Icosium

Icosium (Ikósion) was a Berber city that was part of Numidia which became an important Roman colony and an early medieval bishopric (now a Latin titular see) in the casbah area of actual Algiers. A 'Roman veterans' colony was founded at Icosium during the reign of Juba II (Plin. HN 3,19; 5,20). Under Vespasian, the city became a "Colonia Latina" (CIL VIII Suppl. 3, 20853).Brills N.P. The history of Icosium goes back to around 400 BC when a small Berber village was created by some local fishermen. Only when 3000 Roman veterans settled there as colonists during Augustus times, Icosium grew in importance. Icosium's Greek name Ikósion was later explained as deriving from the Greek word for "twenty" (εἴκοσι, eíkosi), supposedly because it had been founded by twenty companions of Heracles when he visited the Atlas Mountains during his labors. However, the berber settlement was also occupied by some Punic settlers from at least as early as the 3rd century BC. They called it Yksm, which is believed to have meant "seagull's island", and which was eventually transcribed as Icosium in Latin. The original Punic name is reflected in the modern Arabic name for Algiers (الجزائر, pronounced Al Jaza'ir), which means "the islands". In 146 BC, Icosium became part of the Roman Empire. Tacfarinas's revolt damaged the city, but Icosium was revived by the introduction of a colony of veteran Roman soldiers during the reign of Juba II. The city was given Latin rights (colonia Latina) by the emperor Vespasian. Roman Icosium existed on what was the "marine quarter" of the city of Algiers until 1940. The Rue de la Marine followed the lines of what used to be a Roman street, and a ruined aqueduct was visible by Algiers's "Gate of Victory" as late as 1845. Roman cemeteries existed near Bab-el-Oued and Bab Azoun. Under the Romans, there were also other settlements nearby on the banks of the Haratob (the classical Savus). Many Roman colonists settled in Icosium under Augustus and -after was promoted to Roman colonia by Vespasian- the latin was the language spoken in the city in the first century AD.