Utica
- a very old town in Africa Propria, north of Carthage, where the younger Cato killed himself, now Boushater, Mel. 1, 7, 2; Plin. 5, 4, 3, § 24; Liv. 25, 31; 28, 4; id. Epit. 114; Caes. B. C. 1, 31; 2, 36; Cic. Scaur. 2, 45; id. Att. 12, 2, 1; Vell. 1, 2, 6; Hor. Ep. 1, 20, 13.
- —Hence, Ŭtĭcensis, e, adj., of or belonging to Utica: ager, Liv. 27, 5: conventus, Auct. B. Afr. 68, 4: ptisana, Plin. 18, 7, 15, § 75; Cato ap. Plin. 7, 30, 31, § 113.—Plur. subst.: Ŭtĭcenses, ĭum, m., the inhabitants of Utica, Caes. B. C. 2, 36; Auct. B. Afr. 87, 2 sq.
UTICA (ἡ Ἰτύκη, Plb. 1.75; Ptol. 4.3.6; Οὐτίκη, Dio Cass.; Eth. Uticensis; Liv. 29.35; Caes. B.C. 2.36), a colony founded by the Tyrians on the N. coast of Zeugitana in Africa. (Vellei. 1.2; Mela, 1.7; Justin. 18.4, &c.) The date of its foundation is said to have been a few years after that of Gades, and 287 years before that of Carthage. (Vell. Pat. l. c.; Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. 146; Gesenius, Monum. Script. Linguaeque Phoenic. p. 291; Sil. Ital. Pun. 3.241, sqq. &c.) Its name signified in Phoenician, ancient,o r noble( HEBREW, Gesen. ib. p. 420, and Thes. Ling. Heb. p. 1085). Utica was situated near the mouth of the river Bagradas, or rather that of its western arm, in the Bay of Carthage, and not far from the promontory of Apollo, which forms the western boundary of the bay. (Strab. 17. p. 832; Liv. l. c.; Ptol. l. c.; Appian, App. BC 2.44, seq.; Procop. B. V. 2.15, &c.) It lay 27 miles NW. of Carthage. (Itin. Ant. p. 22.) The distance is given as 60 stadia in Appian (App. Pun. 75), which is probably an error for 160; and as a day's sail by sea. (Scylax, Geogr. Min. 1. p. 50, ed. Huds.) Both Utica and Tunes might be descried from Carthage. (Strab. l. c.;Plb. 1.73; Liv. 30.9.) Utica possessed a good harbour, or rather harbours, made by art,with excellent anchorage and numerous landing places. (Appian, l. c.; cf. Barth, Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des Mittelmeers, pp. 111, 125.) On the land side it was protected by steep hills, which, together with the sea and its artificial defences, which were carefully kept up, rendered it a very strong place. (Liv. 29.35; App. Pun. 16, 30, 75; Diod. 20.54; Plut. Cat. Mi. 58.) The surrounding country was exceedingly fertile and well cultivated, and produced abundance of corn, of which there was a great export trade to Rome. (Liv. 25.31.) The hills behind the town, as well as the district near the present Porto Farina, contained rich veins of various metals; and the coast was celebrated for producing vast quantities of, salt of a very peculiar quality. (Plin. Nat. 31.7. s. 39; Caes. B.C. 2.37; Plb. 12.3, seq.; Diod. 20.8, &c.) Among the buildings of the town, we hear of a temple of Jupiter (Plut. Cat. Mi. 5) and of one of Apollo, with its planks of Numidian cedar near twelve centuries old (Plin. Nat. 16.40. s. 79); of a forum of Trajan, and a theatre outside the city. (Tiro Prosper, ap. Morcelli, Afr. Christ. 3. p. 40; Caes. B.C. 2.25.) The tomb and statue of Cato on the sea-shore were extant in the time of Plutarch (Ib. 79). Shaw (Travels, vol. 1. p. 160, seq.) has the merit of having first pointed out the true situation of this celebrated city, the most important in N. Africa after Carthage. Before the time of Shaw, it was sought sometimes at Biserta, sometimes at Porto Farina; but that learned traveller fixed it near the little miserable Duar, which has a holy tomb called Boo-shatter; and with this view many writers have agreed (Falbe, Recherches sur l'Emplacement de Carthage, p. 66; Barth, Wanderungen, &c. p. 109; Semilasso, pp. 39, 46; Ritter, Afrika, p. 913, &c.) Since the Roman times the muddy stream of the Bagradas has deposited at its mouth a delta of from 3 to 4 miles in extent, so that the innermost recess of the Bay of Carthage, on which ancient Utica was situated, as well as the eastern arm of the river itself, have been converted into a broad morass, in which traces are still visible of the quays which formerly lined the shore, and of the northern mole which enclosed the harbour. More towards the E., at the margin of the chain of hills which at an earlier period descended to the sea, may be discerned blocks of masonry belonging to the ancient town wall. On the declivity of the hills towards the SE. are the remains of six cisterns, or reservoirs, 136 feet long, 15 to 19 feet broad, and 