Make North Africa rich

**Rijul.J.Ballal** · September 23, 2015, 07:40 AM

What would it take to keep north Africa (Tunis/Carthage areas in particular) as insanely wealthy as it was during the Roman and early Arab eras? Would avoiding the 7 years siege of Tunis (and killing 100,000 people) help north Africa stay wealthy? Is it possible to have an empire that spans the coast of north Africa?

Try to come up with scenarios for all this. Start at the 11th century.

**IrishBlood** · September 23, 2015, 12:39 PM

Well obviously Roman occupation would be of little benefit. Had Carthage defeated Rome in the first and/or second Punic Wars or fought them to a stand still to the point where they remained constant enemies, but never capable of wiping each other out such as the Roman/Persian situation in the Middle East then North Africa would be radically different I am sure.

I am also pretty sure that the Romans rebuilt north Africa (at least modern day Tunisia) to be a bread basket and the the place much have been reasonably wealthy for the Vandals to eventually settle there after slaughtering their way across half of Europe.

To my knowledge North Africa stayed reasonably wealthy and influential right up until the late 1600's, but by the 1700's European technological advances as well as the stagnation caused by Ottoman occupation and influence, followed by French/English/Spanish occupation inevitably resulted in the area being drastically weakened and underdeveloped.

**+Marius+** · September 23, 2015, 03:10 PM

Originally Posted by IrishBlood

To my knowledge North Africa stayed reasonably wealthy and influential right up until the late 1600's, but by the 1700's European technological advances as well as the stagnation caused by Ottoman occupation and influence, followed by French/English/Spanish occupation inevitably resulted in the area being drastically weakened and underdeveloped.

Actually, it happened much earlier.
The Almoravids and Almohads were absolute imbeciles when it came to administration and any kind of development, they were warlike religious fanatics, basically the medieval equivalent of ISIS, they managed to completely nullify centuries of Islamic Golden Age in mere decades of absolute incompetence.
A similar situation but less serious arose in Egypt under the Ayyubids and later the Mamelukes.
When Muslims chroniclers praise Norman Counts as being a competent administrators then you know what kind of shenanigans they got themselves into.

The movie El Cid was pretty on point with that;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rCG5-7E7Ao&t=0m20s

**bigdaddy1204** · November 27, 2015, 09:07 AM

Originally Posted by Rijul.J.Ballal

What would it take to keep north Africa (Tunis/Carthage areas in particular) as insanely wealthy as it was during the Roman and early Arab eras? Would avoiding the 7 years siege of Tunis (and killing 100,000 people) help north Africa stay wealthy? Is it possible to have an empire that spans the coast of north Africa?

Try to come up with scenarios for all this. Start at the 11th century.

Tunisia was in a state of utter chaos between about 1057 and about 1147. After that it was ruled by the Almohads, but didn't see a native dynasty until the Hafsid dynasty emerged in 1230. Many scholars appear to state that the invasions of the Banu Hilal in 1057 essentially destroyed civilisation in this part of the world, leaving it much impoverished and regressed.

Therefore to make this region great, I propose that the invasion of the Banu Hilal in 1057 fails, and that the Zirids are able to defeat them in battle and save Tunisia from their attack. This would then preserve the agricultural economy which was destroyed by the invaders, saving the economy and urban system from decline and collapse. It would also mean that Berber influence in the country would be stronger, and Arab influence reduced, compared to the historical reality.

**Caligula's_Horse** · November 27, 2015, 01:36 PM

Worth noting is that regardless of the political situation, there's still climate change to discuss. Not the modern "probably caused by humans" type either, just regular shifts in global temperatures that happen every now and again.

The Sahara region gets significantly more or less rain depending on global temperatures and monsoon patterns. During its best of times its downright lush, and and its worst, its the inhospitable desert we know today; as you'd probably assume, its somewhere in the middle during transitional periods. During Rome's day, the area got a fair bit more rain then it does nowadays, and what we call North Africa today was an arid grassland inland, and downright fertile in the more coastal areas. The shift into the dry desert we know today, which deeper inland is downright uninhabitable, was a gradual one, taking place over the course of centuries.

As the economies of the day were largely centered around agriculture, the slow but inevitable desertification of the region would have turned it piss poor no matter what anyone did. Modern industrial nations can move around large quantities of water out of either underground aquifers or by desalinating the sea and make the desert bloom in the process, but even as little as a hundred and fifty years ago, that would have been an impossibility.
A stable and competent central government may have been able to hold off the region becoming a backwater for a few centuries, but in the end, global climatic patterns would have decided things.

**bigdaddy1204** · November 27, 2015, 05:19 PM

This photo was taken in Hippo Rhegius, a city in North Africa near the modern Algerian town of Annaba, about 47 miles west of the frontier with Tunisia. As you can see, even today North Africa is not all desert, far from it.

**Caligula's_Horse** · November 27, 2015, 11:15 PM

Originally Posted by bigdaddy1204

This photo was taken in Hippo Rhegius, a city in North Africa near the modern Algerian town of Annaba, about 47 miles west of the frontier with Tunisia. As you can see, even today North Africa is not all desert, far from it.

That's the risk of generalizations, North Africa is a bit big to talk about the lot of it as one unit, and there are still places in it that get decent rainfall. I believe most are located east of Tunisia; something to do with the local weather patterns.

That being said, those areas are fewer and farther apart then they were in Rome's day, and tend to be close to the sea. The Sahara used to be inhabitable much further inland, to a point the locals got around using horses just fine, as opposed to camels which wouldn't come around until the Arab conquest. Today there are places in the Sahara where cities used to be that even a camel would find inhospitable.

**bigdaddy1204** · November 28, 2015, 04:32 AM

Yes, it's so interesting isn't it! I've always found that area fascinating, the Garamantes are one of my favourite examples. They lived quite far into what is now the Sahara, but in ancient times they had cities and farms. Now that landscape is just desert sand. The Garamantes were clever, they used water from under the ground to irrigate their lands. But eventually the supplies of water were used up after some centuries, and their civilisation disappeared into the sands of history.

I too have read that the fertile area did indeed extend further inland than it does today. I have read about lemon groves being cultivated in areas that are now desert. I think part of the problem may have been excessive agricultural use of the land in marginal areas, leading to exhaustion of the soil and over-grazing by animals, which can contribute to desertification. But likely climate swings and shifts also played a role. In some parts of the medieval period, temperatures fluctuated between significantly colder than today, to significantly warmer.

Also it is true that the picture above was taken in an area that is close to the sea. I'd love to be able to take a car one day and do a road trip, drive around that area, starting in Hippo Rhegius and moving towards the interior. I think it would be fascinating to watch the landscape change.