Zattara

This article is about the Byzantine and Roman town. For the DC Comics superhero, see Zatara.
Not to be confused with Zatara (disambiguation).

Zattara was an ancient Roman and Byzantine town in the Africa province. It was located in present-day Kef ben-Zioune, south-east of Calama, Algeria. The city was a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.

Zattara was a Roman municipality. Its stone ruins cover an area of fifteen hectares, hemmed in by the foothills of Kef Rih-west Hills and bounded on one side by a deep wadi ravine. A necropolis was also situated to the west. The edifices were destroyed in Roman times, but rebuilt by the Byzantines.

The citizens of the town seemed to serve in 6th legion (victrix).[1]: 4 

There are many inscriptions at Zattara.[2] Among these inscriptions is an important one attesting to its status as a municipium, which reads municipii Zat(taresis) porticu et rostris.[3][4]

  1. ^ Swan, Vivien G. (1992). "Legio VI and its Men: African Legionaries in Britain" (PDF). Journal of Roman Pottery Studies. 5: 1–34.
  2. ^ Samuel Ball Platner, Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2015) p 586.
  3. ^ Anthony R. Birley, The Roman Government of Britain (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005) p202.
  4. ^ J. B. Bury, "A Lost Caesarea", The Cambridge Historical Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 (1923), pp. 1–9.