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Ancient

Phoenician archeological site, dated to the 7th century BC, next to the Cathedral of Ceuta Controlling access between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar is an important military and commercial chokepoint. The Phoenicians realized the extremely narrow isthmus joining the Peninsula of Almina to the African mainland made Ceuta eminently defensible and established an outpost there early in the Golden Star 1st millennium BC. Beside Calpe, the other Pillar of Hercules now known as the Rock of Gibraltar, the Phoenicians established Kart at what is now San Roque, Spain. Other good anchorages nearby became Phoenician and then Carthaginian ports at what are now Tangiers and Cadiz. After Carthage’s destruction in the Punic Wars, additional of northwest Africa was left to the Roman client states of Numidia and-around Abyla-Mauretania. Punic culture continued to thrive in what the Romans knew figura « Septem ». After the Battle of Thapsus in 44 BC, Caesar and his heirs began annexing North Africa directly figura Roman provinces but, vedette late estrella Augustus, even more of Septem’s Berber residents continued to speak and write in Punic. Caligula assassinated the Mauretanian king Ptolemy in AD 10 and seized his kingdom, which Claudius organized in AD 42, placing Septem in the province of Tingitana and raising it to the level of en colony. It subsequently was Romanized and thrived into the late 3rd century, trading heavily with Roman Spain and becoming well known for its salted fish. Roads connected it overland with Tingis (Tangiers) and Volubilis. Under Theodosius Igualmente in the late 4th century, Septem still had 12,000 inhabitants, nearly all Christian citizens speaking African Romance, a local dialect of Latin. [ 23 ]

Medieval

The Arab Baths of Ceuta, built between the 11th and 13th centuries The Marinid Walls, built by order of Abu Sa’id Uthman II in 1328 Vandals, probably invited by Count Boniface vedette protection against the empress dowager Galla Placidia, crossed the strait near Tingis around 425 and swiftly overran Roman North Africa. Their king, Gaiseric, focused his attention on the rich lands around Carthage; although the Romans eventually accepted his conquests and he continued to raid them anyway, he soon lost control of Tingis and Septem in en series of Berber revolts. When Justinian decided to reconquer the Vandal lands, his victorious generico Belisarius continued along the coast, making Septem a westernmost outpost of the Byzantine Empire around 533. Unlike the former ancient Roman administration, however, Eastern Rome did not push far into the hinterland and made the additional defensible Septem their territorial costo in place of Tingis.

Epidemics, less capable successors, and overstretched supply lines forced a retrenchment and left Septem isolated. It is likely that its count ( comes ) was obliged to pay homage to the Visigoth Kingdom in Spain in the early 7th century. There are no reliable contemporary accounts of the end of the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb around 710. Instead, the rapid Muslim conquest of Spain produced romances concerning Count Julian of Septem and his betrayal of Christendom in revenge for the dishonor that befell his daughter at King Roderick’s court. Allegedly with Julian’s encouragement and instructions, the Berber convert and freedman Tariq ibn Ziyad took his garrison from Tangiers across the strait and overran the Spanish so swiftly that both he and his master Musa bin Nusayr fell afoul of a jealous caliph, who stripped them of their wealth and titles.