Zuccabar was constituted as a Roman colony (Colonia Iulia Augusta Zucchabar) under the Emperor
Augustus.
Indeed, actual
Miliana corresponds[1][2] to the town of
Punic origin known in
Roman times as "Zucchabar" (or even "Succhabar"). Under
Augustus, it was given the rank of colonia and was thus referred to as Colonia Iulia Augusta Zucchabar.[3] The
Greek form of the name used by the geographer
Ptolemy was Ζουχάββαρι (Zuchabbari).[4]Pliny the Elder calls it "the colony of Augusta, also called Succabar",[5] and
Ammianus Marcellinus gives it the name Sugabarri or (in adjectival form) Sugabarritanum.[6][7][8]
Miliana was (re)founded in the 10th century by
Buluggin ibn Ziri on the site of the ancient
Roman city of Zuccabar (or "Succhabar").
Trivia
In the movie Gladiator by
Ridley Scott, Zucchabar is fictitiously introduced as the name of a Roman province (rather than a town), when Maximus is brought south of his homeland
Hispania into an arid and desert land, after having been enslaved by merchants.[11] It is also in this province that he meets Proximo.[12][13]
Notes
^
abHuß, Werner (Bamberg) (October 2006).
"Succhabar". Brill's New Pauly.
Lawless, R. Mauretania Caesartiensis: archeological and geographical survey. Durham University. Durham, 1969
Zuccabar
Lepelley, Claude. Rome et l'intégration de l'Empire, 44 av. J.-C. – 260 ap., T. 2, « Approches régionales du Haut-Empire romain », Nouvelles Clio, 1998
Prevost, Virginie. Les dernières communautés chrétiennes autochthones d'Afrique du Nord". Armand Colin ed. (p. 461-483)
Smith Reid, James. The Municipalities of the Roman Empire The University of Michigan Press. Chicago, 1913