Cartennae or Cartenna.. was an ancient Berber, Carthaginian, and Roman port at present-day

Ténès Ténès ( ar, تنس; from Berber TNS 'camping') is a town in Algeria located around 200 kilometers west of the capital Algiers. , it has a population of 65,000 people. History Ténès was founded as a Phoenician port in or before the 8th ce ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

. Under the Romans, it was part of the

province 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 ...

Mauretania Caesariensis Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for " Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in what is now Algeria in the Maghreb. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell). The province had been part of the Ki ...

Name

Cartenna's name was variously recorded by the

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, Albania, Greeks in Italy, ...

as ''Karténna'' ( grc-gre, Καρτέννα), ''Kártina'' (), ''Kártinna'' (), and ''Karténnai'' ( grc-gre, Καρτένναι). It was usually Latinized as Cartennae or Cartenna, but appears as Cartinna in Mela. These names seem to combine the

Punic 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 ...

word for "city" () with a Berber placename element (), also seen in the Phoenician names for

Cirta 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 ...

Tipasa Tipasa, sometimes distinguished as Tipasa in Mauretania, was a colonia in the Roman province Mauretania Caesariensis, nowadays called Tipaza, and located in coastal central Algeria. Since 1982, it has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Sit ...

, and

Sabratha Sabratha ( ar, صبراتة, Ṣabrāta; also ''Sabratah'', ''Siburata''), in the Zawiya DistrictCape Tenes A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. Th ...

. The plural form Cartennae seems to allude to a second Berber settlement that existed upstream. Notionally refounded as a Roman colony, it was also known as after its imperial patron.

History

Phoenician colony

Cartennae was established as a Phoenician

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 ''metropole, metropolit ...

by the 8th centuryBC. It lay at the mouth of the

Wadi Allala Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), Maghrebi Arabic, North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemerality, ephemeral) S ...

(the classical Cartennus). In addition to trading in the usual

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals ...

hides __NOTOC__ Hide or hides may refer to: Common uses * Hide (skin), the cured skin of an animal * Bird hide, a structure for observing birds and other wildlife without causing disturbance * Gamekeeper's hide or hunting hide or hunting blind, a stru ...

, and cedar of the interior, Cartennae was apparently the site of an important copper mine.. Like other colonies in the western Mediterranean, Cartennae eventually fell under Carthaginian control.

Roman colony

After the

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146BC fought between Rome and Carthage. Three conflicts between these states took place on both land and sea across the western Mediterranean region and involved a total of forty-three ye ...

, Cartennae was dominated by the Romans. The first emperor

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 Pr ...

established a

of veterans from the 2nd Legion there. in 30BC and the city started to grow in importance. Augustus even founded in what is now coastal

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

the following Roman colonies: Igilgili, Saldae, Tubusuctu,

Rusazu Rusazus was a Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman town located near Cape Corbelin, Algeria. Its ruins are near the town of Azeffoun. Name ( phn, 𐤓‬𐤔‬𐤆‬) was the Phoenician and Punic name of Cape Corbelin and meant "Cape o ...

Rusguniae Tamentfoust ( ar, تمنتفوست), the classical Rusguniae and colonial , is a site in the Dar El Beïda District of Algiers in Algeria. Geography Tamentfoust lies on Cape Matifou, which forms the northeast side of the Bay of Algiers. Name ...

, Aquae Calidae,

Zuccabar Zuccabar (or Zucchabar) was an ancient town in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis. It is located in present-day Miliana, Algeria. History Zuccabar was constituted as a Roman colony (''Colonia Iulia Augusta Zucchabar'') under the Empe ...

and

Gunugu Gunugus or Gunugu ( xpu, 𐤂𐤍𐤂𐤍 , ) 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 ...

. All these colonies were connected to Cartennae in a military way with strong commercial links. During the centuries of Roman domination Cartennae was a rich city with a

forum Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to: Common uses *Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States *Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city **Roman Forum, most famous example *Internet ...

