Pomaria (Roman city)

Tomb stone of roman Pomaria, located on a wall of Agadir minaret inside present-day Tlemcen.

Pomaria was a Roman city in Berber north Africa, situated at the location of present-day Tlemcen (western Algeria).

History

The Romans in the third century CE founded Pomaria as a military outpost. Indeed a Roman castrum was created by emperor Septimius Severus near the Moulouya River (the Romans called this river Malva) on a military road called Nova Praetentura, that connected Altava and Numerus Syrorum. This road was supposed to reach Volubilis, according to researchers like Michael Speidel[1]

Named after its orchards, Pomaria was formed under the shadow of the Roman camp. At Agadir/Tlemcen and in the outskirts may be found numerous Latin inscriptions principally from the Christian epoch, the most recent from the seventh century, and many with the abbreviation DMS, which had evidently lost all pagan meaning. We know of but one bishop, Longinus, mentioned in the list of bishops of Mauretania Cæsarea, who was summoned by King Huneric, returned to Carthage in 484 and was condemned to exile. — Sophron Petrides

The Castrum had a small Vicus, that developed in a commerce and agricultural city in the fourth century with a population that reached more than 5,000 inhabitants.[2] Later it was an important city in Roman North Africa, that was even a See of the Roman Catholic Church in the fourth century: it was the center of an important diocese. Its bishop, Victor, was a prominent representative at the Council of Carthage in 411 AD (and its bishop Honoratus was exiled in 484 AD by the Vandal king Huneric for denying Arianism).

Indeed in 429 AD the Vandals conquered the coast near Pomaria, but later the area of the roman city remained independent under some Berbers kings: the Kingdom of Agadir -centered on Pomaria (called in Berber language "agadir" or Citadel)- existed for 120 years until the Bizantine reconquest brought Pomaria under emperor Justinianus rule.

In those centuries the Christianity was the dominant religion: the only remains of this roman period are some "tomb stones" used on the construction of a minaret walls.[3]

However Pomaria was a center of a large Christian population for many centuries after the city's Arab conquest in 708 AD: historian El Bekhri wrote that there was a Christian church in the city during the eleventh century[4]

Pomaria 's localisation in western Roman Africa

Notes

  1. ↑ Possible road connecting Volubilis to Numerus Syrorum and Pomaria
  2. ↑ Pomaria's history and map; p.12-13 (in French)
  3. ↑ Roman Epitaphs in Pomaria/Tlemcen (in German)
  4. ↑ El Bekhri reference on church (in French)

Bibliography

See also