Farmers and Frontiers. Exploiting and Defending the Countryside of Roman Tripolitania

Abstract

The past two decades have seen dramatic changes of perspective and an explosion of new information in the broad fields covered by this overview. Within the constraints of space allowed it is not possible to cover all aspects or to mention all relevant publications. References to pre-1969 work have been kept to a minimum, except where dramatic revision of older views is now necessary.The traditional picture of the Roman frontier in Tripolitania owes an incalculable debt to the pioneering work of Richard Goodchild. Much of his observation remains of the highest value (accessible particularly through the volume of collected articles (edited by Joyce Reynolds), Goodchild 1976), but in the 40 years since his initial work on the limes Tripolitanus (1949a/b; 1950a/b; Ward-Perkins and Goodchild 1949) the available body of data has increased greatly and the conceptual framework for interpreting it has changed considerably (the scale of the reappraisal may be judged by comparing Brogan and Smith 1957 and 1985). The most controversial aspects of Goodchild's work concern the date of the development of a frontier in Tripolitania and the interpretation of the fortified farms which are so characteristic of the zone: ‘…no traces of a pre-Severan limes have yet been found. In this respect it may be significant that the linear fossata which Baradez has proved to constitute the central feature of the Numidian limes, and which he tentatively dated to the Hadrianic period, have not yet been found in the area of modern Tripolitania … Apart from … the outer fortresses of Gheriat el-Garbia and Bu Ngem … the military works of the limes Tripolitanus seem to have consisted almost exclusively of fortified farmhouses occupied by Libyan limitanei.’ (Goodchild 1950 = 1976, 44).