Gerisa, also called Ghirza, was an ancient city of

Roman Libya The area of North Africa which has been known as Libya since 1911 was under Ancient Rome, Roman domination between 146 BC and 672 AD (though the region was briefly taken by the Vandals in 430 AD, and then recaptured by the Byzantine Empire, Byzant ...

near the

Limes Tripolitanus The ''Limes Tripolitanus'' was a frontier zone of defence of the Roman Empire, built in the south of what is now Tunisia and the northwest of Libya. It was primarily intended as a protection for the tripolitanian cities of Leptis Magna, Sabrath ...

. It was a small village of 300 inhabitants on the pre-desert zone of

Tripolitania Tripolitania (), historically known as the Tripoli region, is a historic region and former province of Libya. The region had been settled since antiquity, first coming to prominence as part of the Carthaginian empire. Following the defeat ...

History

Even if there was a small local settlement, it was only when Roman legionnaires arrived in Tripolitania that the city of Gerisa was created and developed. Initially its population was mainly local

berbers Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connec ...

, but some Roman merchants settled there during late

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

times. The Limes Tripolitanus was expanded under emperors

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

and

Septimius 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 cursus honorum, the ...

, in particular under the legatus Quintus Anicius Faustus in 197-201 AD. Wadi buzra

Anicius Faustus was appointed

legatus A legate (Latin: , ) was a high-ranking Roman military officer in the Roman army, equivalent to a high-ranking general officer of modern times. Initially used to delegate power, the term became formalised under Augustus as the officer in comman ...

of the

Legio III Augusta Legio III Augusta ("Third Augustan Legion") was a legion of the Imperial Roman army The Imperial Roman Army was the military land force of the Roman Empire from 27 BC to 476 AD, and the final incarnation in the long history of the Roman army ...

and built several defensive forts of the Limes Tripolitanus in Tripolitania, among which Garbia and Golaia (Bu Ngem) in order to protect the province from the raids of nomadic tribes. He fulfilled his task quickly and successfully. As a consequence the Roman city of Gaerisa, situated away from the coast and south of

Leptis Magna Leptis or Lepcis Magna, also known by #Names, other names in classical antiquity, antiquity, was a prominent city of the Carthaginian Empire and Roman Libya at the mouth of the Wadi Lebda in the Mediterranean. Established as a Punic people, Puni ...

, developed quickly in a rich agricultural area. Gerisa became a "boom town" after 200 AD, when the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (born in Leptis Magna) had organized in a better way the Limes Tripolitanus. Former soldiers -mostly local Berbers, but even some legionaries from the Italian peninsula- were settled in this area, and the arid land was developed. Dams and cisterns were built in the Wadi Ghirza (then not dry like today) to regulate the flash floods. These structures are still visible: there it is among the ruins of Gaerisa a temple, which may have been dedicated to the

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

semi-god "

Gurzil Gurzil was an important ancient Berber deity. He is known from two sources, the Latin poem ''Iohannis'' by the 6th-century Christian Roman poet Corippus and a Neo-Punic inscription from Lepcis Magna.A. F. Elmayer, "The Libyan God Gurzil in a Ne ...

", and the name of the town itself may even be related to his name. The farmers produced cereals, figs, vines, olives, pulses, almonds, dates, and perhaps melons. Gaerisa consisted of some forty buildings, including six fortified farms ( Centenaria). Two of them were really large. It was abandoned in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. With

Diocletian Diocletian ( ; ; ; 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed Jovius, was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia (Roman province), Dalmatia. As with other Illyri ...

the limes was partially abandoned and the defense of the area was performed by the

Limitanei The ''limitanei'' (Latin, also called ''ripenses''), meaning respectively "the soldiers in frontier districts" (from the Latin word '' limes'' meaning frontier) or "the soldiers on the riverbank" (from the Rhine and Danube), were an important par ...

, local berber soldier-farmers. The Limes survived as an effective protection until

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

times (Emperor

Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

restructured the Limes in 533 AD. After then Gaerisa fell in importance and slowly disappeared after the Arab invasions of the late seventh century.Bacchielli, L. La Tripolitania, in "Storia Einaudi dei Greci e dei Romani", Geografia del mondo tardo-antico, vol.20 By the tenth century Gerisa was totally forgotten and covered by sand. Only a few centuries later the area was repopulated and now -near the excavated ruins of Gaerisa- there it is a small town named "Ghirza".

Notes

Bibliography

*Olwen Brogan, D.J. Smith, ''Ghirza. A Libyan Settlement in the Roman Period'', Libyan antiquities series, Roma 1984. *David Mattingly. ''Imperialism, Power, and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire'' (Miriam S. Balmuth Lectures in Ancient History and Archaeology). Princeton University Press. Princeton, 2013 *Valeria Purcaro. ''Osservazioni su alcuni rilievi delle necropoli di Ghirza con scene di sacrificio e di cerimonia'', in Lidiano Bacchielli, Sandro Stucchi, Margherita Bonanno Aravantinos, "Scritti di antichità in memoria di Sadro Stucchi" (Studi miscellanei, 29), volume II, Roma 1996 (), pp. 141–146. {{Authority control Archaeological sites in Libya Roman sites in Libya

History

See also

Notes

Bibliography