In the economy of the soil the eastern half of Africa vies with Egypt. Certainly the soil is unequal, and rocks and steppes occupy not only the greater portion of the western half, but also considerable tracts in the eastern; here too there were various inaccessible mountain-regions, which yielded but slowly or not at all to civilisation; particularly on the rocky ridges along the coast the Roman rule left few or no traces. Even the Byzacene, the south-eastmost part of the proconsular province, is only designated as a specially productive region by an erroneous generalisation of what holds good as to individual coast districts and oases; from Sufetula (Sbitla) westward the land is waterless and rocky; in the fifth century A.D. Byzacene was reckoned to have about a half less per cent of land capable of culture than the other African provinces. But the northern and north-western portion of the proconsular province, above all the valley of the largest river in north Africa, the Bagradas (Mejerda), and not less a considerable part of Numidia, yield abundant grain crops, almost like the valley of the Nile. In the favoured districts the country towns, very frequent, as their ruins show, lay so near to each other that the population here cannot have been much less dense than in the land of the Nile, and according to all traces it prosecuted especially husbandry. The mighty armed masses, with which after the defeat at Pharsalus the republicans in Africa took up the struggle against Caesar, were formed of these peasants, so that in the year of war the fields lay untilled. Since Italy used more corn than it produced, it was primarily dependent, in addition to the Italian islands, on the almost equally near Africa; and after it became subject to the Romans, its corn went thither not merely by way of commerce, but above all as tribute. Already in Cicero’s time the capital of the empire doubtless subsisted for the most part on African corn; through the admission of Numidia under Caesar’s dictatorship the corn thenceforth coming in as tribute increased according to the estimate about 1,200,000 Roman bushels (525,000 hectolitres) annually. After the Egyptian corn supplies were instituted under Augustus, for the third part of the corn used in Rome North Africa was reckoned upon, and Egypt for a like amount; while the desolated Sicily, Sardinia, and Baetica, along with Italy’s own production, covered the rest of the need. In what measure the Italy of the imperial period was dependent for its subsistence on Africa is shown by the measures taken during the wars between Vitellius and Vespasian and between Severus and Pescennius; Vespasian thought that he had conquered Italy when he occupied Egypt and Africa; Severus sent a strong army to Africa to hinder Pescennius from occupying it. [Sidenote: Oil and wine.]