Oil, too, and wine had already held a prominent place in the old Carthaginian husbandry, and on Little-Leptis (near Susa), for example, an annual payment of 3,000,000 pounds of oil (nearly 10,000 hectolitres) could be imposed by Caesar for the Roman baths, as indeed Susa still at the present day exports 40,000 hectolitres of oil. Accordingly the historian of the Jugurthan war terms Africa rich in corn, poor in oil and wine, and even in Vespasian’s time the province gave in this respect only a moderate yield. It was only when the peace with the empire became permanent--a peace which the fruit-tree needed even far more than the fruits of the field--that the culture of olives extended; in the fourth century no province supplied such quantities of oil as Africa, and the African oil was predominantly employed for the baths in Rome. In quality, doubtless, it was always inferior to that of Italy and Spain, not because nature there was less favourable, but because the preparation lacked skill and care. The cultivation of the vine acquired no prominent importance in Africa for export. On the other hand the breeding of horses and of cattle flourished, especially in Numidia and Mauretania. [Sidenote: Manufactures and commerce.] Manufactures and trade never had the same importance in the African provinces as in the East and in Egypt. The Phoenicians had transplanted the preparation of purple from their native country to these coasts, where the island of Gerba (Jerba) became the African Tyre, and was inferior only to the latter itself in quality. This manufacture flourished through the whole imperial period. Among the few deeds which king Juba II. has to show, is the arrangement for obtaining purple on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and on the adjacent islands.[304] Woollen stuffs of inferior quality and leather goods were manufactured in Mauretania, apparently by the natives, also for export.[305] The trade in slaves was very considerable. The products of the interior of the country naturally passed by way of North Africa into general commerce, but not to such an extent as by way of Egypt. The elephant, it is true, was the device of Mauretania in particular, and there, where it has now for long disappeared, it was still hunted down to the imperial period; but probably only small quantities came thence into commerce. [Sidenote: Prosperity.] The prosperity which subsisted in the part of Africa at all cultivated is clearly attested by the ruins of its numerous towns, which, in spite of the narrow bounds of their domains, everywhere exhibit baths, theatres, triumphal arches, gorgeous tombs, and generally buildings of luxury of all kinds, mostly mediocre in art, often excessive in magnificence. Not quite in the villas of the superior nobility, as in the Gallic land, but in the middle class of the farming burgesses must the economic strength of these regions have lain.[306] [Sidenote: Roads.]