Vescera (Ad Piscinam)

Vescera in 1899

Vescera, also called Ad Piscinam, was a Roman settlement and fortification in southern Mauretania Caesariensis.[1] It is now called Biskra in modern Algeria.

History

Vescera was located on the northern edge of the Sahara. The city goes back at least to the time of the Romans, who appreciated the health-giving properties in the sulfur springs in the area and built a small fortification close to the nearby oases, which they called "Vescera". Romans even used to call the settlement with the name "Ad Piscinam", as a reference to the big pool (with water temperatures of 45 °C.) that it had.[2]

Around 200 AD under Septimius Severus' reign, it was definitively seized by the Romans and became part of the Roman Africa. As a major settlement in the border region, it was significant as a castrum and as a commerce center with huge waterworks.[3]

In the fifth century Christianity was the main religion, and probably Vescera was a diocese's see.

Vescera was occupied temporarily by the Vandals and later was controlled by the Byzantines, who defended the city from the Moslem invasion with the help of the local Berber queen Kahena.

At the end of the seventh century the Arabs conquered the city. Practically nothing remains of the Roman city: when the French conquered the Arab Biskra in the mid-nineteenth century they created a fort and placed inside the few vestiges of the Roman era, but all was destroyed in a fire.

Notes

  1. ↑ Detailed map of Mauretania Caesariensis, showing Vescera south of Lambaesis
  2. ↑ Elena Petteno: "Le aquae e le terme curative dell'Africa romana" (in Italian)
  3. ↑ Abdallah Fahri. From the Oasis to the Saharan city ()

Bibliography

See also