Abyla was the pre-Roman name of Ad Septem Fratres (actual Ceuta of Spain). Ad Septem Fratres, usually shortened to ''Septem'' or ''Septa'', was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

in the province of

Mauretania Tingitana Mauretania Tingitana ( Latin for "Tangerine Mauretania") was a Roman province, coinciding roughly with the northern part of present-day Morocco. The territory stretched from the northern peninsula opposite Gibraltar, to Sala Colonia (or Chel ...

and a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

outpost in the exarchate of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. Its ruins are located within present-day Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish city in northwest Africa.

Names

The name Abyla is said to have been a Punic name ("Lofty Mountain" or "Mountain of

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

") for Jebel Musa, the southern Pillar of Hercules. It appears in Greek variously as ''Abýla'' (), ''Abýlē'' (), ''Ablýx'' (), and ''Abílē Stḗlē'' (, "Pillar of Abyla") and in Latin as Mount Abyla (') or the Pillar of Abyla ('). The settlement below Jebel Musa was later renamed for the seven hills around the site, collectively referred to as the "Seven Brothers" ( grc-gre, Ἑπτάδελφοι, ''Heptádelphoi''; la, Septem Fratres). In particular, the Roman stronghold at the site took the name "Fort at the Seven Brothers" ('). This was gradually shortened to Septem (, ''Sépton'') or, occasionally, Septa. It continued as ''Sebtan'' or ''Sabta'' ( ar, سبتة) during the Middle Ages.

History

Punic

The Phoenicians found a small Berber settlement on the Strait of Gibraltar at Ceuta but, because the extremely narrow isthmus joining the

Peninsula of Almina The Península de Almina is a peninsula making up much of the eastern part of the Spanish city of Ceuta in Africa. It is dominated by the peak of Monte Hacho. The peninsula contains Ceuta's easternmost point, Punta Almina,Tinga ( Tangiers),

Kart Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on fu ...

( San Roque), and Gadir ( Cadiz)that helped the Phoenicians and

Carthaginians The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...

control maritime trade between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Mauretanian

After the

fall Autumn, also known as fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southe ...

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

in the Punic Wars, most of northwest Africa was left to the

client state A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...

s of Numidia and

Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...

but Punic culture continued to thrive in Septem, whose residents mostly continued to speak Punic into the reign of

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

Roman

Rome began exerting increasing control over the region, though, first through traders and advisors and thenparticularly after

Thapsus Thapsus, also known as Tampsus and as Thapsus Minor to distinguish it from Thapsus in Sicily, was a Carthaginian and Roman port near present-day Bekalta, Tunisia. Geography Thapsus was established on Ras ed-Dimas, an easily defended promontor ...

through the incorporation of more and more towns and regions into directly administered

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

. Roman settlement at Septem began under

Caligula Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanic ...

assassinated the Mauretanian king Ptolemy in AD40 and seized his kingdom.

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor ...

organized the new territories in 42, placing Septem in the province of

(administered from

Tingis Tingis ( Latin; grc-gre, Τίγγις ''Tíngis'') or Tingi ( Ancient Berber:), the ancient name of Tangier in Morocco, was an important Carthaginian, Moor, and Roman port on the Atlantic Ocean. It was eventually granted the status of a Roman ...

, present-day Tangiers) and raising it to the level of a

, which gave Roman citizenship to its residents. Wealthy Romans from

's and Nero's reigns are attested in funerary inscriptions found around the Septem basilica. Controlling commercial and military access to the

Gibraltar Strait The Strait of Gibraltar ( ar, مضيق جبل طارق, Maḍīq Jabal Ṭāriq; es, Estrecho de Gibraltar, Archaic: Pillars of Hercules), also known as the Straits of Gibraltar, is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Medi ...

, Septem flourished under the empire. Around AD100, under Trajan, a local senate was made organized from the local nobles ('). The town was particularly known for its salt and salted fish, which expanded greatly after about AD140 as new production centers opened up around the town forum. The salt, salted fish, and salted produce were exportedmainly across the strait to

Roman Spain Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispan ...

in jars manufactured around the city. Roman roads also connected it over land with Tingis and

Volubilis Volubilis (; ar, وليلي, walīlī; ber, ⵡⵍⵉⵍⵉ, wlili) is a partly excavated Berber-Roman city in Morocco situated near the city of Meknes, and may have been the capital of the kingdom of Mauretania, at least from the time of Kin ...

, increasing inland trade and security from Berber raiding. By the 2nd century, romanization was nearly complete and Latin appears in most surviving inscriptions. Alongside the Roman colonists, however, there remained a sizable community of romanized Berbers whose primary tongue continued to be local dialects mixed with Punic and Latin loanwords; this eventually became

African Romance African Romance or African Latin is an extinct Romance language that was spoken in the Roman province of Africa by the Roman Africans during the later Roman and early Byzantine Empires, and several centuries after the annexation of the region b ...

