Afri (Latin) | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of the Roman African poet Terentius | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Roman North Africa | |
| Languages | |
| African Latin · Berber · Punic | |
| Religion | |
| Roman religion · Roman Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| African Greeks[1] · Berbers · Punics · Maghrebis |
The Roman Africans or African Romans (Latin: Afri) were the ancient populations of Roman North Africa that had a Romanized culture, some of whom spoke their own variety of Latin as a result.[2] They existed from the Roman conquest until their language gradually faded out after the Arab conquest of North Africa in the Early Middle Ages (approximately the 8th century AD).
Roman Africans lived in all the coastal cities of contemporary Tunisia, Western Libya, Eastern Algeria, as well as West Algeria and Northern Morocco, though in a more limited fashion, mainly concentrated in the coastal areas and large towns. The area between East Algeria and Western Libya became known under Arab rule as Ifriqiya, an Arabized version of the name of the Roman province of Africa.
Many Roman Africans were generally local Berbers or Punics, but also the descendants of the populations that came directly from Rome and Roman Italy itself or the diverse regions of the Empire as legionaries and senators.
- ^ Victor Duruy (1883). History of Rome, and of the Roman People: From Its Origin to the Invasion of the Barbarians and Fall of the Empire. C.F. Jewett Publishing Company. pp. 73, 114, 233.
- ^ Gilbert Meynier, l'Algérie des origines: de la préhistoire à l'avènement de l'islam, Éditions La Découverte, 2007, from p. 65, chapter "Sous la domination romaine: les Romano-Africains".