The Relationship Between Italy and North Africa

By the end of the fourth century, if you sat down to eat a meal in any moderately prosperous Roman town or city, there was a good chance you'd be eating that meal off a plate fired in a kiln outside Carthage. This ceramic tableware is a distinctive product called African Red Slip,. It suddenly becomes much more finely made and much more elegantly decorated at exactly the time Africa's exports of oil and grain increase. We've seen how closely tied to Italy North Africa was economically. Many educated young Africans, like the great theologian Augustin of Hippo, sought their fortune in Italy.