The first subject in the new series “The Enemies of Rome”.  The Garamantes were a thorn in the side for Roman expansion in North Africa as you will read in the historical notes. The sculptor was able to bring out all the mystery that shrouds these primitive people.

How the miniature “Garamante Warrior” came about

The Garamantes, a Berber-speaking people, lived in the Fezzan region (to the South of Libya of today) in the period between 500 BC till around 500 AD. Originally a type of big tribal group, the Garamantes, in their more mature phase (between 100 BC and 350 AD) built a formally structured kingdom, with established settlements built in stone, with strong territorial control (castles and mountain passes).

The identified fortified settlements form a sort of limes (border defence around 1000 km south of the Roman limes at Tripolitania) guarding the southern border. In some ways, this strong structure of the Garamantian rule follows some elements from the model provided by the Roman empire of the same period. The name with which they called themselves was carried down from the Greek form of Garamantes, subsequently also adopted by the Romans. Probably it is a name derived from that of Garama, their capital, mentioned by Pliny the Elder (V, 36) and by Ptolemy (IV, 6, 12), and corresponds to the present-day Germa (around 150 km to the west of the city of Sebha). Probably the Garamantes were already around in 1000 BC. They appear for the first time in some writings of the V century BC, in the works of Herodotus, according to whom they were a bellicose people that reared cattle and from four-horse chariots, hunted the Ethiopian Troglodytes (cave dwellers) who lived in the desert. Tacitus referred to them as indomitable. The same Tacitus says that they raided the Roman settlements along the coast. The Garamantes, in fact, were a constant menace for the Roman strongholds, and they never subjected themselves to the powers of Rome as opposed to the inhabitants of the coastal band of Libya. According to Pliny the Elder, at a certain point the Romans had had enough of the skirmishes of the Garamantes and in 19 BC Lucius Cornelius Balbus defeated them and celebrated the victory in triumph whereby the cities, the tribes and the geographical locations which he defeated were listed. After a punitive expedition by the Romans in 70, the Garamantes were forced to have official relations with Rome, and it is possible that they became client states of Rome. The Romans from then kept strict commercial relations with them. Archaeologists even found in Garama a Roman bath. Ptolemy reports that in 85 AD, a trader by the name of Iulius Maternus left Leptis Magna, reached the town of Garama where he joined an expedition of the king of the Garamantes who was going to fight the Ethiopians and, after 4 months, reached the region of Agysimba populated by the rhinoceros, and where the Ethiopians lived (probably the borders of the present-day Nigeria). Nevertheless, despite the commercial relations, the Romans never considered them completely civilized. Roman depictions represent them with ritual scars and tattoos. The Garamantes were farmers, artisans and traders. Their religion was based on the Egyptian deities, and some of their dead were buried in small pyramids. For writing, they used the Libyco-Berber alphabet. The diet of the Garamantes included grapes, fig, barley and wheat. They traded in barley, salt and slaves and in exchange they imported wine and olive oil, oil lamps and Roman tableware. According to Strabo and Pliny the Elder, they extracted amazonite in the Tibesti Mountains. It seems that the downfall of the Garamantian culture is linked to worsening climatic conditions. The desert that there is today in fact was fairly fertile agricultural land 1500 years ago. From the time when the groundwater reserves did not replenish rapidly, during the six centuries of Garamantian rule, the stratum lowered progressively. The kingdom declined and weakened. Byzantine documents affirm that the Garamantian king signed a peace treaty with Byzantium in 569 and accepted Christianity. Subsequently, Muslim documents affirm that in 668 the Garamantian king was imprisoned and dragged away in chains. Finally, the whole region was absorbed under Islamic influence.