20 to 30 feet deep, covered with a remarkably thin arched roof. These are connected with an aqueduct, which may be traced several miles from Boo-shatter, in the direction of the hills; but its most remarkable remains are a treble row of arches by which it was carried over a ravine. These reservoirs may probably have served to furnish water for a naumachia in the neighbouring amphitheatre, which is hollowed out of the hills, and is capable of containing about 20,000 persons. The ancient site of the city is covered with ruins. Near its centre rises the highest summit of the chain of hills on which stood the citadel and, probably, also the ancient temple of Apollo. The ruins of other temples and castles have been discovered, as well as the site of the senate house (Plut. Cat. Mi. 67), which has been thought to be determined by the excavation of a number of statues. These are now preserved in the museum at Leyden.
In the course of time, as is usual with such connections, Utica became severed from the mother-city, and first appears in history as independent of it. In the first commercial treaty between Rome and Carthage, in the year 509 B.C. Utica was probably included in it among the allies of the Carthaginians (Plb. 3.22); in the second, in B.C. 348, it is expressly named (ib. 24; Diod. 16.69, who however confounds the two treaties), as well as in the alliance concluded by Hannibal with Philip of Macedon in the Second Punic War, B.C. 215 (Plb. 8.9). Subsequently, however, Utica appears to have thrown off her dependence upon, or perhaps we should rather call it her alliance with, Carthage, and, with other cities of N. Africa, to have joined the Sicilian Agathocles, the opponent of Carthage; to have afterwards revolted from that conqueror, butto have been again reduced to obedience (Diod. 20.17, 54: cf. Plb. 1.82). In the First Punic War, Utica remained faithful to Carthage; afterwards it joined the Libyans, but was compelled to submit by the victorious Carthaginians (Polyb. ib. 88: Diod. Fr. xxv.). In the Second Punic War also we find it in firm alliance with Carthage, to whose fleets the excellent harbour of Utica was very serviceable. But this exposed it to many attacks from the Romans, whose freebooting excursions were frequently directed against it from Lilybaeum, as well as to a more regular, but fruitless siege by Scipio himself (Liv. 25.31, 27.5, 18.4, 29.35, 30.3, &c.; Plb. 14.2; Appian, Punic. 16, 25, 30). In the third war, however, the situation of Carthage being now hopeless, the Uticenses indulged their ancient grudge against that city, and made their submission to Rome by a separate embassy (Plb. 36.1; Appian, App. Pun. 75, 110, 113). This step greatly increased the material prosperity of Utica. After the destruction of Carthage, the Romans presented Utica with the fertile district lying between that city and Hippo Diarrhytus. It became the chief town of the province, the residence of the Roman governor, the principal emporium for the Roman commerce, and the port of debarcation for the Roman armaments destined to act in the interior of Africa. Owing to this intimate connection with Rome, the name of Utica appears very frequently in the later history of the republic, as in the accounts of the Jugurthine War, of the war carried on by Pompey at the head of Sulla's faction, against the Marian party under Domitius and his ally the Numidian king Iarbas, and in the struggle between Caesar and the Pompeians, with their ally Juba. It is unnecessary to quote the numerous passages in which the name of Utica occurs in relation to these events. In the last of these wars, Utica was the scene of the celebrated death of the younger Cato, so often related or adverted to by the ancients (Plut. Cat. Mi. 58, seq.: Dio Cass., sqq.; Val. Max.; Cic. pro Ligar. 