Croissance urbaine et évolution institutionnelle en Afrique

Despite the lack of archaeological information, urban
growth in northern Numidia during the high Roman
Empire can be inferred from the institutional evolution
of the towns in the pertica of Cirta (Constantine, modern
Algeria). Until the mid-3rd c. CE, the Roman colony of
Cirta was the capital of a res publica IIII coloniarum
Cirtensium, the so-called Cirtean Confederation; the
three other coloniae Cirtensium, Chullu, Mileu, and
Rusicade, were administrated by Cirta and did not enjoy
the legal status of a colony. However, Chullu, Mileu, and
Rusicade were not called colonies before the late 1st c. CE.
When Octavian founded the Roman colony of Cirta,
they were small oppida, and were included in the pertica.
From the late 1st c. onward, the increasing part of the
Cirtean territory in the food supply of Rome and the
urban growth of the two ports of Chullu and Rusicade
and of Mileu in the hinterland can explain the creation
of a specific title without colonial status, as the Roman
authorities may have wanted to honor these communities
without dismantling a strategic territory. It can also
explain the existence of a college of triumuiri to rule the
res publica Cirtensium, instead of the usual duouiri,
henceforth insufficient to cope with the volume of
affairs to be handled. The prosperity also benefited
smaller towns of the rural territory (pagi and castella),
whose elites obtained local institutions during the
second and third centuries and eventually, in some
cases, a municipal status.