii. 149) with Kar(thago) Veneris and Aristo Mutumbal Ricoce suf(etes), the first two names are probably to be taken together as a Graeco-Phoenician double name, such as elsewhere is not rare (comp. C. I. L. v. 4922: agente Celere Imilchonis Gulalsae filio sufete). Since on the one hand sufetes cannot be assigned to a Roman colony, and on the other hand the conducting of such a colony to Carthage itself is well attested, Caesar himself must either have subsequently changed the form of founding the city, or the founding of the colony must have been carried into effect by the triumvirate as a posthumous ordinance of the dictator (as is hinted by Appian, Pun. 136). We may compare the fact that Curubis stands in the earlier time of Caesar under sufetes (C. I. L. viii. 10525), in the year 709 U.C. as a Caesarian colony under duoviri (ib. 977); yet the case is different, since this town did not, like Carthage, owe its existence to Caesar.
[299] For Africa and Numidia Pliny (H. N., v. 4, 29 f.) numbers in all 516 communities, among which are 6 colonies, 15 communities of Roman burgesses, 2 Latin towns (for the oppidum stipendiarium must, according to the position which is given to it, have been also of Italian rights), the rest either Phoenician towns (oppida), among which were 30 free, or else Libyan tribes (non civitates tantum, sed pleraeque etiam nationes iure dici possunt). Whether these figures are to be referred to Vespasian’s time or to an earlier, is not ascertained; in any case they are not free from errors, for, besides the six colonies specially adduced, six are wanting (Assuras, Carpi, Clupea, Curubi, Hippo Diarrhytos, Neapolis), which are referable, partly with certainty partly with probability, to Caesar or Augustus.
[300] Pliny, v. 1, 2, says indeed only of Zulil or rather Zili regum dicioni exempta et iura in Baeticam petere iussa, and this might be connected with the transfer of this community to Baetica as Iulia Traducta (Strabo, iii. 1, 8, p. 140). But probably Pliny gives this notice in the case of Zili alone, just because this is the first colony laid out beyond the imperial frontier which he names. The burgess of a Roman colony cannot possibly have had his forum of justice before the king of Mauretania.
[301] Frontinus in the well-known passage, p. 53 Lachm., respecting processes between the urban communities and private persons, or, as it may be, the emperor, appears not to presuppose state-districts de iure independent and of a similar nature with urban territories—such as are incompatible with Roman law—but a de facto refractory attitude of the great land-owner towards the community which makes him liable, e.g. for the furnishing of recruits or compulsory services, basing itself on the allegation that the piece of land made liable is not within the bounds of the community requiring the service.
[302] The technical designation gens comes into prominence particularly in the fixed title of the praefectus gentis Musulamiorum, etc.; but, as this is the lowest category of the independent commonwealth, the word is usually avoided in dedications (comp. C. I. L. viii. p. 1100) and civitas put instead, a designation, which, like the oppidum of Pliny foreign to the technical language (p. 331, note), includes in it all communities of non-Italian or Greek organisation. The nature of the gens is described by the paraphrase (C. I. L. viii. 68) alternating with civitas Gurzensis (ib. 69): senatus populusque civitatium stipendiariorum pago Gurzenses, that is, the “elders and community of the clans of tributary people in the village of Gurza.”