Irrigation at Lamasba 293 



NOTE ON AN AFRICAN INSCRIPTION. 



It may be convenient to notice here an inscription 1 relative to irrigation in 

 Africa. In all parts of the empire subject to drought the supply of water to 

 farmers was a matter of importance, as it is in most Mediterranean countries 

 to-day. Good soils, that would otherwise have lain waste, were thus turned to 

 account. In the African Provinces much was done to meet this need, as the 

 remains of works for storage of water clearly testify. The period 69180 AD 

 seems to have been marked by a considerable extension of cultivation in these 

 parts, and particularly in southern Numidia, which at that time was included in 

 the Province Africa. In this district, between Sitifis (Setif) and Trajan's great 

 city Thamugadi (Timgad), lay the commune of Lamasba 2 , the members of 

 which appear to have been mainly engaged in agriculture. There has been pre- 

 served a large portion of a great inscription dealing with the water-rights of their 

 several farms. There is nothing to suggest that the holders of these plots were 

 tenants under great landlords. They seem to be owners, not in the full sense of 

 Roman civil law, but on the regular provincial 3 footing, subject to tribute. To 

 determine the shares of the several plots in the common water-supply was prob- 

 ably the most urgent problem of local politics in this community. 



The date of the inscription has been placed in the reign of Elagabalus; but 

 it is obviously based on earlier conditions and not improbably a revision of an 

 earlier scheme. It deals with the several plots one by one, fixing the number 

 of hours 4 during which the water is to be turned on to each, and making allow- 

 ance for variation of the supply according to the season of the year. A remark- 

 able feature of this elaborate scheme is the division of the plots into those below 

 the water level into which the water finds its way by natural flow (declives), and 

 those above water level (acclives). To the latter it is clear that the water must 

 have been raised by mechanical means, and the scale of hours fixed evidently 

 makes allowance for the slower delivery accomplished thereby. For the c de- 

 scendent' water was to be left flowing for fewer hours than the 'ascendent.' As 

 a specimen of the care taken in such a community to prevent water-grabbing by 

 unscrupulous members this record is a document of high interest. That many 

 others of similar purport existed, and have only been lost to us by the chances 

 of time, is perhaps no rash guess. 



The wateVleet is called aqua Claudiana. The regulations are issued by the 

 local senate and people (decreto ordinis et colonorum}, for the place had a local* 

 government. Names of 43 possessors remain on the surviving portion of the 

 stone. In form they are generally Roman 6 . It is noted that only three of them 

 have a praenomen. Of the quality of the men it is not easy to infer anything. 

 Some may perhaps have been Italians. Whether they, or some of them, were 

 working farmers must remain doubtful. At all events they do not seem to be- 

 long to the class of coloni of whom we shall have to speak below, but to be strictly 

 cultivating possessors. What labour they employed it is hardly possible to guess. 



CIL vin 18587, Ephem epigr vn 788, where it is annotated by Mommsen and others. 

 Mentioned in two routes of the Itinerarium Antoninum. 



Cf Gaius II 7, 21, and below, note on p 351. Cf Digest vin 6 7, XLIII 20 2, 5. 

 See Marquardt Stvw I, index under Lamasba. 



Were they perhaps veteranil That there were a number of these settled in Africa is 

 attested by Cod Th xi i 28 (400), cf xn i 45 (358). 



