gems, glyptic, engraved gems, agate, cameo, intaglio

By the end of the fourth century BC, the two great colonizing powers—Greeks and Phoenicians—were firmly established across the Mediterranean, and North Africa was effectively divided between Greek and Phoenician control. In the east, Alexander the Great’s conquests had expanded Greek political and cultural influence over vast new territories, accelerating the spread of Hellenism—the adoption of Greek culture by non-Greek peoples—which defines the subsequent Hellenistic era. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, his empire fragmented into rival kingdoms, with Egypt falling under the control of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty, which also absorbed the earlier Greek colonies in Cyrenaica. Meanwhile, in the west, Carthage—though briefly challenged by the Greek leader Agathokles between 310 and 307 BC—regained dominance over northwest Africa and much of the western Mediterranean. However, both Greek and Phoenician powers were soon eclipsed by the rise of Rome, which had grown from a small Italian city-state to master of southern Italy by the 270s BC. Rome defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars (264–241 and 218–201 BC), ultimately reducing it to a client state before destroying it in 146 BC. Rome also began asserting influence in the eastern Mediterranean, intervening in Greek affairs and eventually imposing direct rule. Egypt, once a Roman ally in the third century BC, became a client state in the second century and was annexed outright in 30 BC. By then, Rome effectively controlled the entire North African coast, though its formal rule over the region was not completed until the annexation of Mauretania (modern western Maghrib) in AD 40.