Acqua, irrigazione e agricoltura in territori pre-desertici: alcuni dati dalla Numidia romana

Along the African limes a crucial point is represented by a particular area of Numidia, where the mountain of the Aurès, the Mons Aurasios of the ancients, stands isolated. Here the presence of relatively abundant and easily accessible water allowed the Romans a careful water management, testified by archaeology but also by the ancient literary and epigraphic sources; from this derives also a good agrarian organization of the fields, in which numerous farms flourished. One of the most important products, also exported, was olive oil, which often came from intensive crops and worked in oil mills of such dimensions as to be considered ‘industrial’.