 Ruins of Madauros | |
  Shown within Algeria | |
| Location | Algeria |
|---|---|
| Region | Souk Ahras Province |
| Coordinates | 36°04′36″N7°49′12″E / 36.076667°N 7.82°E |
Madauros (Madaurus, Madaura) was a Roman-Berber city and a former diocese of the Catholic Church in the old state of Numidia, in present-day Algeria.
The birth of the city dates back to the 5th century BC under the aegis of the Punics. [1]
Madauros was made a Roman colony at the end of the first century and was famous for its "schola". A colony of veterans was established there; it was called Colonia Flavia Augusta Veteranorum Madaurensium under emperor Nerva. [2]
The city was fully Romanised in the fourth century, with a population of Christian Berbers who spoke mainly African Romance, according to Theodor Mommsen. [3]
Madauros was the see of a Christian diocese. There were three famous bishops of this diocese: Antigonus, who celebrated the 349 Council of Carthage; Placentius, who celebrated the 407 Council of Carthage and Conference of 411; and Pudentius, who was forced into exile alongside others present at the Synod of 484 because of the Vandal king Huneric.
The ruins of Madauros are close to the actual city of M'Daourouch (Arabic : مداوروش) in present-day Algeria. It is possible to see:
Apuleius, the author of the famous novel The Golden Ass , which is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety, [4] was born in Madauros in the 120s. [5] Lucius, the (fictional) protagonist of the novel, is also from Madauros. [6]
Saint Augustine of Hippo studied in Madauros in the 4th century. [7]
Apuleius was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He was born in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day M'Daourouch, Algeria. He studied Platonism in Athens, travelled to Italy, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near Oea. This is known as the Apologia.
Mauretania is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It extended from central present-day Algeria to the Atlantic, encompassing northern present-day Morocco, and from the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, of Berber ancestry, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli.
Hippo Regius is the ancient name of the modern city of Annaba, Algeria. It served as an important city for the Phoenicians, Berbers, Romans, and Vandals. Hippo was the capital city of the Vandal Kingdom from AD 435 to 439. when it was shifted to Carthage following the Vandal capture of Carthage in 439.
Africa was a Roman province on the northern coast of the continent of Africa. It was established in 146 BC, following the Roman Republic's conquest of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, and the coast of western Libya along the Gulf of Sidra. The territory was originally and still is inhabited by Berbers, known in Latin as the Mauri, indigenous to all of North Africa west of Egypt. In the 9th century BC, Semitic-speaking Phoenicians from West Asia built settlements along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to facilitate shipping. Carthage, rising to prominence in the 8th century BC, became the predominant of these.
Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber, Punic and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria.
Cherchell is a town on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, 89 kilometers (55 mi) west of Algiers. It is the seat of Cherchell District in Tipaza Province. Under the names Iol and Caesarea, it was formerly a Roman colony and the capital of the kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania.
Zaraï was a Berber, Carthaginian, and Roman town at the site of present-day Aïn Oulmene, Algeria. Under the Romans, it formed part of the province of Numidia.
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.
Mila is a city in the northeast of Algeria and the capital of Mila Province. In antiquity, it was known as Milevum or Miraeon, Μιραίον and was situated in the Roman province of Numidia.
M'daourouch is a commune in Souk Ahras Province, Algeria, occupying the site of the Berber-Roman town of Madauros in Numidia.
Abyla was the pre-Roman name of Ad Septem Fratres. Ad Septem Fratres, usually shortened to Septem or Septa, was a Roman colony in the province of Mauretania Tingitana and a Byzantine outpost in the exarchate of Africa. Its ruins are located within present-day Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish city in northwest Africa.
Souk Ahras is a municipality in Algeria. It is the capital of Souk Ahras Province. The Numidian city of Thagaste, on whose ruins Souk Ahras was built, was the birthplace of Augustine of Hippo and a center of Berber culture.
Milevum was a Roman–Berber city in the Roman province of Numidia. It was located in present-day Mila in eastern Algeria.
Icosium was a Phoenician and Punic settlement in modern-day Algeria. It was part of Numidia and later became an important Roman colony and an early medieval bishopric in the casbah area of modern Algiers.
Tobna, also known by the ancient names of Tubunae or Thubunae, is a ruined former city in Batna Province of Algeria, located just south of the modern city of Barika. From this position, it once controlled the eastern part of the Hodna region, while M'Sila did the west. It flourished from the time of the Roman Empire through the Islamic Middle Ages, until it was sacked and destroyed by the Banu Hilal in the 11th century, after which it was finally abandoned.
Roman Tunisia initially included the early ancient Roman province of Africa, later renamed Africa Vetus. As the Roman empire expanded, the present Tunisia also included part of the province of Africa Nova.
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.
Roman colonies in North Africa are the cities—populated by Roman citizens—created in North Africa by the Roman Empire, mainly in the period between the reigns of Augustus and Trajan.
The Roman Africans or African Romans were the ancient populations of Roman North Africa that had a Romanized culture, some of whom spoke their own variety of Latin as a result. They existed from the Roman conquest until their language gradually faded out after the Arab conquest of North Africa in the Early Middle Ages.