. Around AD200, the African emperor

Septimus Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succe ...

included the town in some of the largesse with which he favored the region. The town's prosperity continued into the late 3rd century, after which production centers were abandoned and the use of money falls off. Septem was an important Christian center by the 4th century; one of the basilicas from this time has recently been rediscovered.) In the late 4th century, under , the city still had 10,000 inhabitants, nearly all Christian and Latin-speaking.

Vandal

Septem fell to the Vandals in 426.

Byzantine

By the time of

Belisarius Belisarius (; el, Βελισάριος; The exact date of his birth is unknown. – 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean terri ...

's reconquest of North Africa, the Vandals had already lost Septem to local Berber (') revolts. The Byzantines retook the entire coastline, then established their "Commander of Mauretania" (') at the more defensible Septem instead of the old capital at Tingis. Mauretania and the Byzantine holdings in

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The ...

were nominally part of the Exarchate of Africa but so distant that it is likely the garrison at Septem was forced to do homage to Visigothic Spain.

Muslim

There are no reliable contemporary histories concerning the end of the

Islamic conquest of the Maghreb The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb ( ar, الْفَتْحُ الإسلَامِيُّ لِلْمَغرِب) continued the century of rapid Muslim conquests following the death of Muhammad in 632 and into the Byzantine-controlled territories of ...

around the year 710. Instead, the rapid

Muslim conquest of Spain The Umayyad conquest of Hispania, also known as the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom, was the initial expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate over Hispania (in the Iberian Peninsula) from 711 to 718. The conquest resulted in the decline of t ...

produced romances concerning

Count Julian Julian, Count of Ceuta ( es, Don Julián, Conde de Ceuta,, ar, يليان, (' , ''Youliān Kont Sabteh''; in Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, بؙلْيان, ''Bulyan'', the latter is treated by the editor of the Arabic text, Torrey, as a copying error. 'Ab ...

of Septem and his betrayal of Christendom in revenge for the dishonors that befell his daughter at the Visigothic court of KingRoderick. Allegedly with Julian's encouragement and instructions, the Berber convert and freedman Tariq ibn Ziyad took his garrison from Tangiers across the strait and overran the Spanish so swiftly that both he and his Persian master

Musa bin Nusayr Musa ibn Nusayr ( ar, موسى بن نصير ''Mūsá bin Nuṣayr''; 640 – c. 716) served as a Umayyad governor and an Arab general under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I. He ruled over the Muslim provinces of North Africa (Ifriqiya), and direc ...

fell afoul of a jealous caliph, who stripped them of their wealth and titles. After the death of Julian, sometimes also described as a king of the Ghomara Berbers, Berber converts to Islam took direct control of Septa. It was then destroyed during their great revolt against the Caliphate around 740. Septa subsequently remained a small village of Muslims and Christians surrounded by ruins until its resettlement in the 9th century by Mâjakas, chief of the Majkasa Berber tribe, who started the short-lived Banu Isam dynasty. The continuing existence of an embattled Christian community is attested by the martyrdom of St.Daniel Fasanella and his Franciscans in 1227;San Daniele Fasanella martyrdom (in Italian)
/ref> it subsequently survived until the town's capture by the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

reëstablished the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ceuta on 4 April 1417. The Ceuta Cathedral was then raised on the site of old Septem's 6th-century church.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* . * . * Conant, Jonathan. ''Staying Roman : conquest and identity in Africa and the Mediterranean'' (pp. 439–700). Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. . Cambridge, 2012 * Cravioto, Enrique. ''La circulación monetaria alto-imperial en el norte de la Mauretania Tingitana''. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha. Cuenca, 2007. * . * Mommsen, Theodore. ''The Provinces of the Roman Empire'', Section Africa. Ed Barnes & Noble. New York, 2005 * Noé Villaverde, Vega. ''Tingitana en la antigüedad tardía, siglos III-VII: autoctonía y romanidad en el extremo occidente mediterráneo''. Ed. Real Academia de la Historia. Madrid, 2001 * Robin, Daniel. ''Faith, Hope and love in the early churches of North Africa (This Holy Seed)''. Tamarisk Publications, Chester, United Kingdom * . * . * Talbi, Mohammed. ''Le Christianisme maghrébinin "Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands"''. M. Gervers and R. Bikhazi. Toronto, 1990. {{Phoenician cities and colonies, state=collapsed Mauretania Tingitana Roman towns and cities in Spain Phoenician colonies in Spain History of Ceuta Roman towns and cities in Mauretania Tingitana