Roman Carthage

By the 3rd century, Carthage had developed into one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire, with a population of several hundred thousand.

The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad Arab forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire.

After this failed effort, Carthage was rebuilt by Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, with the official name Colonia Iulia Concordia Carthago.

The geographer Strabo wrote that when the third Punic War began in 149 BC, the Carthaginians ruled 300 cities in Libya and 700,000 people lived in Carthage.

Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, against which Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing.

[11] The great fire of the second century, which swept through the capital of the governor of the province, made it possible to develop a hilly area of the city as part of an important urban planning project.

A vast district of luxurious dwellings, including the "Villa de la volière", was built on this occasion.

A circular monument, which was excavated during the UNESCO campaign, called "rotonde sur podium carré",[12] is sometimes dated to the Christian period and identified by some researchers as a mausoleum.

[13] A huge inscription to Aesculapius was found nearby, which suggests that the Punic temple of Eshmun was located on this site.

[12] As an Arian, Gaiseric was considered a heretic by the Catholic Christians, but a promise of religious toleration might have caused the city's population to accept him.

The 5th-century Roman bishop Victor Vitensis mentions in Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provincia that the Vandals destroyed parts of Carthage, including various buildings and churches.

[16] Once in power, the ecclesiastical authorities were persecuted, the locals were aggressively taxed, and naval raids were routinely launched on Romans in the Mediterranean.

[17] After two failed attempts by Majorian and Basiliscus to recapture the city in the 5th century, the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, using the deposition of Gaiseric's grandson Hilderic by his cousin Gelimer as a "casus belli", finally subdued the Vandals in the Vandalic War of 533–534, the Roman general Belisarius, accompanied by his wife Antonina, made his formal entry into Carthage in October 533.

Captured by the Muslims in 695, it was recaptured by the Byzantines in 697, but was finally conquered in 698 by the Umayyad forces of Hassan ibn al-Nu'man.

The city walls were torn down, the water supply cut off, the agricultural land ravaged and its harbours made unusable.

The Baths of Antoninus continued to function in the Arab period and the historian Al-Bakri stated that they were still in good condition.

It is difficult to determine whether the continued habitation of some other buildings belonged to Late Byzantine or Early Arab period.

[18] The fortress of Carthage continued to be used by the Muslims until the Hafsid era and was captured in 1270 by Christian forces during the Eighth Crusade.

On its outskirts is now located the area of the presidential palace in the south, while in the north the Mâlik ibn Anas mosque has been built.

Tertullian mentions in his introduction to the Florides[22] the richness of the decoration, the splendour of the marbles of the cavea, the parquet floor of the proscenium and the haughty beauty of the pillars.

[20] The Odeon was mentioned by the Christian theologist Tertullian and is where the Roman Emperor of African origin Septimus Severus shall have awarded the prize for the winner of the literary competition.

[29] The name of the villa comes from the mosaic of the aviary, marked by the presence of birds among the foliage,[28] which occupies the garden, in the centre of the viridarium, the heart of a square courtyard framed by a portico decorated with pink marble pillars.

To the west, a vaulted gallery also serves as a relief from the pressure of the ground, while the building's atrium is located to the east.