 the fringes of the desert and began to raise new forces.
The man’s resilience was remarkable. Whenever the Romans defeated one of his armies, this leader would quickly raise a new force to challenge his enemy. Only by killing Tacfarinas could the revolt be ended. Within two years, this rebel figurehead rose once again to challenge Rome with a new army. Only now he realised he had an unbelievable opportunity.
A new hope
Following the victory in 22 AD, the Emperor Tiberius made a potentially game-changing decision. Believing the southern border of his Empire was now safe, he relocated one of the African legions to Europe.
In this one act, Rome’s military power in Africa significantly decreased. Only one legion remained to protect the provinces. Tacfarinas took the opportunity to prove that he was more than a mere bandit. The Roman general in Africa, P. Cornelius Dolabella, then made a critical decision.
Seven long years of war had proven that the heavily armoured Roman legionaries were ill-prepared to deal with the nomad forces, so Dolabella demanded military aid from Rome’s puppet state of Mauretania, now ruled by Juba II’s son Ptolemaeus. These local troops would be crucial: they were lightly armed and effective at countering Rome’s fleeting foes.
The critical moment
With these light forces, Dolabella designed a plan to surprise their enemy at a place called Auzea. Such surprise tactics were what Tacfarinas and his rebels had been doing for years. Now, Dolabella’s own light-armed units returned the favour: the surprise attack was a crushing success. Tacitus writes that it was so effective that “The enemy, by contrast unaware of anything, had no weapons, no order, no plan; like sheep, they were dragged off, butchered or captured.”
In one decisive move, Dolabella crushed the insurgent threat. He had caught the tribes off-guard and slaughtered them. Along with other tribal leaders, Tacfarinas died fighting.
Following the demise of Tacfarinas, Rome’s African provinces emerged from seven years strafed by insecurity. Much would change due to these events. In the first instance, Rome realised the feebleness of Mauretania as a client state. Both Juba II and his son Ptolemaus had proven inadequate at handling the nomadic revolt. Indeed, rather than helping to put down the uprising, the perception of these rulers as Roman puppets had potentially encouraged more people to join Tacfarinas and his rebels.
Soon after, Emperor Caligula summoned Ptolemaus to Rome and there had him killed. Rome then annexed Mauretania for itself and divided it in two. As for Dolabella, he received no triumph. Tiberius had already given three to previous generals, believing they had already defeated Tacfarinas, so he would not give a fourth for the same war. Yet Dolabella’s defeat of the tribal confederation earned him much renown.
But Tacfarinas was just the start. Insurgency by the Berbers continued against Roman rule for centuries. Tacfarinas’ revolt showed to the Romans, however, how crucial light-armed troops were to combat local tribes. With this knowledge, relative stability returned to the lands under Roman authority.