Thysdrus

Thysdrus's huge amphitheater
Shown within Tunisia
Location	Tunisia
Region	Mahdia Governorate
Coordinates	35°17′24″N10°42′29″E / 35.29000°N 10.70806°E /35.29000; 10.70806
History
Founded	Third century BC

Thysdrus was aCarthaginian town andRoman colony near present-dayEl Djem,Tunisia. Under the Romans, it was the center ofolive oil production in theprovinces ofAfrica andByzacena and was quite prosperous. Thesurviving amphitheater is aWorld Heritage Site.

ThePunic name of the town wasŠṬPŠR (𐤔𐤈𐤐‬𐤔𐤓).^[1] The Latin nameThysdrus hasBerber roots.^[2]

Thysdrus began as a smallCarthaginian andBerber village.^[2]

Following thePunic Wars, it was refounded as a Roman town^[2] and probably received some ofJulius Caesar's veterans as settlers in 45 BC.Punic culture remained long predominant, with the city mintingbronze coins as late asAugustus with Punic inscriptions. Some boreAstarte's headobverse and alyrereverse; others bore "Poseidon"'s head obverse and acapricorn reverse.^[1]

Roman Africa was less arid than modern Tunisia, and Thysdrus and the surrounding lands inByzacena were an important center ofolive oil production and export. Its greatest importance occurred under theSeveran dynasty in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries.Septimius Severus was a native of Roman Africa and bestowed a great deal of imperial favor upon it. He raised Thysdrus tomunicipality status (Latin:municipium) with partialRoman citizenship.^[3]

By the early 3rd century whenits huge amphitheater was built, Thysdrus rivaledHadrumetum (present-daySousse) as the second city of RomanNorth Africa, afterCarthage (near present-dayTunis). The city had even a hugeracetrack (circus), nearly as large as theCircus Maximus atRome and capable of accommodating about 30,000 spectators.

In AD 238, Thysdrus was at the center of a struggle to control the Roman Empire. AfterMaximinus Thrax killed EmperorAlexander Severus atMoguntiacum inGermania Inferior and assumed the throne,^[4] his oppressive rule resulted in universal discontent. Maximinus'sprocurator in Africa, in particular, sought to extract the maximum level of taxation and fines possible, including falsifying charges against the local aristocracy.^[5] A riot among the 50,000 Thysdrians ended with the death of the procurator, after which they turned toGordian and demanded that he accept the dangerous honor of the imperial throne.^[6] After protesting that he was too old for the position, he eventually yielded to the popular clamor of the Thysdrians and assumed both the purple and theepithetAfricanus ("the African") on March 22.^[7] According toEdward Gibbon:

An iniquitous sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of [Africa], the execution of which would have stripped them of far the greater part of their patrimony. (…) A respite of three days, obtained with difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train, seized on the town of Thysdrus, and erected the standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire. (...) Gordianus, their proconsul, and the object of their choice [as emperor], refused, with unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honour, and begged with tears that they should suffer him to terminate in peace a long and innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood. Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his only refuge indeed against the jealous cruelty of Maximin (...).^[8]

Due to his advanced age, he insisted that his sonM. Antonius Gordianus be acclaimed as his coruler.^[6] A few days later, Gordian entered the city ofCarthage with the overwhelming support of the population and local political leaders.^[9] Meanwhile, in Rome, Maximinus'spraetorian prefect was assassinated and the rebellion seemed to be successful.^[10] Gordian in the meantime had sent an embassy to Rome under the leadership ofP. Licinius Valerianus^[11] to obtain the Senate's support for his rebellion.^[10]

The senate confirmed the new emperor on 2 April and many of the provinces gladly sided with Gordian.^[12]

Opposition would come from the neighboring province ofNumidia.^[13] Its governor Capelianus, a loyal supporter of Maximinus and a stalwart opponent of Gordian,^[12] renewed his alliance to the emperor and invaded the province of Africa withthe only legion stationed in the region and other veteran units.^[14] Gordian II, at the head of a militia army of untrained soldiers mostly from Thysdrus and surroundings, lost theBattle of Carthage and was killed.^[12] Gordian killed himself in hisvilla near Carthage by hanging himself with his belt.^[15] The Gordians had "reigned" only thirty-six days.^[16]

Following this abortive revolt, Capelianus's troops sacked Thysdrus. Thysdrus was subsequently raised to the level of acolony (colonia) byGordian III in AD 244. It was the seat of aChristiandiocese, which is included in theCatholic Church's list oftitular sees.^[17][18] All the same, it never really recovered.

Around 695, the Romano-Berber queenKahina destroyed most of the olive trees of the Thysdrus area in her final attempt to stop the Arab invasion. She made her final stand at the amphitheater, but was defeated.

Similar to the Colosseum of Rome and to the theatre of Bosra, the amphitheatre was turned into a fortress where local tribes tried to check the Arab invasion of the region after the Byzantines had been defeated at Sufetula in 647. In 670 the Arabs founded Kairouan, forty miles north of Thysdrus, and made it the capital of the country. This fact, associated with the arrival of Arab nomadic tribes which led to the abandonment of farming, caused the decline of Thysdrus.

— Roberto Piperno^[19]

In the next centuries, Thysdrus largely disappeared from the record, with a worsening arid climate apparently damaging itsolive oil production. By the 10th century, many of Thysdrus's buildings had been dismantled for use in construction atKairouan. In the 19th century, French colonizers found only a small village namedEl Djem, with a few hundred inhabitants living around the remains of the amphitheater and barely eking out enough production from their farms to survive.

TheAmphitheatre of El Jem was built around AD 238 and it is one of the best preserved stoneRoman ruins in the world. It was named aWorld Heritage Site in 1979.

Thysdrus's bishops attended the councils of 393, 411, and 641. TheDonatist schism had a hold in the city around 411.^[20]

• Gibbon, Edward,Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
• Head, Barclay; et al. (1911),"Byzacene",Historia Numorum (2nd ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 876.
• Herodian,Roman History, Book 7.
• Southern, Pat (2001),The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine, Abingdon: Routledge.
• Syme, Ronald (1971),Emperors and Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Potter, David Stone (2004),The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180-395, Abingdon: Routledge.
• Birley, Anthony (2005),The Roman Government in Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press,ISBN 978-0-19-925237-4.
• Zosimus,A New History.

• Roman colonies in Berber Africa

• Phoenician colonies in Tunisia
• Ancient Berber cities
• Roman towns and cities in Tunisia
• Catholic titular sees in Africa
• El Djem

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