Location Algeria Region Aïn Defla Province | Local time Sunday 1:29 PM | |
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Weather 19°C, Wind W at 16 km/h, 44% Humidity Similar Icosium, Rapidum, Hippo Regius Coordinates 36.265833°N 2.297222°E Country Algeria Continent Africa | ||
To Zucchabar
Zuccabar or Zucchabar was an ancient town in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis. It is located in present-day Miliana, Algeria.
Contents
History
Zuccabar was constituted as a Roman colony (colonia Iulia Augusta Zucchabar) under the Emperor Augustus.
Indeed, actual Miliana corresponds to the town of Punic origin known in Roman times as "Zucchabar" (or even "Succhabar"). Under Augustus, it was given the rank of colonia and was thus referred to as Colonia Iulia Augusta Zucchabar. The Greek form of the name used by the geographer Ptolemy was Ζουχάββαρι (Zuchabbari). Pliny the Elder calls it "the colony of Augusta, also called Succabar", and Ammianus Marcellinus gives it the name Sugabarri or (in adjectival form) Sugabarritanum.
Zuccabar belonged to the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis and was located 70 km south of the capital Caesarea, with a population of nearly 5,000 inhabitants (mostly romanised berbers).
Zucchabar became a Christian episcopal see in the fourth century. The names of two of its Catholic bishops and one Donatist are recorded:
The bishopric is included in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees. In late antiquity it was an episcopal see that has been "born again" as a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church since 1967.
Miliana was (re)founded in the 10th century by Buluggin ibn Ziri on the site of the ancient Roman city of Zuccabar (or "Succhabar").
Trivia
In the movie Gladiator by Ridley Scott, Zucchabar is fictitiously introduced as the name of a Roman province, when Maximus is brought south of his homeland Hispania into an arid and desert land, after having been enslaved by merchants. It is also in this province that he meets Proximo.