1, &c.; cf. Dict. of Biogr. Vol. 1. p. 649). Augustus presented the Uticenses with the Roman civitas, partly as a reward for the inclination which they had manifested for the party of his uncle, and partly also to indemnify them for the rebuilding of Carthage (Dio Cass.; cf. Sext. Rufus, Brev. 4). We know nothing more of Utica till the time of Hadrian, who visited N. Africa in his extensive travels, and at whose desire the city changed its ancient constitution for that of a Roman colony (Spartian. Hadr. 13; Gell. N. Att. 16.13). Thus it appears in the Tab. Peut. with the appellation of Colonia, as well as in an inscription preserved in the museum of Leyden (Cot. Jul. Ael. Hadr. Utic., ap. Janssen, Mus. Lugd. Batav. Inscr. Gr. et Lat. ). Septimius Severus, an African by birth, endowed it, as well as Carthage and his birthplace Leptis Magna, with the Jus Italicum. We find the bishops of Utica frequently mentioned in the Christian period from the time of the great Synod under Cyprian of Carthage in 256, down to 684, when a bishop of Utica appeared in the Council of Toledo. The city is said to have witnessed the martyrdom of 300 persons at one time (cf. Morcelli, Afr. Christ. 1. p. 362, 2. p. 150; Munter, Primod. Eccl. Afr. p. 32; Augustin, c. Donat. 7.8). Utica probably fell with Carthage, into the hands of the Vandals under Genseric in 439. Subsequently it was recovered by the Byzantine emperors, but in the reign of the Chalif Abdelmalek was conquered by the Arabians under Hassan; and though it appears to have been again recovered by John the prefect or patrician, it finally sank under the power of the Saracens during the reign of the same Chalif, and on its second capture was destroyed (cf. Papencordt, die Vandal Herrschaft in Afr. p. 72, sq., 151, sq.; Weil, Gesch. der Chalifer, 1. p. 473, sqq.; Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, 6.350, sqq. ed. Smith). The remains of its marbles and columns were carried away in the preceding century, to serve as materials for the great mosque of Tunis (Semilasso, p. 43.)
Several coins of Utica are extant bearing the heads of Tiberius or Livia; a testimony perhaps of the gratitude of the city for the rights bestowed upon it by Augustus (cf. Mionnet, Med. Ant. 6. p. 589; Supp. 8. p. 208).
[T.H.D](Οὐτίκη and Ἰτυκή). Now Bon-Shater; the greatest city of ancient Africa next to Carthage. It was a Phoenician colony, much older, according to the ancient chronologists, than Carthage. Like others of the very ancient Phoenician colonies in the territory of Carthage, Utica maintained a comparative independence, even during the height of the Punic power, and was rather the ally of Carthage than her subject. It stood on the shore of the northern part of the Carthaginian Gulf, a little west of the mouth of the Bagradas, and twentyseven Roman miles northwest of Carthage; but its site is now inland, in consequence of the changes effected by the Bagradas in the coast-line. In the Third Punic War, Utica took part with the Romans against Carthage, and was rewarded with the greatest part of the Carthaginian territory. It afterwards became renowned to all future time as the scene of the last stand made by the Pompeian party against Caesar, and of the self-sacrifice of the younger Cato , who is, in consequence, usually styled Cato Uticensis. See Cato.
An important site established on a former promontory, today overlooking an alluvial plain, Utica is accessible by a short road leaving the village of Zana, 33 km along the route from Tunis to Bizerta. The location of this town was not, as it is today, in the midst of spacious lands but on the shore at the foot of a gulf, which the Medjerda has gradually filled up with its alluvium.
Being at the opening of a rich hinterland as well as a port at the center of the Mediterranean, it was one of the oldest and most celebrated Phoenician settlements. Even when Carthage outstripped it as the metropolis of a vast maritime empire and subsequently as the capital of a great imperial province, Utica remained for a long time second only to it. With the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C., Utica became the capital of the newly created province of Africa, would become the residence of the governor, with a garrison for Roman troops, and the center of a strong group of Roman citizens. Both rich and powerful, these men were called to play a crucial role in certain episodes of the civil war which led to the setting up of the empire. With the triumph of Caesar and the renaissance of Carthage, Utica's role was about to decline under the empire. In 36 B.C. it became a municipium, enrolled in the tribe of Quirina, and a colony under Hadrian. Already eclipsed by the preeminence of Carthage, Utica was faced with the progressive silting up of its port and consequent isolation in the midst of marshy lands. By converting its activity to further cultivation of its agricultural territory, it prolonged its life right up to the end of ancient times.
