This book is unashamedly a personal indulgence on the part of the author. He has had long experience of travel in North Africa, which he clearly loves, and he has already written much about its colourful history. Here, he weaves together descriptions of certain archaeological sites with biographies of some fascinating historical characters, pursuing themes that ‘refuse to be pinned into tidy narratives’ (1) and which he has not, therefore, managed to incorporate into his other writings. As with his other books, his style of writing is enjoyable and easy to absorb. There are no footnotes and no bibliography, thus perhaps deliberately inviting the reader to enjoy the narrative – and the speculation, where the facts are thin – without questioning it too closely. More of that anon.
The six individuals chosen for characterisation are Queen Dido, the legendary founder of Carthage; Hannibal and Masinissa (players in the Second Punic War, alongside Scipio Africanus); Juba II, king of Mauretania under the protection of the Emperor Augustus; Septimius Severus, a Roman emperor of African origin; and the Church father Saint Augustine of Hippo. To these are linked the sites of Carthage (obviously); Iol/Caesarea and Volubilis (developed by Juba); Dougga; Villa Selene and Leptis Magna (characterising the native environment of Severus); and Hippo Regius, where Saint Augustine preached and railed against the schismatic Donatists. A visit to the irresistible oasis town of Ghadames is tacked onto the end, simply because it is irresistible, having asserted its independence of character and spirit in the face of countless waves of cultural change which swept down from the coast, but had not the power to dominate its remote desert fastness. The stories are intended to explore the interactions between a dominant (or growing) power and those on its fringes. Some fight heroically but vainly against it (Hannibal); others align themselves with it and seek its benefits while trying at the same time not to abandon their own roots (Juba); yet others embrace the system with such energy and determination that they rise to the very top and dominate it (Severus).
Rogerson combines travelogue, in the sense of very personal accounts of beautiful and evocative places (apart from Carthage, which must surely disappoint every tourist), with biographies of people who are known to us in widely varying degrees. Dido/Elissa is a semi-mythical person, but embodies a variety of fragments of early history and belief. Hannibal would have been known to every schoolchild of my generation, but is probably not so widely known now: a Romantic and tragic character who fought against the rising power of Rome and ever so nearly won. Juba II was the person of whom I knew least, though he has been studied. He was ten years younger than Octavian/Augustus and brought up in Rome alongside him following the defeat and suicide of his father Juba I of Numidia, who had fought against Julius Caesar. In 25 BC, Juba was sent by Augustus to rule over the buffer state not of Numidia but of Mauretania, further to the west. Juba was imbued with all things Roman and built himself a capital at Iol, which he renamed Caesarea (now Cherchel) and revitalised at huge expense in the image of Rome itself. Wonderful marble statuary and architectural decoration of this period in the museum at Cherchel still bear witness to this. Juba was also provided with a wife, Cleopatra Selene, a convenient way of managing the progeny of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony. Juba was an intellectual: he assembled a library and he wrote works on music theory, theatre studies, linguistics, applied arts, archaeology and the geographies of Africa and Arabia. The botanical genus Euphorbia was named by Juba in honour of his personal physician, Euphorbus, and the Canary Isles were so named after the savage dogs (canes) which seemed to characterise it for an exploratory expedition sent out by the monarch. Juba was more than once used by Augustus as an adviser and diplomat – and it may have been these skills which recommended him as ruler over the Mauretanian tribes. He had been sent to research the southern frontier of Africa Proconsularis prior to the successful Saharan expedition of Cornelius Balbus (21–19 BC) and in 2 BC he was one of the senior advisers delegated to accompany young Gaius Caesar on a military expedition to the East.
While Rogerson clearly enjoyed himself writing this book, allowing free rein to his imagination where the facts are thin, the reader may likewise enjoy reading it. Unfortunately, this enjoyment is put at risk by the following defects.
Errors of fact:
Columns on the Mauretanian royal tomb are described as Doric (86) when they are actually Ionic. The existence of an amphitheatre at Cherchel is said to have been ‘just a possibility’ (92), however it was largely intact until the French despoiled it for building material in the 19th century, and its concrete substructures are still extensively preserved and readily visible. The dedicatory inscription on the Temple of the Gens Septimia at Leptis Magna ‘has never been found, and probably never will be’ (178): in fact there are two recognised fragments, published in 1952 and further discussed in 1993. The 9th/11th-century mosque of Sidi Bou Merouane at Annaba is confused with the 18th-century mosque of Salah Bey (248). Aquileia is placed erroneously at the mouth of the River Po (288).
Errors of Latinity/nomenclature:
Hippo ‘Regia’ for Regius (91 and 290, but correct on 96); clementas for clementia (93); the Legio XIV Gemina erroneously titled Germania (119); ‘Eupherides’ for Euesperides (176); viri classimi for viri clarissimi (262 and 307); principale for principalis (267).
Reversed compass bearings:
Mountains ‘to the north’ of the royal tomb at Tipasa, sea ‘to the south’ (87); the ‘southern shore of North Africa’ (96 – but perhaps this is just a confusing way of indicating the northern shore of the Syrtic Gulf); Utica set ‘just south’ of Carthage rather than to the north, the port of Dellys described as ‘immediately south’ of the Kabylie mountains, i.e. well inland (274).
Lack of copy-editing:
This is a bugbear which I have had occasion to mention more than once in reviews. The text has lacked the attentions of an independent reader, who might have picked up on and eliminated a number of simple errors of grammar or typing, e.g. ‘The Berber villages … had to surrender … and must furnish young men’ (44–5); ‘sited’ for ‘cited’ (195); and ‘then’ for ‘they’ (301).
This list is not exhaustive, but it is surely already tedious. It is a great pity, because most of these things could have been identified and corrected relatively easily; but, by being there, they throw doubt (and may sow confusion) on what would otherwise be a very good read.
