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The cultivable areas themselves are also restricted in area. The Italian colonists in 1932 claimed that there were in Cyrenaica over 150,000 has. of cultivable land, and another 100,000 has. fit for “less intensive exploitation and pasture”.[477] In 1931 the Italian colonizing institutions had acquired 120,150 has., of which 82,225 has. had been confiscated from Sanussi “zaviet” (lodges). The same year, the soil of the latter amounted to 200,000 has., much of it the best land in the country.[478] According to these figures it can be calculated that there are in Cyrenaica not less than 220,000 has. of cultivable land (cf. here, p. 128). Newer estimates do not differ appreciably; a report of 1960 estimated the cultivable area at 200.000 has., and the area of pasture at 5 million has.[479] Another expert[480] put the area of Cyrenaica fit for permanent agriculture at 145.000 has., the tracts suitable for seasonal shifting agriculture at 500.000 has., and the area of pasture at 37 million has. It should not be forgotten, however, that the areas of fertile soil in Cyrenaica have decreased to a certain extent since ancient times due to soil erosion. Some experts have found no evidence of this phenomenon,[481] but anyone who travels in the territory can prove to himself that this phenomenon has in fact diminished soil-areas, as for example between Teucheira and Bengazi or in the Safsaf district. In the neighbourhood of Teucheira ancient farmsteads remain in places where the soil has been eroded to bedrock. The Roman bridge east of Ptolemais is twice as long as the present width of the gorge, as the stream bed has moved westward and stratified erosion silt can be seen exposed against the eastern arch of the bridge. East of Ras-al-Hillal the entrance to an ancient tomb-chamber cut in the rocky flank of the gorge, has been blocked by the erosion soil which fills the wadi. The process of erosion had apparently begun by the 4th century A.D., since Synesius[482] writes from Phykus (Ras-al-Hammam) that residence there was dangerous due to the stagnant water and its noisome vapours, a phenomenon attributable to the formation of swamps near the coast due to the blocking of the watercourses by erosion soil swept down from the Plateau.[483] The reality of the erosion factor in the past was confirmed by an agricultural survey of Libya made in 1960.[484]

The destruction of the forests must also be numbered among the factors that have diminished fertile soils, and an example is the Teucheira region, today surrounded by a barren rocky terrain, yet wooded as late as the 14th century.[485] Gregory indeed stated[486] that the diminution of wooded areas in Cyrenaica was apt to decrease the volume of existent springs. Although there is no decisive published evidence for a change in the country’s climate since ancient times,[487] the greater extent of wooded land in the Greek and Roman periods no doubt aided the more effective concentration and use of precipitation.

The restriction and decay of the country’s woodlands occurred inevitably with the growth of population, since the woods are concentrated in the limited region in which rain suffices for permanent settlement, that is, on the Plateau. Today remains of real woodlands survive north of Lamluda and Safsaf, south of Messa, in the vicinity of Wadi al-Kuf, Slonta, Mameli and Barka, and south of Teucheira on the north edge of the al-Abbiar district. Pliny[488] stated that Cyrenaica was rich in trees for a distance of 15,000 paces from the coast. Both he and Theophrastus[489] speak of the thuon tree (θύον), \vhose wood was esteemed for furniture-making, and was exported in the Roman period.[490] Theophrastus writes of the country’s cypress trees.[491] The Cyrenean Cathartic Law of Apollo, which reaches us in a 4th-century version, contains a clause (no. 2) permitting the felling of the trees of the sacred groves by license of the temple authorities.[492] Remains of ancient olive groves survive on the plateau, and very numerous are the ancient olive-presses which point to the presence of olive-plantations over considerable areas in Greek and Roman times.[493] Today the dew precipitation of the Plateau is sufficient to support summer pasturage, composed mainly of bushes and maquis for cattle and goats.

Cyrenaica’s decisive characteristic is, as stated, the division of its non-desertic area into two zones, differing from one another in climate and soiclass="underline" the plateau, whose characteristic features are red soil, woodland, springs and sufficient winter rainfall; and the steppe where white soils prevail, wells replace springs, low scrub replaces woodland, and herbage is confined to winter owing to the decrease of precipitation southward. These contrasts constitute the difference between permanent tillage and nomadism based on the rearing of pastoral sheep and camels. Today the camels and sheep predominate on the steppe, while cattle and goats rule the plateau. The camel does not have to go north in the summer as his need of water is restricted, and in any case camels were not present in Cyrenaica before the late 2nd century A.D.[494] Sheep, by contrast, need to drink in April and May and must migrate northward, as the southern wells dry up at the end of the rainy months. On the other hand the flocks go south with the opening of the rainy season (December), when the steppe is once again covered with grass. The tribes which have ascended the plateau in the summer, plough and sow the southern plateau in October and November, the coastal region a little later, and the Plateau itself in December. The harvest begins on the Barka Plan and in the southern plateau in April; on the Plateau from May to August; accordingly the tribes return from the south in the spring in order to harvest their grain. In accordance with the climatic conditions of the Plateau the population there is permanently settled, moving only such distances as are necessary to find fresh pasture for their cattle and goats, which are their chief livestock. In this region land is held in individual possession, whereas on the steppe, only the wells are regarded as private property. Hence a rhythmic seasonal transhumance characterizes the life of the country, necessitated by its climatic requirements (water supply, pasture, sowing), and this transhumance takes the form of the movement of nomads from the steppe to the plateau and back. Such a process can proceed without friction between the southern nomads and the permanent settlers of the plateau, just so long as the latter are not densely settled and vacant areas remain amongst them to furnish annual summer grazing and corn-land for the southerners. But if the plateau population grows and begins to expand southward and itself becomes interested in the winter grazing of the steppe, friction and even conflict will develop between the inhabitants of the two areas.

It would therefore be logical to suppose that this annual trans-humance, which was till recently a regular phenomenon in Cyrenaica, also existed among the Libyans in the Greek and Roman period. Both Egyptian and classical sources testify that they included a nomadic and a settled element living side by side, and that the Libyans also practised agriculture. The sources show that they possessed horses, cattle, asses, goats and sheep,[495] while Herodotus and Strabo call them “nomads” (νομάδες),[496] Annual migrations are mentioned in connection with the Nasamones, the Macae, and the Garamantes, and a permanent condition of nomadism among the population of the interior was observed and recorded by Roman writers. The steppe land flockowners of Cyrene faced, then as now, the necessity of a seasonal migration to the plateau in order to water their stock.[497]