Utica had been endowed from the 2d c. B.C. with the buildings essential to comfortable urban life: forum, temples, baths, amphitheater, circus, in addition to dwellings. Most of these structures were placed in the grid of an orthogonal plan which covered a large part of the city.
Adequate in the beginning, during the Republican period, many of these buildings were replaced in the Imperial epoch by others larger and more luxurious. This explains the existence of two theaters for example, the one fitted into the side of the hill, the other built in open country. Enormous cisterns were constructed, fed by an aqueduct. Still extant on the summit of the acropolis overlooking the town, is a quadrangular edifice habitually referred to as “the citadel,” which could perhaps be simply a water tower. For various reasons, properly scientific archaeological research came very late, between 1948 and 1958, and is now active again. Such research has contributed a great deal to improving the knowledge of a city of which the history had already survived in literary texts. Monuments brought to light in the course of recent excavation are cited below.
The great baths were established to the W at the foot of the hill on a small eminence in the center of a depression that is often taken for a circular Punic harbor surrounding the admiral's palace. Uncovered in 1949-51 their surface covers more than 26,000 sq. m. The rooms are symmetrically arranged according to an axial plan.
Situated to the NE at the foot of the acropolis is a sector excavated between 1948 and 1958. All this part is enclosed in a city grid. The main axis is a monumental avenue bordered with porticos supported by an imposing colonnade on which shops open from either side.
On the S side of this avenue a residential district was established covering in part a Punic necropolis, which became the object of numerous researches; some discoveries of Punic and Hellenistic objects were made there. One complete insula (86.8 x 39.6 m) divided into 12 lots was uncovered where six houses of unequal size were counted—including The Treasure, The Cascade, The Decorated Capitals, The Hunt. These dwellings, constructed at the end of the 2d c. B.C., were long inhabited and incessantly altered and restored as the town developed and its population increased.
The House of the Cascade, the largest of this small block, was entered through a gate with two folding doors on the decumanus. A U-shaped corridor permitted access to the peristyle, around which the house was built. A large reception hall with triclinium paved in multicolor opus sectile stood between two small rooms provided with basins with fountains; on the offset side was another smaller reception hall; in the other wings were simple chambers opening on the garden, ornamented with a pool with a jet of water.
The House of the Hunt next to it followed the classic plan of houses with a peristyle; it included a large garden surrounded by a portico. During alterations, several rooms were divided into two parts. Some of the floors of these rooms, belonging to different periods of the house, were paved with mosaics. The most important—which gave its name to the house—is that of the hunt.
The House of the Historiated Capitals, adjacent on the E to the House of the Cascade, is oblong in plan, including on only one side a peristyle square on which opened a series of three rooms. This house included a second-story portico with capitals as fine as those of the main floor representing human figures. West of the House of the Cascade, the House of the Treasure, so named because of the finding of a coin hoard, had a complete peristyle with triclinium with a three-part entrance. Not much of it is still extant.
On the other side, N of the great avenue, the lower part of the town, traditionally but falsely called the Isle, shows numerous remains. Owing to the quality of their construction material, they have undergone an intensive exploitation by stone robbers and have been reduced in places to the foundations.
In 1957 a large rectangular plaza was brought to light bordering the portico of the principal street. Its length has not been fully uncovered. It was surrounded by a large portico paved with marble of which there remains only the imprint of the laying on the concrete. A very large quantity of marble chips coming from the work of the quarrymen and the finding of numerous statues suggest that this was the forum—probably of the imperial epoch. The remains of a temple on a podium and of numerous houses, large and rich but despoiled of their decor and their materials, have also been uncovered.
BIBLIOGRAPHYG. Ville in RE 9 (1962) col. 1869; A. Lézine, Utique (1970) PI; A. Alexander & M. Ennaifer, Corpus des mosaiques de Tunisie, (1973).
A. ENNABLI