Note 306 — Chapter XIII · THE AFRICAN PROVINCES.

According to an epitaph found in Mactaris in the Byzacene (Eph. epigr. v. n. 279), a man of free birth there, after having been actively engaged in bringing in the harvests far around in Africa, first throughout twelve years as an ordinary reaper and then for another eleven as a foreman, purchased for himself with the savings of his pay a town and a country house, and became in his turn a member of council and burgomaster. His poetical epitaph shows, if not culture, at least pretensions to it. A development of life of this sort was in the Roman imperial period doubtless not so rare as it at first may seem, but probably occurred in Africa more frequently than elsewhere.