IMPERIUM ROMANUM

Provinces · Earlier divisions, temporary arrangements, and the final ancient reorganizations

AH-04 Africa Nova

Africa Nova was created through the convergence of Roman civil war and the destruction of a regional monarchy. It placed newly annexed royal lands under Roman authority alongside the older African province. The settlement affected landholding, revenues, local elites, and the relationship between African communities and the victorious Roman political faction.

Its history was brief as a separate provincial arrangement. Later political settlements combined, redistributed, or reorganized the territory before the mature Augustan public province emerged. The name nevertheless matters because it identifies a distinct stage in Rome’s acquisition of North Africa.

The later Numidian military zone and separate province drew upon part of this larger regional inheritance, but Africa Nova should not be equated with Severan Numidia. Royal territory, Caesarian annexation, combined public province, and independent military-governor jurisdiction belong to different phases of rule.

Reconstructed battlefield of Thapsus in 46 BCE, between coastal waters and inland marshland
Thapsus, 46 BCE. The coastal and marshland setting constrained the armies in Caesar’s African campaign. The schematic deployments illustrate a battle whose political aftermath helped bring the Numidian royal territory into the new province of Africa Nova.