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Africa during Hadrian\'s reign
#1
From two maps that I've seen it seems that the province of Mauretania Tingitana in northwestern Africa (modern-day Morocco)was shrunk between 117 AD and 125 AD.

map of roman empire in 117 AD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RomanEmpire_117.svg
map of roman empire in 125 AD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_Empire_125.png

Does anyone know why the imperial province was shrunk?
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#2
Quote:From two maps that I've seen it seems that the province of Mauretania Tingitana in northwestern Africa (modern-day Morocco)was shrunk between 117 AD and 125 AD.
The question you should ask is wether these maps give the correct borders of the empire. In my opinion they do not. Borders (especially those between provinces) are often pure guess-work. The borders of the African provinces were never fixed, being in the desert and not along rivers such as the Rhine or the Danube. My guess is, this is not really a shrinking province but a modern mapping problem.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#3
If you deem these maps incorrect, do you mind providing a map that has more accurate borders?
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#4
Quote:do you mind providing a map that has more accurate borders?

I think what Robert meant was that it's impossible to be accurate, so any map is going to be guesswork. The Romans themselves didn't keep maps showing the desert frontiers, and both of the modern maps you linked seem rather vague - I don't think the slight difference between them is intended to represent any shift of borders.

There was, however, a military episode in Mauretania early in Hadrian's reign. We know almost nothing about it, except that Marcius Turbo (Hadrian's all-purpose hardman and troubleshooter) was sent there in 117/118, after sorting out the Jewish rebellion in Egypt. The trouble seems to have been ongoing into the early 120s though, so it could have been more of an insurgency than a full-scale rebellion. Possibly it resulted from the enforced suicide of Lusius Quietus in 117, and consequent unhappiness amongst his clients and supporters in the province.

- Nathan
Nathan Ross
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#5
This doesn't directly pertain to your borders question, but if you are interested in the geography of Roman north-west Africa you might try the Peutinger map. It shows two settlments on the coast and seven stations between them. The map dates to centuries later, but you could do some additional research on the names to see if they are relevant to your time period.

Edit: I found something interesting in Strabo, which might help your boundary question:

Quote:On sailing further along the coast, we find cities and many rivers, as far as the river Molochath, which is the boundary between the territories of the Mauretanians and of the Masaesyli.

Strabo, 17.3.6
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
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#6
If anybody is interested in Roman geography: For me it was a great help to download databases of Graeco-Roman sites and the major Roman roads and view them in Google Earth. Much better than the approximate maps from wikipedia and also a great starting point if you want to make your own maps.


http://pleiades.stoa.org/

Roman road network:
http://viae-romanae.pbworks.com/w/page/4.../FrontPage
Michael
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#7
does anyone know anything about the city of Chellah (a.k.a Sala Colonia)? Becuase I want to use it as the initial destination of the Roman fleet in my book that gets blown off to the New World.
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