Quelques aspects de l’administration des provinces romaines d’Afrique avant la conquête vandale

Contenu

Titre

Quelques aspects de l’administration des provinces romaines d’Afrique avant la conquête vandale

Créateur

Lepelley, Claude Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Date

2003

Dans

Antiquité Tardive Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Résumé

1. The Theodosian Code was compiled between 429 and 437. During these years the commissioners made much use of the archives in Africa, particularly those in Carthage when they were collecting those imperial constitutions which were retained in the new code. The fact that they were able to use these archives shows that in this region, which was not affected by the Vandals until 439, the records were well stocked and well maintained. 2. There is further evidence which shows that institutions were functioning normally: the Acts of the conference between the Catholics and Donatists at Carthage in 411, a passage from Salvian’s De Gubernatione Dei (probably informed about Africa by refugees he met in Marseilles), and testimony from Quodvultdeus, the exiled bishop of Carthage. 3. The Notitia Dignitatum, drawn up in 401, was partly revised for the West under Valentinian III. This document is not a theoretical organisational chart, and it provides evidence that in Africa a civil and military organisation was still complete and effective at the beginning of the 5th century. 4. It is recalled that there existed three distinct entities called Numidia: the province of this name (Numidia consularis); the western portion of Africa proconsularis, Numidia proconsularis‚ where the proconsul was represented by a legatus Numidiae; and lastly the ecclesiastical province of Numidia, which included both the civil province and the western part of Numidia proconsularis. 5. Two problems are examined: the complex question of the respective powers of the proconsul and the vicarius, and the problem of the location of the residence of the vicarius, who in 379 appears to have been forbidden to live in Africa proconsularis, even though certain offices of the vicariate still remained at Carthage. The vicarius appears to have returned subsequently to Carthage, but his tours of duty led him also to reside in other provincial metropoleis, particularly Cirta. 6. Regular functioning of the institutions is shown to have been disturbed by the corruption which was frequently denounced by the officials in charge. Certain of the letters of Augustine discovered by J. Divjak show that the phenomenon was aggravated on the eve of the Vandal conquest, probably linked to the disintegration of imperial authority which was a result of the invasions which were then rolling across Europe.

Langue

fre

volume

10

pages

61-72

doi

10.1484/J.AT.2.300426

issn

1250-7334

Lepelley, Claude, “Quelques aspects de l’administration des provinces romaines d’Afrique avant la conquête vandale”, 2003, bibliographie, consulté le 19 septembre 2024, https://ibadica.org/s/bibliographie/item/10555