The Camel in Roman Tripolitania

Abstract

It is impossible for us, even in these days of land-rovers and jeeps, to imagine a North African landscape without a camel in it, yet the animal is nowhere to be found on the numerous Roman mosaics with scenes of country life in the museums of Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania. Only two ancient writers before Ammianus Marcellinus refer to the camel in North Africa, one specifically, the other by implication. The fact that the camel spread over this region—Africa Proconsular is, Numidia and Mauretania—some time during the Roman period is, however, generally accepted. What is not clear is when and how this happened. The purpose of this note is to publish the photograph of a relief from a Tripolitanian tomb (Pl. XVIII), in the hope that it may be a small contribution to the discussion of the problem, at least as far as Tripolitania is concerned.The evidence has often been studied. The earliest mention of the camel in the Maghreb is the note in the Bellum Africanum to the effect that twenty-two camels belonging to King Juba were captured during the skirmishing in the campaign which led up to the Battle of Thapsus (45 B.C.). It is not known how Juba obtained his twenty two camels, or whether other rich Numidians owned any, and there is no hint of the presence of the beast in Punic times. The second notice comes in the work of the late third-century African Christian, Arnobius of Sicca, who writes of the camel kneeling down when it is being loaded or unloaded.