Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the general picture 357
and evident prosperity may have come just before our period, in the third
and fourth century. The evidence for this is unfortunately rather impressionistic,
since there are very few closely dated sites and surveys available for
study. However, Carthage itself, which served as the administrative, political
and cultural capital and as the principal port of central North Africa, has
been the subject of a recent international research-project. Unlike some
other great towns of this period, Carthage was never an imperial residence,
and its prosperity must have depended heavily on the wealth of Africa, rather
than on massive injections of cash from elsewhere in the empire (as in the
case of imperial cities like Trier and Constantinople). The history of
Carthage perhaps reflects reasonably accurately the history of its African
hinterland.
In the fourth and early fifth century, the people of Carthage erected a
large number of very substantial churches, and the recent excavations
(many of them focused on the edge of the settlement) have shown that the
city was at its largest at the time of the building of its great wall in the 420s,
in the face of the Vandal threat. 16 Carthage was a very large and very rich
fourth-century city, a phenomenon which in the contemporary western
Mediterranean can otherwise only be found in the great aristocratic and
imperial capitals of the empire (Trier, Milan and Rome).
Evidence from the interior, such as it is, confirms the picture from
Carthage. Two dated and partially published surveys, though on a small
scale, show rural settlement to have been at its densest and most extensive
in the third and fourth century; and, although well-dated evidence is generally
lacking, it seems that a number of the towns of the interior, such as
Cuicul (Djemila), reached their greatest extent during the fourth century,
when they were embellished with both churches and rich aristocratic
housing. 17
What happened after 400 is not yet clear, because there has been so little
closely-dated archaeological work: many buildings are still dated on the
very fluid chronology of mosaic style. But the two datable rural surveys and
the excavations at Carthage suggest a gradual but steady loss of wealth and
the abandonment of settlements through the fifth and sixth century,
though the Vandal conquest in the 420s and 430s does not seem to have
caused any sudden decline. 18
This general picture of slow and steady decline is probably mirrored
in the history of the two African exports which have left abundant
archaeological traces: oil (documented through the amphorae in which it
was carried) and the tableware known as African red-slip ware. African
oil and African pottery dominated the western Mediterranean in the third
16 Carthage: e.g. Carandini et al. (1983) 16–18.
17 Segermes and Kasserine surveys: Mattingly and Hitchner (1995) 191–3. Djemila: Lepelley, Cités
ii.402–15. 18 Mattingly and Hitchner (1995) 209–13 for a useful account of recent work.
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