[303] When the designation princeps (C. I. L. viii. p. 1102) is not merely enunciative but an official title, it appears throughout in communities which are neither themselves urban communities nor parts of such, and with special frequency in the case of the gentes. We may compare the “eleven first” (comp. Eph. epigr. v. n. 302, 521, 533) with the seniores to be met with here and there. An evidence in support of both positions is given in the inscription C. I. L. viii. 7041: Florus Labaeonis f. princeps et undecimprimus gentis Saboidum. Recently at Bu Jelîda, a little westward of the great road between Carthage and Theveste, in a valley of the Jebel Rihan, and so in a quite civilised region, there have been found the remains of a Berber village, which calls itself on a monument of the time of Pius (still unprinted) gens Bacchuiana, and is under “eleven elders”; the names of gods (Saturno Achaiaei [?] Aug[usio]), like the names of men (Candidus Braisamonis fil.), are half local, half Latin. In Calama the dating after the two sufetes and the princeps (C. I. L. viii. 5306, comp. 5369) is remarkable; it appears that this probably Libyan community was first under a chief, and then obtained sufetes without the chief being dropped. It may readily be understood that our monuments do not give much information upon the gentes and their organisation; in this field doubtless little was written on stone. Even the Libyan inscriptions belong, at least as regards the majority, to towns in part or wholly inhabited by Berbers; the bilingual inscriptions found at Tenelium (C. I. L. viii. p. 514), in Numidia westward from Bona in the Sheffia plain, the same place that has furnished till now most of the Berber stone inscriptions, show indeed in their Latin part Libyan names, e.g. Chinidial Misicir f. and Naddhsen Cotuzanis f., both from the clan (tribu) of the Misiciri or Misictri; but one of these people, who has served in the Roman army and has acquired the Roman franchise, names himself in the Latin text in civitate sua Tenelio flamen perpetuus, according to which this place seems to have been organised like a town. If, therefore, success should ever attend the attempt to read and decipher the Berber inscriptions with certainty, they would hardly give us sufficient information as to the internal organisation of the Berber tribes.

[304] That the Gaetulian purple is to be referred to Juba is stated by Pliny, H. N. vi. 31, 201: paucas (Mauretaniae insulas) constat esse ex adverso Autololum a Iuba repertas, in quibus Gaetulicam purpuram tinguere instituerat; by these insulae purpurariae (ib. 203) can only be meant Madeira. In fact the oldest mention of this purple is that in Horace, Ep. ii. 2, 181. Proofs are wanting as to the later duration of this manufacture, and, as the Roman rule did not extend to these islands, it is not probable, although from the sagum purpurium of the tariff of Zarai (C. I. L. viii. 4508) we may infer Mauretanian manufactures of purple.

[305] The tariff of Zarai set up at the Numidian customs-frontier towards Mauretania (C. I. L. viii. 4508) from the year 202 gives a clear picture of the Mauretanian exports. Wine, figs, dates, sponges, are not wanting; but slaves, cattle of all sorts, woollen stuffs (vestis Afra), and leather wares play the chief part. The Description of the earth also from the time of Constantius says, c. 60, that Mauretania vestem et mancipia negotiatur.

[306] According to an epitaph found in Mactaris in the Byzacene (Eph. epigr. v. n. 279), a man of free birth there, after having been actively engaged in bringing in the harvests far around in Africa, first throughout twelve years as an ordinary reaper and then for another eleven as a foreman, purchased for himself with the savings of his pay a town and a country house, and became in his turn a member of council and burgomaster. His poetical epitaph shows, if not culture, at least pretensions to it. A development of life of this sort was in the Roman imperial period doubtless not so rare as it at first may seem, but probably occurred in Africa more frequently than elsewhere.

[307] How far our Latin texts of the Bible are to be referred to several translations originally different, or whether, as Lachmann assumed, the different recensions have proceeded from one and the same translation as a basis by means of manifold revision with the aid of the originals, are questions which can scarcely be definitely decided—for the present at least—in favour of either one or the other view. But that both Italians and Africans took part in this work—whether of translation or of correction—is proved by the famous words of Augustine, de doctr. Christ. ii. 15, 22, in ipsis autem interpretationibus Itala ceteris praeferatur, nam est verborum tenacior cum perspicuitate sententiae, over which great authorities have been perplexed, but certainly without reason. Bentley’s proposal, approved afresh of late (by Corssen, Jahrb. für protestant. Theol. vii. p. 507 f.), to change Itala into illa and nam into quae, is inadmissible alike philologically and in substance. For the twofold change is destitute of all external probability, and besides nam is protected by the copyist Isidorus, Etym. vi. 4, 2. The further objection that linguistic usage would require Italica, is not borne out (e.g. Sidonius and Iordanes as well as the inscriptions of later times, C. I. L. x. p. 1146, write Italus by turns with Italicus), and the designation of a single translation as the most trustworthy on the whole is quite consistent with the advice to consult as many as possible; whereas by the change proposed an intelligent remark is converted into a meaningless commonplace. It is true that the Christian Church in Rome in the first three centuries made use throughout of the Greek language, and that we may not seek there for the Itali who took part in the Latin Bible. But that in Italy outside of Rome, especially in Upper Italy, the knowledge of Greek was not much more diffused than in Africa, is most clearly shown by the names of freedmen; and it is just to the non-Roman Italy that the designation used by Augustine points; while we may perhaps also call to mind the fact that Augustine was gained for Christianity by Ambrosius in Milan. The attempt to identify the traces of the recension called by Augustine Itala in such remains as have survived of Bible translations before Jerome’s, will at all events hardly ever be successful; but still less will it admit of being proved that Africans only worked at the pre-Hieronymian Latin Bible texts. That they originated largely, perhaps for the most part, in Africa has certainly great probability. The contrast to the one Itala can only in reason have been several Afrae; and the vulgar Latin, in which these texts are all of them written, is in full agreement with the vulgar Latin, as it was demonstrably spoken in Africa. At the same time we must doubtless not overlook the fact that we know the vulgar Latin in general principally from African sources, and that the proof of the restriction of any individual linguistic phenomenon to Africa is as necessary as it is for the most part unadduced. There existed side by side as well vulgarisms in general use as African provincialisms (comp. Eph. epigr. iv. p. 520, as to the cognomina in -osus); but that forms like glorificare, nudificare, justificare, belong to the second category, is by no means proved from the fact that we first meet with them in Africa, since analogous documents to those which we possess, e.g. for Carthage in the case of Tertullian, are wanting to us as regards Capua and Milan.

[308] The arguments of Mr. B. W. Henderson (English Hist. Review, 1903, 1–23) for a different advance seem to me to be based on a misconception of some of the evidence. Thus, there is no tile of Leg. ix. at Leicester, nor any trace yet noted of Leg. ii. Aug. at Cirencester or Gloucester.

INDEX