 Thysdrus's huge amphitheater | |
  Shown within Tunisia | |
| Location | Tunisia |
|---|---|
| Region | Mahdia Governorate |
| Coordinates | 35°17′24″N10°42′29″E / 35.29000°N 10.70806°E |
Thysdrus was a Carthaginian town and Roman colony near present-day El Djem, Tunisia. Under the Romans, it was the center of olive oil production in the provinces of Africa and Byzacena and was quite prosperous. The surviving amphitheater is a World Heritage Site.
The Punic name of the town was ŠṬPŠR (𐤔𐤈𐤐𐤔𐤓). [1] The Latin name Thysdrus has Berber roots. [2]
Thysdrus began as a small Carthaginian and Berber village. [2]
Following the Punic Wars, it was refounded as a Roman town [2] and probably received some of Julius Caesar's veterans as settlers in 45 BC. Punic culture remained long predominant, with the city minting bronze coins as late as Augustus with Punic inscriptions. Some bore Astarte's head obverse and a lyre reverse; others bore "Poseidon"'s head obverse and a capricorn reverse. [1]
Roman Africa was less arid than modern Tunisia, and Thysdrus and the surrounding lands in Byzacena were an important center of olive oil production and export. Its greatest importance occurred under the Severan dynasty in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries. Septimius Severus was a native of Roman Africa and bestowed a great deal of imperial favor upon it. He raised Thysdrus to municipality status (Latin : municipium) with partial Roman citizenship. [3]
By the early 3rd century when its huge amphitheater was built, Thysdrus rivaled Hadrumetum (present-day Sousse) as the second city of Roman North Africa, after Carthage (near present-day Tunis). The city had even a huge racetrack (circus), nearly as large as the Circus Maximus at Rome and capable of accommodating about 30,000 spectators.
In AD 238, Thysdrus was at the center of a struggle to control the Roman Empire. After Maximinus Thrax killed Emperor Alexander Severus at Moguntiacum in Germania Inferior and assumed the throne, [4] his oppressive rule resulted in universal discontent. Maximinus's procurator in Africa, in particular, sought to extract the maximum level of taxation and fines possible, including falsifying charges against the local aristocracy. [5] A riot among the 50,000 Thysdrians ended with the death of the procurator, after which they turned to Gordian and demanded that he accept the dangerous honor of the imperial throne. [6] After protesting that he was too old for the position, he eventually yielded to the popular clamor of the Thysdrians and assumed both the purple and the epithet Africanus ("the African") on March 22. [7] According to Edward Gibbon:
An iniquitous sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of [Africa], the execution of which would have stripped them of far the greater part of their patrimony. (…) A respite of three days, obtained with difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train, seized on the town of Thysdrus, and erected the standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire. (...) Gordianus, their proconsul, and the object of their choice [as emperor], refused, with unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honour, and begged with tears that they should suffer him to terminate in peace a long and innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood. Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his only refuge indeed against the jealous cruelty of Maximin (...). [8]
Due to his advanced age, he insisted that his son M. Antonius Gordianus be acclaimed as his coruler. [6] A few days later, Gordian entered the city of Carthage with the overwhelming support of the population and local political leaders. [9] Meanwhile, in Rome, Maximinus's praetorian prefect was assassinated and the rebellion seemed to be successful. [10] Gordian in the meantime had sent an embassy to Rome under the leadership of P. Licinius Valerianus [11] to obtain the Senate's support for his rebellion. [10]
The senate confirmed the new emperor on 2 April and many of the provinces gladly sided with Gordian. [12]
Opposition would come from the neighboring province of Numidia. [13] Its governor Capelianus, a loyal supporter of Maximinus and a stalwart opponent of Gordian, [12] renewed his alliance to the emperor and invaded the province of Africa with the only legion stationed in the region and other veteran units. [14] Gordian II, at the head of a militia army of untrained soldiers mostly from Thysdrus and surroundings, lost the Battle of Carthage and was killed. [12] Gordian killed himself in his villa near Carthage by hanging himself with his belt. [15] The Gordians had "reigned" only thirty-six days. [16]
Following this abortive revolt, Capelianus's troops sacked Thysdrus. Thysdrus was subsequently raised to the level of a colony (colonia) by Gordian III in AD 244. It was the seat of a Christian diocese, which is included in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees. [17] [18] All the same, it never really recovered.
Around 695, the Romano-Berber queen Kahina destroyed most of the olive trees of the Thysdrus area in her final attempt to stop the Arab invasion. She made her final stand at the amphitheater, but was defeated.
Similar to the Colosseum of Rome and to the theatre of Bosra, the amphitheatre was turned into a fortress where local tribes tried to check the Arab invasion of the region after the Byzantines had been defeated at Sufetula in 647. In 670 the Arabs founded Kairouan, forty miles north of Thysdrus, and made it the capital of the country. This fact, associated with the arrival of Arab nomadic tribes which led to the abandonment of farming, caused the decline of Thysdrus.
— Roberto Piperno [19]
In the next centuries, Thysdrus largely disappeared from the record, with a worsening arid climate apparently damaging its olive oil production. By the 10th century, many of Thysdrus's buildings had been dismantled for use in construction at Kairouan. In the 19th century, French colonizers found only a small village named El Djem, with a few hundred inhabitants living around the remains of the amphitheater and barely eking out enough production from their farms to survive.
