During the Roman era it was called Colonia Sarnensis Milevitana, after the River Sarnus in Campania, whence the colonists had emigrated.

In the 6th century the Byzantine Emperor Justinian had Milevum enclosed by a fortified wall, which still stands and forms a rampart for the Muslim city of Mila.

"Volume 1 by Henri Fournel on page [2] The Mosque Sidi Ghanem of Mila was built around 675 by Abu Muhajer Dnar Dinar [3] In the tenth century AD, historian and geographer Abu Ubayd-Allah Abd Al-Bakri quoted the mosque of Sidi Ghanem as "the first Mila mosque adjoining Dar El Imara" (House of Command) As multiple significant evidence was found of Mila in the Arab period, as standard weight of 745 Umayyad registered with: "'Translation: "In the name of Allah.

Milevum was among the many towns of sufficient importance in the Roman province of Numidia, in the papal sway, to become a suffragan diocese.

The bishopric is last mentioned, as one of the thirteen subsisting suffragan sees in Numidia, in the Notitiae Episcopatuum in the reign of Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886-912).