Public Law in Roman North Africa

Abstract

Roman Africa is distinguished by the quantity and diversity of surviving evidence for the operation of public law. Although there is a lack of evidence for rules of jurisdiction such as survive for Sicily, the Iberian provinces, or especially Cisalpine Gaul, epigraphic material from Africa does allow for reconstruction of public law institutions that bear on the themes of this volume in at least two fields. First, the lex agraria provides information about the nature and degree of interest on the part of Roman authorities in Rome to regulate control of agricultural land. Second, a recently recovered inscription from Carthage, which has been interpreted as the lex sacra, probably of the cult of the Cereres (but which is probably a feriale for the sacra publica of the colony), provides detailed evidence for both the importation from Italy of Roman institutions and the preservation within the colony of the worship of indigenous gods. Each text provides information about the time of its production; they do not allow a clear-cut view for an increase in the importance of Roman norms. However, the epigraphic evidence for the spread of Roman public institutions, especially magistracies and the language of res publicae, can be situated alongside these statutes to yield a complex picture of law in the province over several hundred years.