From the century IX a. C. there is then news of a reign of Napata downstream of the fourth cataract, probably founded by an Egyptianized chief of Kūsh, whose sovereigns progressively extended their authority over Egypt, assuming the title of king of Kūsh and Egypt (25th dynasty called Cushite, which reigned between c. 715 and 663 BC). The Egyptian counterattack, the destruction (591 BC) of Napata, the flight of the sovereigns of Meroe to the S of the fifth cataract brought the Egyptian influence more and more inland. In fact, the kingdom of Meroe, which enjoyed a period of great splendor and civilization, did not limit itself to receiving the Egyptian civilization but absorbed it, remodeled it and transmitted it to the Saharan and black populations with whom it came into contact. The influence of Egypt therefore extended throughout the Nilotic region, towards Nubia Sudanese and neighboring Asia; agriculture was, for most of Africa, the fruit of the Egyptian experience. Carthage, on the other hand, whose power developed about 20 centuries after Egypt and 10 after Kūsh, was essentially a military and commercial state, limited its conquests, in the territory of present-day Tunisia, to the bare essentials for procuring food resources and reached out especially towards the Mediterranean. Between the sec. V and III a. C. the Carthaginians, having reached a high degree of economic and military power, controlled Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, as well as the trade between North Africa and the main European ports in the western Mediterranean. It was precisely the Mediterranean nature of Carthage that provoked the clash with Rome and brought the Europeans practically for the first time in Africa; the influence of the Greeks, that around 630 a. C. had founded the colony of Cyrene had in fact been very modest. Over the course of more than a century (264-146 BC) after three exhausting wars, Rome managed to definitively beat the opponent.
Having extended its sovereignty over a small territory (today’s north-eastern Tunisia) called the Province of Africa, Rome affirmed its influence on the North African territories (Numidia, Mauritania) through agreements with local leaders. The difficulties that arose in relations with these leaders and the events in Egypt led Rome to bring the whole of North Africa under its sovereignty (46 BC-42 AD) and to extend its control over the entire Mediterranean. While considering the entire area with a unitary economic criterion (development of agriculture for the supply of foodstuffs), Rome gave the various parts of North Africa different legal systems and used a different policy for Egypt than that adopted for the Maghreb regions according to countryaah. For the first time, the whole of North Africa found itself under a single sovereignty and a single type of civilization. Many monuments remain of the Roman dominion, but no traces in the languages, religions, regulations, customs. The diminished control for Vandals, begun in 419 d. C., practically put an end to the Roman rule, which nevertheless had, at least formally, a successor in the Empire of Byzantium. Justinian in fact he drove out the Vandals (534 d. C.) reaffirming for more than a century, with different efficacy from zone to zone, the sovereignty of heir of Rome.
In reality, Byzantium was concerned with sending a governor only to Egypt and Tunisia but, especially in this region, its authority was weak, so much so that in the course of 70 years the Arabs (639-709) conquered and subjugated the whole of northern Africa.. Unlike the previous invasions, the Arab invasion profoundly influenced Africa from Egypt to the Maghreb; especially after the second invasion (11th century) the Arabs made the large area an almost completely Islamized territory. Arabism and Islam have been considered for over 12 centuries now the fundamental and lasting factors of the history of North Africa where, if political unity has been precarious, a common cultural and religious tradition has been maintained. The caliphs Umayyads and Abbasids managed to keep the immense region under control for a certain period of time, but then had to cede power to local dynasties which, even before the end of the Abbasid Caliphate (1258), became practically independent. Between 1517 and 1574 the whole of North Africa, with the exception of Morocco, came under the sovereignty or semi-sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire. This was the golden period of the so-called Barbary regencies controlled by privateers, whose leaders were often Europeans who had fallen prisoners of Muslims and converted to escape the condition of slaves. The sec. XVI was dominated for a long time by the struggle between the Christian powers of Europe, Turkey and the Barbary regencies, a struggle that ended with the elimination of the bases of Spain, the most tenacious opponent of Turks and pirates. The Turkish decadence began in the 10th century. XVII, the regencies, while continuing to accept the governors sent from Constantinople, became substantially independent. Finally, the European states took advantage of the Turkish decline to settle in the North African territories: France in Algeria (1830), Tunisia (1881) and Morocco (1912), England in Egypt (1881), Italy in Libya (1911)), Spain,, in Morocco (1912).