, theater,

baths Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

and aqueducts, but it was devastated during the revolt of

Firmus According to the ''Historia Augusta'', Firmus (died 273) was a usurper during the reign of Aurelian. The contradictory accounts of his life and the man himself are considered to be a complete fabrication, perhaps based on the later Firmus. Hi ...

in the years 372–375. Despite the continuation of its name in modern

, identification of the site was long delayed by misinformation in surviving geographical accounts of Roman North Africa, including

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of import ...

the

Antonine Itineraries The Antonine Itinerary ( la, Itinerarium Antonini Augusti, "The Itinerary of the Emperor Antoninus") is a famous '' itinerarium'', a register of the stations and distances along various roads. Seemingly based on official documents, possibl ...

. Distances in the gazetteers were apparently thrown off by Ptolemy's misreckoning of longitude and by the lack of

Roman roads Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

in the area, requiring distances to be estimated by sailors. The French first confused Cartennae with

Mostaganem Mostaganem ( ber, Mustɣanem; ar, مستغانم) is a port city in and capital of Mostaganem province, in the northwest of Algeria. The city, founded in the 11th century lies on the Gulf of Arzew, Mediterranean Sea and is 72 km ENE of O ...

, to the west, but the discovery of epitaphs a few years later in Ténès helped solve the mistake. A

necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually im ...

has been excavated and formerly served as a public park.

Later history

Cartennae was sacked by the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area be ...

during their 5th-century invasion of

Roman North Africa Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, ...

and presumably reconquered by the Byzantines during their resumption of control over the area. It was almost entirely destroyed following the conquest of the area by the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

. The bleakness of its situation militated against resettlement; medieval Tenes was a separate settlement about away, settled by Spaniards in the 9th century. Following the town's surrender to the invading French in 1843, the former site of Cartennae became the center of the new French town established in 1847..

Religion

Cartennae was a

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

and the early medieval period and was reëstablished as a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbis ...

in the 20th century. The earliest known bishops of Cartennae were Rogatus and Vincentius, who espoused the

schismatic Schismatic may refer to: * Schismatic (religion), a member of a religious schism, or, as an adjective, of or pertaining to a schism * a term related to the Covenanters, a Scottish Presbyterian movement in the 17th century * pertaining to the schi ...

or heretical belief ("

Rogatism The Rogatists were a religious movement within early Christianity that separated in the 4th century from the Donatists over the use of violence in the church. Much of what we know about the Rogatists comes from the writings of Augustine, against bot ...

") that the church should not use force to compel orthodox belief, particularly against the

Donatists Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and the ...

; their arguments survive only in the form of StAugustine's invective against them.Stefano Antonio Morcelli
''Africa christiana''
Volume I, Brescia 1816, pp. 122–123

Anatole-Joseph Toulotte Anatole-Joseph Toulotte (7 January 1852 – 23 January 1907) was a French White Fathers missionary who was Vicar Apostolic of Sahara and Sudan from 1893 to 1897. Under his leadership the first White Fathers missions were established in the French ...

''Géographie de l'Afrique chrétienne. Maurétanies''
Montreuil-sur-mer 1894, pp. 54-57 Other known bishops are Rusticus, who in 418 assisted at the disputation between

Saint Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afri ...

and the Donatist Emeritus in

Caesarea in Mauretania Caesarea in Mauretania (Latin: ''Caesarea Mauretaniae'', meaning "Caesarea of 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. In the ...

; Victor, a contemporary of

Genseric Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric ( la, Gaisericus, Geisericus; reconstructed Vandalic: ) was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), ruling a kingdom he established, and was one of the key players in the di ...

(and therefore of the mid-5th century) and the author of several works; and Lucidus, one of the Catholic bishops whom

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was ...

summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled.Pius Bonifacius Gams
''Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae''
Leipzig 1931, p. 465

References

Citations

Bibliography

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