The Amphitheatre of El Jem was built around AD 238 and it is one of the best preserved stone Roman ruins in the world. It was named a World Heritage Site in 1979.
Thysdrus's bishops attended the councils of 393, 411, and 641. The Donatist schism had a hold in the city around 411. [20]
The 230s decade ran from January 1, 230, to December 31, 239.
Year 238 (CCXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Pius and Pontianus. The denomination 238 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Leptis or Lepcis 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 Lebda in the Mediterranean.
Gordian III was Roman emperor from 238 to 244. At the age of 13, he became the youngest sole emperor of the united Roman Empire. Gordian was the son of Antonia Gordiana and Junius Balbus, who died before 238. Antonia Gordiana was the daughter of Emperor Gordian I and younger sister of Emperor Gordian II. Very little is known of his early life before his acclamation. Gordian had assumed the name of his maternal grandfather in 238.
Gordian I was Roman emperor for 22 days with his son Gordian II in 238, the Year of the Six Emperors. Caught up in a rebellion against the Emperor Maximinus Thrax, he was defeated by forces loyal to Maximinus, and he committed suicide after the death of his son.
Gordian II was Roman emperor with his father Gordian I in 238 AD, the Year of the Six Emperors. Seeking to overthrow Maximinus Thrax, he died in battle outside Carthage. Since he died before his father, Gordian II had the shortest reign of any Roman emperor, at 22 days.
Legio III Augusta was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. Its origin may have been the Republican 3rd Legion which served the general Pompey during his civil war against Gaius Julius Caesar. It supported the general Octavian in his civil war against Mark Antony. It was officially refounded in 30 BC, when Octavian achieved sole mastery of the Roman empire. In that year, it was deployed in the Roman province of Africa, where it remained until at least the late 4th century AD.
Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus was Roman emperor with Pupienus for three months in 238, the Year of the Six Emperors.
Marcus Clodius Pupienus Maximus was Roman emperor with Balbinus for 99 days in 238, during the Year of the Six Emperors. The sources for this period are scant, and thus knowledge of the emperor is limited. In most contemporary texts he is referred to by his cognomen "Maximus" rather than by his second nomen Pupienus.
Herodian or Herodianus of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch", was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus in eight books covering the years 180 to 238. His work is not considered entirely reliable, although his less biased account of Elagabalus may be more useful than that of Cassius Dio. Herodian himself may have been a Syrian, though he appears to have lived for a considerable period of time in Rome, possibly without holding any public office. From his extant work, it seems that he was still living at an advanced age during the reign of Gordianus III, who ascended the throne in 238. Beyond this, nothing is known of his life.
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.
El Djem or El Jem is a town in Mahdia Governorate, Tunisia. Its population was 21,576 during the 2014 census. It is home to Roman remains, including the Amphitheatre of El Jem.
The Battle of Carthage was fought in 238 AD between a Roman army loyal to Emperor Maximinus Thrax and the forces of Emperors Gordian I and Gordian II.
The Year of the Six Emperors was the year AD 238, during which six men made claims to be emperors of Rome. This was an early symptom of what historians now call the Crisis of the Third Century, also known as Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis, a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of foreign invasions and migrations into the Roman territory, civil wars, peasant rebellions, political instability, Roman reliance on foreign mercenaries known as foederati and commanders nominally working for Rome, the devastating social and economic effects of the plague, debasement of currency, and economic depression. The crisis ended with the ascension of Diocletian and his implementation of reforms in 284.
Gaius Furius Sabinius Aquila Timesitheus was an officer of the Roman Imperial government in the first half of the 3rd century. Most likely of Oriental-Greek origins, he was a Roman citizen, probably of equestrian rank.
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.
Maximinus Thrax was a Roman emperor from 235 to 238. Born of Thracian origin – giving the nickname "Thrax" – he rose up through the military ranks, ultimately holding high command in the army of the Rhine under Emperor Severus Alexander. After Severus was murdered in 235, he was proclaimed emperor by the army, beginning the Crisis of the Third Century.
The Amphitheatre of El Jem is an oval amphitheatre in the modern-day city of El Djem, Tunisia, formerly Thysdrus in the Roman province of Africa. It is listed by UNESCO since 1979 as a World Heritage Site.
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 Gordian dynasty, sometimes known as the Gordianic dynasty, was short-lived, ruling the Roman Empire from 238 to 244 AD. The dynasty achieved the throne in 238 AD, after Gordian I and his son Gordian II rose up against Emperor Maximinus Thrax and were proclaimed co-emperors by the Roman Senate. Gordian II was killed by the governor of Numidia, Capillianus and Gordian I killed himself shortly after, only 22 days after he was declared emperor. In 238, Pupienus and Balbinus, who were not of the Gordian dynasty, were declared co-emperors but the Senate was forced to make Gordian III a third co-emperor in 238, due to the demands of the Roman people. Maximinus attempted to invade Italy but he was killed by his own soldiers when his army became frustrated. After this, the Praetorian Guard killed Pupienus and Balbinus, leaving Gordian III as the sole emperor. Gordian III ruled until AD 244 when he was either killed after his betrayal by Philip the Arab, or killed at the Battle of Misiche; with his death, the dynasty was ended and Philip the Arab became emperor.
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