North Africa during classical antiquity
Initially, in the east, Egypt was under Persian rule during the early phase of classical antiquity, passing to the Ptolemaic dynasty in the Hellenistic era.
In 2013, the first genetic analysis utilizing next-generation sequencing was conducted to ascertain the ancestral lineage of an Ancient Egyptian individual.
The researchers observed that one of the mummified individuals likely belonged to the mtDNA haplogroup I2, a maternal clade believed to have originated in Western Asia.
The boundary between Africa and Asia was at Catabathmus Magnus, separating Libya proper (or Marmarica) from the "Libyan Nomos" (Λιβύης νόμος) of western Egypt.
The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars; in 146 BCE the city of Carthage was destroyed.
The high point of Berber civilization, unequaled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BCE.
Starting in the 2nd century CE, these garrisons were manned mostly by local inhabitants, because the area was considered fully pacified and nearly totally romanised.
Aside from Carthage, urbanization in North Africa came in part with the establishment of settlements of veterans under the Roman emperors Claudius, Nerva, and Trajan.
Some Jews had been deported from Judea or Palestine in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE for rebelling against Roman rule; others had come earlier with Punic settlers.
The Donatists stressed the holiness of the church and refused to accept the authority to administer the sacraments of those who had surrendered the scriptures when they were forbidden under the Emperor Diocletian.
The Donatists also opposed the involvement of Emperor Constantine in church affairs in contrast to the majority of Christians who welcomed official imperial recognition.
The most articulate North African critic of the Donatist position, which came to be called a heresy, was Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius.
Although the dispute was resolved by a decision of an imperial commission in Carthage in 411, Donatist communities continued to exist as late as the 6th century.
Belisarius, general of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I based in Constantinople, landed in North Africa in 533 with 16,000 men and within a year destroyed the Vandal kingdom.
