Études sur la “Confédération cirtéenne”, entité singulière de l'Afrique romaine (IIe s. a.C.-IIIe s. p.C.)

The work is a collection of articles on a unique entity of Roman Africa, in the heart of northern Numidia, the “Cirtean Confederation” (modern term), whose name is taken from its capital Cirta (Constantine in Algeria). He recalls that its creation is the fruit of a long genesis, the origins of which can be traced at the end of the IInd century BC. even if the real proof of its existence dates only from the beginning of the reign of Trajan. As the numerous inscriptions unearthed since the XIXth century reveal, this territory, made up of four colonies and castella, was administered autonomously with magistracies covering functions that were often original compared to the rest of ancient Africa. Originally attached to Proconsular Africa, from the reign of Septimius Severus, the "Confederation" covers the northern part of the new province of Numidia. Its dissolution in the middle of the third century is not a sudden fact, but the result of a long evolution which begins under the reign of the Severus, gradually loosens the links between the colonies and the castella, which are part of it, and ends under the reign of Gallienus (260-268). Very early on attached to Romanity, this region was the cradle of the first Roman consul of African origin, jurisconsults, powerful families with vast estates which contributed to the prosperity of the Cirtéenne. She gave the Empire high-ranking Imperial officials, great generals loyal to Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Originally from Cirta, Marcus Cornelius Fronto, tutor to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, undoubtedly favored his compatriots to form an African party at the Imperial Court in the third quarter of the second century. The book also presents onomastic research on a highly Romanized population, even if Punic and Libyan reminiscences appear in the cognomina. Finally, articles focus on highlighting the religious organization of hommage paid to emperors in the colonies and castella of this territory.