Capsa
- a town in Africa, in the districl of Byzacium, surrounded by vast deserts, plundered by Marius in the Jugurthine war, Sall. J. 89, 4; 91 sq.; Flor. 3, 1, 14.—Hence,
- II Capsenses, ium, m., the inhabitants of Capsa, Sall. J. 92, 3 sq.; in Plin. 5, 4, 4, § 30, called Capsĭtāni.
CAPSA (Κάψα: Cafsa or Ghafsah, Ru.), an important city in the extreme S. of Numidia (aft. in Byzacium), standing in a fertile and well-watered oasis, in the midst of an arid desert abounding in serpents, SW. of Thelepte, and NW. of Tacape. Its foundation was ascribed to the Libyan Hercules, and it seems to be the Hecatompylos of Polybius (Plb. 1.73) and Diodorus (Diod. 4.18; comp. Frag. Lib. xxiv). In the Jugurthine War it was the treasury of Jugurtha, and was taken and destroyed by Marius; but it was afterwards rebuilt, and made a colony. Its names are found on inscriptions at Cafsa. (Sallust. Jug. 89, et seq.; Flor. 3.1; Strab. 17. p. 831; Plin. Nat. 5.4; It. Ant. l. c.; Tab. Peut.;Ptol. 4.3.39; Notit. Afr.; Shaw, p. 124, 2nd ed.).
[P.S](Κάψα). A strong and ancient city in the southwest of Byzacena, in Northern Africa, in a fertile oasis surrounded by a sandy desert, abounding in serpents. In the war with Iugurtha it was destroyed by Marius; but was afterwards rebuilt, and erected into a colony.
Situated at the point where the steppe meets the Sahara, the town occupies the pass between the jebels of Ben Younés and Orbata. This gives the city a commanding position, overlooking the great roads which, starting in the heart of Africa and going across the Sahara, converge here before branching off to the E, towards the Mediterranean coast, and towards the fertile, populous regions of the N. The many artesian wells that are to be found among the vast mountainous and desert regions encouraged the growth of palm trees and at the same time favored the development of a city around its oasis, a city enriched by caravan trade. But its prosperity goes back even further, since in prehistoric times the region was the center of a culture which gave the city its name.
It is not surprising that such a site was occupied continuously. Capsa played a spectacular role in the Jugurthine war (Sallust). Loyal to Jugurtha, it was suddenly overcome in an extraordinary raid carried out by Marius who, to impress the Africans, had destroyed the city and massacred its inhabitants. Capsa emerged from its ruins to become a prosperous town once again. A municipium under Trajan, it later became a colonia. In the Byzantine period, when Africa was divided into military districts, it was one of the two seats of the commander of Byzacena. It was also a stronghold, on the edge of the desert, responsible for guarding the frontier of the region. A dedication, fragments of which were reused to build the pools, commemorates the general Salomon's construction of the rampart in Justinian's reign, at the end of the first half of the 6th c.; the city in fact took on his surname. Capsa guarded the whole of this region until the Arab troops of Okba-Ibn-Naffa seized it in 668.
The “Roman pools” are three basins with high walls of reused ashlar. Set in the open air, around springs rising from the bottom of the pools, they are aligned E-W according to the direction of the outflow of the water and connected by underground channels. The W pool consists of two covered rooms. The two largest pools, Ayn es-Saggaïn (15 x 6.5 m and 3.5 m high) and Aîn Sidna (19 x 16 m), are built of reused stones, some engraved with important inscriptions. From the restored text we know that there was a nymphaeum, under the auspices of Neptune, probably on the actual site of the pools. From other fragments we learn that Capsa, still a civitas in 105 but no longer one under Hadrian, became a municipium in Trajan's reign.
Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, Gafsa remained a great metropolis in the middle of a region that had long flourished with its many villages and oases. Even today, in spite of its decline, Gafsa remains the capital of Saharan Tunisia, and the modern city stands on top of the older remains. Very little of the ancient city has survived, while certain buildings benefited from the reuse of the old stones—the mosque, which inherited many columns and capitals, the casbah, whose stones have since been removed, and especially the pools, which get their water from the hot springs.
A number of finds have been made in the casbah area; for example, a large mosaic (4.7 x 3.4 m) was found 300 m E in an undetermined monument. Now at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, it depicts an amphitheater scene.
BIBLIOGRAPHYC. Saumagne, “Capsa: les vestiges de la cité latine,” CahTun (1962) 519-31.
A. ENNABLI