 Calama: Roman theatre | |
  Shown within Algeria | |
| Location | Algeria |
|---|---|
| Region | Guelma Province |
| Coordinates | 36°28′02″N7°25′48″E / 36.467313°N 7.430052°E |
Calama was a colonia in the Roman province of Numidia situated where Guelma in Algeria now stands. [1]
G. Mokhtar places it just within the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis, to the east of Numidia, [2] but it is generally believed to have been in Numidia, [3] [4] [5] [6] a province created probably in 198–199. [2]
Calama was founded by the Phoenicians and called Malaka, similar [7] to their colony Malake (Punic : 𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤀, MLKʾ) at Málaga, Spain. [8] Malaka was situated in the Berber kingdom of Numidia. When this area later came under Roman rule, the city was renamed Calama. Between the late republic and early empire, it was governed by a Punic-inspired twin magistracy of sufetes . [9]
Whether Calama is identical with the town of Suthul which the Roman general Aulus Postumius Albinus unsuccessfully tried to take in 110 BC, [10] (cf. Battle of Suthul) is disputed, with some denying [11] and others cautiously affirming. [12] [13]
In the 1st century AD, Calama, then part of the Roman province of Numidia, became a major urban centre. It was given the rank of a Roman municipium as early as Hadrian, and of a colonia later. [12] The city was sponsored by Vibia Aurelia Sabina, sister of the Emperor Commodus (late 2nd century). Calama was, with Setifis (Setif) and Hippo Regius (Annaba), one of the granaries of Rome in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Under Septimius Severus, Calama became one of the most prosperous in the Roman empire, with thermae and a huge theatre. [14]
Calama became a Christian bishopric, four of whose bishops are named in extant documents:
Possidius wrote the first biography of Augustine, [18] [19] in which he lets it be known that he himself was one of the clergy of Augustine's monastery when he was appointed bishop of Calama. [20] When Calama fell into the hands of the Vandal king Genseric in 429, Possidius took refuge with Augustine within the walled city of Hippo Regius. [18] He was present at Augustine's death in 430.
No longer a residential bishopric, Calama is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. [21]
The invading Vandals captured and partially destroyed Calama and defeated Count Bonifacius near the city in 431. [12]
After the conquest of Numidia by the Byzantine Empire, Solomon (a general of Justinian I) built a fortress there between 539 and 554. Calama's population was fully Christian in the 6th and 7th century.
With the spread of Islam, Byzantine rule of Calama ended (some Christians survived until the 9th century) and slowly Calama disappeared around the 11th century (see Guelma).
Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the church in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid. Donatism had its roots in the long-established Christian community of the Roman province Africa Proconsularis and Mauretania Tingitana, in the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian. Named after the Berber Christian bishop Donatus Magnus, Donatism flourished during the fourth and fifth centuries. Donatism mainly spread among the indigenous Berber population, and Donatists were able to blend Christianity with many of the Berber local customs.
Musti or Mustis was an ancient city and bishopric in the Roman province of Proconsular Africa, now in northern Tunisia. Its ruins, called Mest Henshir, are about eight miles from Dougga, near Sidi-Abd-Er-Rebbou. It is also a Catholic titular see.
Guelma is the capital of Guelma Province and Guelma District, located in north-eastern Algeria, about 65 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast. Its location corresponds to that of ancient Calama.
Khamissa, ancient Thubursicum Numidarum or Thubursicum, is an Ancient Roman and Byzantine archeological site, in Souk Ahras Province of northeastern Algeria.
Thagaste was a Roman-Berber city in present-day Algeria, now called Souk Ahras. The town was the birthplace of Saint Augustine.
Possidius was a friend of Augustine of Hippo who wrote a reliable biography and an indiculus or list of his works. He was bishop of Calama in the Roman province of Numidia.
Roman Carthage was an important city in ancient Rome, located in modern-day Tunisia. Approximately 100 years after the destruction of Punic Carthage in 146 BC, a new city of the same name was built on the same land by the Romans in the period from 49 to 44 BC. By the 3rd century, Carthage had developed into one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire, with a population of several hundred thousand. It was the center of the Roman province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the empire. Carthage briefly became the capital of a usurper, Domitius Alexander, in 308–311. Conquered by the Vandals in 439, Carthage served as the capital of the Vandal Kingdom for a century. Re-conquered by the Eastern Roman Empire in 533–534, it continued to serve as an Eastern Roman regional center, as the seat of the praetorian prefecture of Africa.
Kasserine is the capital city of the Kasserine Governorate, in west-central Tunisia. It is situated below Jebel ech Chambi, Tunisia's highest mountain. Its population is 114,463 (2020).
Téboursouk is a town and commune in the Béja Governorate, Tunisia. It is located at 36° 27′ 26″N, 009° 14′ 54″E.
Negrine is a town and commune in Tébessa Province in north-eastern Algeria. It was the site of ancient Casae Nigrae, a settlement of Roman North Africa with an attached bishopric that remains a Latin Catholic titular see.
Caesarea in Mauretania was a Roman colony in Roman-Berber North Africa. It was the capital of Mauretania Caesariensis and is now called Cherchell, in modern Algeria.
Tiddis was a Roman city that depended on Cirta and a bishopric as "Tiddi", which remains a Latin Catholic titular see.
The Archdiocese of Carthage, also known as the Church of Carthage, was a Latin Catholic diocese established in Carthage, Roman Empire, in the 2nd century. Agrippin was the first named bishop, around 230 AD. The temporal importance of the city of Carthage in the Roman Empire had previously been restored by Julius Caesar and Augustus. When Christianity became firmly established around the Roman province of Africa Proconsulare, Carthage became its natural ecclesiastical seat. Carthage subsequently exercised informal primacy as an archdiocese, being the most important center of Christianity in the whole of Roman Africa, corresponding to most of today's Mediterranean coast and inland of Northern Africa. As such, it enjoyed honorary title of patriarch as well as primate of Africa: Pope Leo I confirmed the primacy of the bishop of Carthage in 446: "Indeed, after the Roman Bishop, the leading Bishop and metropolitan for all Africa is the Bishop of Carthage."
Musti in Numidia, also called Musti Numidiae, was an ancient city and bishop jurisdiction (bishopric), and is presently a Catholic titular see,(bishop's government see of a former government under a church's responsibility, also known as a dead diocese.) in modern Algeria.
Secundus of Tigisis was an early church leader and primate of Numidia. He was a leading organiser of the early Donatist movement in Carthage.
Maximian was a 4th-century Bishop of Carthage and founder of a splinter group that left Donatism.
Vageata, also known as Vageatensis, was a Roman-Berber town in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis. It is also known as Bagatensis, and epigraphical evidence remains attesting to this etymology, due to the interchange of 'v' for 'b' is a common phenomenon in Latin and Greek place names.
Bagai was a Roman–Berber city in the province of Africa Proconsularis. It must have been of some reasonable size, as it was also the seat of an ancient Catholic bishopric. The ancient city has been identified with ruins at Ksar-Bagaï outside of Baghai, in the Aurès Mountains of the El Hamma District in Khenchela Province, Algeria.
Macomades was a Carthaginian and Roman city in North Africa. It was located near present-day Oum-El-Bouaghi, Algeria
Petilianus was an eminent Donatist of the 5th century Roman North Africa, who is known to history through the letters he wrote to the Catholic Bishop Augustine of Hippo and discourses in Augustine's replies. Although most of what we know of him comes from Augustine, his main theology seems to have been "that the true church was only composed of those who were repentant."
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