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Phoenicians from Carthage founded a town at Cherchell around 400 BC, in an area on the northern Maghreb littoral 100 km west of Algiers. Established as a trading station, the city was originally known as Iol or Jol.
Cherchell became a part of the kingdom of Numidia under Jugurtha, who died in 104 BC. It served as a key city for the polity's Berber monarchy and generals. The Berber Kings Bocchus I and Bocchus II lived there, as occasionally did other Kings of Numidia. Iol was situated in an area called Mauretania, which was then a part of the Numidian kingdom.
During the 1st century BC, due to the city's strategic location, new defences were built.
The last Numidian king was Juba II; his wife was the Greek Ptolemaic princess Cleopatra Selene II, daughter of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra of Egypt. In 29 BC, Roman emperor Augustus reorganized the area, appointing Juba king of the client kingdom Mauretania, which included western Numidia. The capital was established at Iol, renamed Caesarea or Caesarea Mauretaniae, in honor of the emperor.
Juba and Cleopatra did not just rename their new capital, they rebuilt the town as a typical Greco-Roman city in fine Roman style, on a large, lavish and expensive scale. The town design consisted of street grids, and included a theatre, an art collection, and a lighthouse similar to the one at Alexandria. Caesarea was rebuilt in a rich mixture of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman architectural styles. The monarchs are buried in the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania which can still be seen. The seaport capital and its kingdom flourished during this period, with most of the population being of Greek and Phoenician origin with a minority of Berbers. Caesarea remained a significant power center under Numidian rule, with |Greco-Roman civilization as a veneer, until 40 CE, when its last monarch Ptolemy of Mauretania was assassinated on a visit to Rome. The murder of Ptolemy set in motion a series of reactions resulting in a devastating war with Rome.
In 44, after a four-year revolt, the capital was captured and Roman Emperor Claudius divided the Mauretanian kingdom into two Roman provinces. The province of which Caesarea became the capital was called Mauretania Caesariensis. The city itself was settled with Roman soldiers and was given the rank of a colonia, and so was also called Colonia Claudia Caesarea.
In later centuries, the Roman population expanded, as did the Berber population, resulting in a mixed Greco-Phoenician, Berber, and Roman population. The city featured a hippodrome, amphitheater, basilica, numerous temples and Roman civic buildings. During this heyday, the city had its own school of philosophy, academy, and library. As a significant city of the Roman Empire it had trading contacts across the Roman world. Subsequently, the town was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Macrinus and Greek grammarian Priscian.
Additionally, the city also featured a small but growing population of converted Christians and was noted for the religious debates and tumults which featured the hostility of Roman public religion toward Christians. Caesarea thus has its own martyred Catholic saint, Marciana (her feastday is on 9 January). By the 4th century, the conversion of the population from pagan to Christian beliefs resulted in nearly half of the population being Christianized. The Christians of the city named bishops between about 314 and 484 AD.
In the 5th century, the city remained an extremely loyalist power for the Roman Empire. Additionally, the city's elite held considerable control of international trade. Although the city had been in a state of stagnation for over a hundred years and had even lost population as most cities in the Roman Empire, it still remained much as it had been since establishment. Consequently, the Roman Empire relied on much of its North African dominion for essential food stuffs, luxury goods and a not insignificant number of elite rulers.
Thus, in the waning days of the Empire it became a target of the Vandals and their expedition to bring down their Imperial opponents. A Vandal army and fleet burnt the town and fortified many of its old Roman era buildings into Vandal citadels. Although this devastation was significant, the Vandal era saw restoration of much of the damage, an expansion in the size of the population.
The city's port meanwhile served as a base for some of the Vandal fleet. In turn, the city saw its economic fortunes revive as Vandal merchants cornered the market on shipping. However, much of this wealth was of necessity channeled toward military developments, as the Vandals were forced to defend their conquest against both Byzantine and Berber attacks.
In 533, the Vandal Kingdom of Africa and the city were taken by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. It would remain under Byzantine control until the Umayyad conquest in the late 7th century.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherchell)
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