Castra Nova (Mauretania)

Coat of arms of the city "Perregaux" (actual Mohammadia), showing the words "Castra Nova"

Castra Nova was a Roman colonia in western Mauretania Caesariensis.[1] On its site French colonists built in 1858 the town of Perregaux, now called Mohammadia, in present-day Algeria close to the border with Morocco.

History

Map showing Castra Nova, just north of the "Nova Praetentura" limes road that connected Altava and Rapidum

Castra Nova, as its name indicates, was a castra (military fort) with a nearby vicus (village) built under Roman rule at the foot of the Tell Atlas mountain on the right bank of the Oued el Hammam river. It was a strategic position, located according to the Antonine Itinerary on the Roman military road from Castellum Tingitanum to Pomaria and Numerus Syrorum. This road was the Roman limes in the 1st and 2nd centuries until the time of Trajan. Septimius Severus moved the limes south to a new military road called "Nova Praetentura" that began at Aras near Numidia and linked a defensive system of 15 forts.[2] Castra Nova thus became a prosperous agricultural centre, protected from nomad attacks. Roman roads connected it with Albulae (Ain Témouchent) and Portus Magnus (Saint-Leu).

Castra Nova became a Christian diocese, and its bishop Vitalis was one of the Catholic bishops whom the Vandal king Huneric summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled.[3][4] This, according to Lawless, is the last epigraphic evidences of existence of the city.[5]

No longer a residential bishopric, Castra Nova is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[6]

After the Vandal invasion the city remained without a garrison and lost importance, although a small Christian berber community remained as evidenced by the remains of a local Christian cemetery [7] The city was probably reduced to a very small Christian village when the Arabs arrived in the 690s and destroyed it completely.

Of Castra Nova no more than a few ruins remained when in 1858 French colonists built there the town of Perregau, now Mohammadia.[8]

Notes

  1. ↑ Location of Castra Nova in western Mauretania Caesariensis, near Mila and Portus Divini (now Oran)
  2. ↑ Cambridge Ancient History; p.258
  3. ↑ Stefano Antonio Morcelli, Africa christiana, Volume I, Brescia 1816, p. 130
  4. ↑ Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 465
  5. ↑ Lawless, R. "Mauretania Caesartiensis: archeological and geographical survey" Section: Roman castra
  6. ↑ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 862
  7. ↑ History of Castra Nova-Perregaux (in French)
  8. ↑ Perregaux

Bibliography

See also