Panatoria was an ancient city in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis, during the Roman Empire. [1] An exact location of the city is not known but it was in what is today the north of Algeria. [2]
Classical antiquity is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th or 6th century AD centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome known as the Greco-Roman world. It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.
In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas, according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law. It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities (munera) on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other. The agreement (concilium) has a life of its own, creating a res publica or "public entity", into which individuals are born or accepted, and from which they die or are ejected. The civitas is not just the collective body of all the citizens, it is the contract binding them all together, because each of them is a civis.
The Roman provinces were the lands and people outside of Rome itself that were controlled by the Republic and later the Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman who was appointed as governor. Although different in many ways, they were similar to the states in Australia or the United States, the regions in the United kingdom or New Zealand, or the prefectures in Japan. Canada refers to some of its territory as provinces.
The town was the seat of an ancient bishopric through the Byzantine Empire, Vandal Kingdom and Roman Empire. [3] [4] The only known bishop of this African diocese is Donato, who took part in the synod assembled in Carthage in 484 by the Vandal King Huneric, after which Donato was sent into exile. [5]
A cathedra or bishop's throne is the seat of a bishop. It is a symbol of the bishop's teaching authority in the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion churches. Cathedra is the Latin word for a chair with armrests, and it appears in early Christian literature in the phrase "cathedrae apostolorum", indicating authority derived directly from the apostles; its Roman connotations of authority reserved for the Emperor were later adopted by bishops after the 4th century. A church into which a bishop's official cathedra is installed is called a cathedral.
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Both the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire simply as the Roman Empire, or Romania (Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as "Romans".
The Vandal Kingdom or Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans was established by the Germanic Vandal people under Genseric, and ruled in North Africa and the Mediterranean from 435 AD to 534 AD.
The Vandals were a large East Germanic tribe or group of tribes that first appear in history inhabiting present-day southern Poland. Some later moved in large numbers, including most notably the group which successively established kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and then North Africa in the 5th century.
Leptis or Leptis Magna, also known by other names in antiquity, was a prominent city of the Carthaginian Empire and Roman Libya at the mouth of the Wadi Lebdam in the Mediterranean.
Mauretania is the Latin name for an area in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, seminomadic pastoralists of Berber ancestral stock, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli.
Hippo Regius is the ancient name of the modern city of Annaba, in Algeria. Hippo Regius was a Phoenician, Berber, and Roman city in present-day Annaba Province, Algeria. It was the locus of several early Christian councils and home to the philosopher and theologian Augustine of Hippo.
Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria. Cirta was the capital city of the Berber kingdom of Numidia; its strategically important port city was Russicada. Although Numidia was a key ally of the ancient Roman Republic during the Punic Wars, Cirta was subject to Roman invasions during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Eventually it fell under Roman dominion during the time of Julius Caesar. Cirta was then repopulated with Roman colonists by Caesar and Augustus and was surrounded by a "confederation of free Roman cities" such as Tiddis, Cuicul, and Milevum. The city was destroyed in the beginning of the 4th century and was rebuilt by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who gave his name to the newly constructed city, Constantine. The Vandals damaged Cirta, but emperor Justinian I reconquered and improved the Roman city. It declined in importance after the Muslim invasions, but a small community continued at the site for several centuries. Its ruins are now an archaeological site.
Djelfa (Arabic: الجلفة, translit. al-Ǧilfah is the capital city of Djelfa Province, Algeria and the site of ancient city and former bishopric Fallaba, which remains a Latin catholic titular see.
Khamissa, ancient Thubursicum Numidarum or Thubursicum, is an Ancient Roman and Byzantine archeological site, in Souk Ahras Province of northeastern Algeria.
The sack of 455 was the third of four ancient sacks of Rome; it was conducted by the Vandals, who were then at war with the usurping Western Roman Emperor Petronius Maximus.
Gaiseric, also known as Geiseric or Genseric, was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477) who established the Vandal Kingdom and was one of the key players in the troubles of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. During his nearly 50 years of rule, he raised a relatively insignificant Germanic tribe to the status of a major Mediterranean power. After he died, they entered a swift decline and eventual collapse.
The city of Rusticiana was located in the Roman province of Numidia. Its location and the corresponding modern city are unknown.
Turris Tamalleni was a town in North Africa, dating from the Carthageinian, Roman, Byzantine and Vandal era.
Buruni is an ancient city of the Maghreb, in North Africa. The city has been identified with ruins at Henchir-El-Dakhla in Tunisia.
Nigizubi was a Roman–Berber town in the province of Numidia. It was located in modern Algeria. It was also the seat of an ancient bishopric.during the Vandal Kingdom and Roman Empire. The exact location of the ancient town is now lost but it was somewhere in north-eastern Algeria.
Pocofeltus was a Roman–Berber civitas (town) in the province of Africa Proconsularis, located in present-day Tunisia. It was also the seat of an ancient Roman Catholic diocese.
Auzegera was a Roman-Berber town in the province of Africa Proconsularis and in late antiquity Byzacena. It was a Catholic Church diocese.
Gunugus or Gunugu was a Berber and Carthaginian town in northwest Africa in antiquity. It passed into Roman control during the Punic Wars and was the site of a colony of veteran soldiers. It survived the Vandals and Byzantines but was destroyed during the Muslim invasion of the area.
The Diocese of Fronta Latin: Dioecesis Frontensis) is a suppressed and titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Diocese of Subbar is a suppressed and titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Mauro-Roman Kingdom was an independent Christian Berber kingdom centered on the city of Altava which controlled much of the ancient Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis, located in present-day northern Algeria. The kingdom was first formed in the fifth century as Roman control over the province weakened and Imperial resources had to be concentrated elsewhere, notably in defending the Italian Peninsula itself from invading Germanic tribes.