Hippone16+17

16.Conclusion:

 

Was Hippo Regius a Phoenician colony? Finding the answer to this question is not easy. We miss information. We have to deal with inconsistency of the classical sources. Beyond that we have to find a solution for the contradictions with other Phoenician settlements on the coast of North-Africa.

 

Holmes van Mater Dennis III is convinced that Hippo Region was a Phoenician, then at least a Carthaginian settlement. We put his reasons next to our findings in this writing.

Its name is Semitic	It could also be Libyco-Berber
It was situated in the Phoenician sphere	true
A typically Phoenician wall has been found	Doubtful. May be only the foundations
Punic was spoken for many centuries	true
It was known, that there was a Phoenician Hippo in North-Africa	It could also be Bizerte

 

Based on these first conclusions the outcome has become weaker. But there are new findings made, such as the finding of the old sanctuary, Punic stelae and coins from Sardinia (300-241 BC). So, at least towards the end of the 4^th century BC was Hippo a Punic town. Before that the Euboeans could have played a role in the 6^th century BC and before that the town was either a Libyan and/or a Phoenician settlement in the 7^th century BC, but that is not fully proven.

For some time there could have been some kind of symbiosis between the Phoenician and Euboeans in the 7^th/6^th century BC, in which those Greeks were tolerated in Hippo and Thabraca(?). Both people could have made use of those harbours and/or the Phoenicians skipped those harbours, because they could sail the high seas. Not always was coastal navigation needed.

In the Roman times Hippo Regius gets more important. It becomes the seat of a bishop in Christian times. With the arrival of the Vandals the decay begins. The town is several times rebuilt, but in Medieval times the town becomes only a ruin.

 

17.Some Literature:

 

AAAlg f 9 Bône no.59. S.Gsell, Atlas archéologique de l’Algérie, Alger-Paris 1911.

PECS. R.Stillwel – W.L.MacDonald – M.H.MacAllister, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Princeton 1976 (p.394-396).

E.Marec, Hippone la Royale, Alger 1954.

M.Leglay, Saturne africain, Monuments I, Paris 1961 (p.431-451).

J-P.Morel, Recherches stratigraphiques à Hippone, BAA 3, 1968 (p.35-84).

                        [Bulletin d’Archéologie Algérienne, Paris-Alger]

S.Dahmani, Hippo Regius, Alger 1973.

Desanges, Pline p.201-203.