Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "GUELMA Province ALGERIA" .
GUELMA (Town) ALGERIA
Some 74 km SSW of Hippo Regius, at the foot of the Mahouna massif
which dominates the valley of the Seybouse River, the town occupied the site of
modern Guelma and extended farther to the NE. Perhaps it was of Phoenician origin
since Punic influence there has been pervasive.
Efforts to identify Calama with the town of Suthul, cited by Sallust,
have proved fruitless; no doubt Jugurtha defeated the Romans nearby. Calama belonged
to the Proconsular province and was a municipium under Trajan; presumably that
emperor gave the statute to the town; its inhabitants were included in the Papirian
gens. Calama is not mentioned in Pliny, Ptolemy, the Antonine Itinerary, or the
Peutinger Table. The town was still a municipium at the death of Septimius Severus
and is referred to as a colony in numerous 3d and 4th c. inscriptions. There was
a Christian community at the time of Diocletian's persecution. Calama fell to
Genseric in A.D. 437 but was restored by count Paulus under the orders of the
patrician Solomon. It became one of the fortress towns of Byzantine Numidia and
subsequently began to decline. Mentioned again in the 12th c., at the time of
the French conquest (1836) it was no more than a collection of rude dwellings.
Then the remains were still considerable; excavations and efforts at restoration
were undertaken.
It is difficult to reconstruct the plan and general appearance of
the site. The only important monuments known are the theater and the public baths.
The theater was built in the first or second year of the 3d c. A.D. through the
generosity of a certain Annia Aelia Restituta, who spent 400,000 sesterces on
it. It was restored, indeed virtually rebuilt, from 1902 to 1918, after having
served as a quarry. It is on a slope and measures 58.05 m in width. It was built
of a rubble core revetted with ashlar. The tiers of seats had virtually all disappeared;
they must have numbered 10 in the lower zone and 12 in the second. The orchestra
was paved in marble. Behind the stage, which was flanked by two rectangular chambers,
a portico with columns formed a facade.
The public baths were built of rubble and revetted with ashlar and
brick. They may date as early as the 2d c. A.D. Only one large rectangular chamber
(22 x 14 m), undoubtedly the tepidarium, can be described; it gave onto other
rooms and onto the exterior by 11 passages. These baths were included within the
Byzantine fortress, no doubt built on an earlier enclosure and defended by 13
towers. It measured 278 x 219 m.
The existence of a forum is attested by a single inscription. Likewise
one can cite the remains of arcades, a small shrine dedicated to Neptune, cisterns
and, outside the town, a Christian church. In 1953 a hoard of 7,499 coins was
discovered; virtually all of them came from the mint at Rome; the most recent
dated to the beginning of A.D. 257. Presumably the hoard was buried because of
local disturbances. Most of the ancient objects recovered at Calama and from the
region are preserved in the Guelma Museum.
G. Souville, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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