Berenike (Kyrenaica)

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Panathenaic price amphora from the time of Euhesperides (found in Benghazi)
Greek text of the honorary decree for Marcus Tittius Sexti filius; Copy of the stele in the Musée Saint-Raymond (Toulouse)

Berenice ( Greek  Βερενίκη ) was the Ptolemaic new foundation of the Greek colony Euhesperides ( Εὐεσπερίδες ) in Cyrenaica . The remains of both ancient cities lie under today's Benghazi .

history

Euhesperides

Euhesperides originated in the 6th century BC. BC as a Greek colony and was the westernmost city of the Pentapolis (Kyrenaica) . The name shows that the area was one of the presumed places of residence of the mythological Hesperides . Herodotus reports that the satrap of Egypt, Aryandes , advanced " to the land of the Euhesperides " during a campaign against Libya (515 BC). Around 440 BC The almost 200-year-old Battiad dynasty in Cyrene , the main settlement of the Pentapolis , ended with Arkesilaos IV , who fled to Euhesperides and was murdered there . According to Thucydides , the heavy artillery of the Spartan Gylippos was able to rescue the Euhesperides from a siege by native Libyans (414 BC) - on the way to Sicily due to bad weather.

An inscription found in Benghazi and dated to the middle of the fourth century BC. BC, gives information that Euhesperides was organized like Cyrene , namely magistrate officials ( Ephoren ), a council of elders ( Geronten ) and a council meeting ( Bule ) knew. Since approx. 275 BC The city was deserted.

Berenike

The city was re-established and renamed to the new name Berenike around 245 BC. By the Ptolemaic Berenike II , daughter of King Magas of Cyrene , or by her husband and co-regent Ptolemy III. Euergetes, who named the city after her. The other cities of Cyrenaica also received new dynastic names, but only in the case of Euhesperides was the name change associated with the construction of a new city. It is believed that the lagoon on which Euhesperides lay was silted up.

Berenike's inscriptions from the first century show that Berenike had a large proportion of the Jewish population until the Diaspora uprising in 115–117 AD . They prove the existence of a Jewish Politeuma in this Polis of Cyrenaica, which has existed since 74 BC. Belonged to the Roman Empire.

The first trace of Christian faith in Berenike is dated to 260 AD. At this time, Berenike's Bishop Ammon received a letter from Dionysius , Archbishop of Alexandria, dealing with the Sabellian heresy . At the Council of Nicaea in 325 Berenike was represented by his bishop - probably by the name of Dachis. The important role of the city in late Roman times can also be seen from the fact that it is recorded on the Peutinger board , which depicts the road network of the known world at that time. Under Justinian I the city wall was renewed and a thermal bath was built. The settlement lost its importance in the early Islamic period and fell into disrepair.

Location and excavation finds

The two ancient cities were located on a coastal strip that runs from north-east to south-west to today's port and was previously separated from the hinterland by salt desert areas ( Sebkha Ain es Selmani) - today still partly recognizable as lakes and fallow land in the urban area. Unfortunately, the ruins of both cities were repeatedly used as "quarries", so that only few spectacular building traces can be seen at the excavation sites.

Euhesperides

The original center of Euhesperides was localized during excavations on the small elevation of a Muslim cemetery (Maqbarah Sayidi Abid). The ancient city expanded from here in a south-westerly direction. While the buildings in the center were dense and the streets were arranged irregularly, the newer urban area produced a rectangular street grid ( Hippodamian scheme ) with an agora and about a third of individual buildings. The analysis of found fragments and coins confirmed the traditional age of the settlement and the temporary dependence of the city on Cyrene, which was probably also its mother city. Due to the theft of historical building material as well as personnel and political problems, the documentation of the previous excavations has not been satisfactorily completed and the finds are distributed in several places.

Berenike

The urban area of ​​Berenike was about 2 km further south-west directly on the coast and extended for about 1.5 km to today's port. In this zone the street layout still has a rectangular grid, and during construction work one came across building remains and further east near the harbor (Sidi Hussein district) also ancient graves. The excavation site is located at the foot of the widely visible Italian lighthouse (minarate) in the area of ​​the Turkish cemetery in the Sidi Khrebish district. Here, in the northwest corner of the rectangular urban area of ​​Berenike, the remains of a late Roman city wall and a Christian church from the fifth century have been found.

Sidi Khrebish Church

The Christian church, excavated in 1972–1973, stood on a small hill near the connection between ancient Berenike and the road to Tocra . Its strategic location and the solid construction with a tower lead to the assumption that it could have been a fortified church. A rectangle of 38 mx 17.8 m made of walls around one meter wide surrounded a three-aisled basilica with a freestanding apse in the east and a three-part narthex with an attached forecourt in the west. The main nave was separated from the side aisles by arcades. In front of the two corner rooms in the east of the church, which were possibly connected via a corridor behind the apse, there was another adjoining room, of which the northern one can be recognized as a baptistery through a basin . The use of the other three rooms and the two corner rooms in the west is unclear. The construction of the church was dated to the end of the 5th century. It is noteworthy that all the walls were made of different, recycled materials. Columns, capitals, altar barriers and other common functional and decorative elements of the Cyrenean church building were only available to a relatively small extent at the site.

literature

  • Shimon Applebaum : Jews and Greeks in Ancient Cyrenaica. Brill, Leiden 1979, pp. 160-167 (excerpts online) .
  • David WJ Gill: Euesperides: Cyrenaica and its Contacts with the Greek World. In: Kathryn Lomas (Ed.): Greek Identity in the Western Mediterranean. Brill, Leiden 2004, pp. 391-409.
  • JB Ward-Perkins, RG Goodchild: Christian Monuments of Cyrenaica. The Society for Libyan Studies, Hertford 2003, ISBN 1900971011 , pp. 114-124.
  • JA Lloyd (Ed.); Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice). Volume I, Buildings, Coins, Inscriptions, Architectural Decoration. The Society for Libyan Studies, Tripoli 1977.
  • JA Lloyd (Ed.): Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice). Volume II, Economic Life at Berenice, Sculptures and Terracottas, Amphoras and Plain Wares. The Society for Libyan Studies, Tripoli 1979.
  • PM Kenrick: Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice). Volume III.1, The Fine Pottery. The Society for Libyan Studies, Tripoli 1985.
  • DM Bailey: Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice). Volume III.2, The Lamps. The Society for Libyan Studies, Tripoli 1985.
  • Demetrios Michaelides: Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice). Volume IV.1, The Mosaics and Marble Floors. The Society for Libyan Studies, Tripoli 1998.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Seewald: Lucan. 9.1-604: a commentary Diss. Göttingen 2002, p. 189 (PDF file; 1.66 MB).
  2. ↑ Herodotus, Histories 4, 204.
  3. ↑ Thucydides 7:50 .
  4. ^ PM Fraser: An Inscription from Euesperides. In: Bulletin de la Société Royale d'archéologie d'Alexandrie. 39: 132-143 (1951).
  5. ^ G. Lüderitz: Corpus of Jewish evidence from Cyrenaica. Reichert, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-88226-186-2 , No. 70 and 71.
  6. ^ GDB Jones: Excavations at Torcra and Euesperides, Cyrenaica 1968-69. In: Libyan Studies 14 (1983), pp. 109-121.
  7. ↑ Maria Economou: Euesperides: a devastated site. A challenge for multimedia presentation. In: Electronic antiquity . Volume 1, 4, 1993.
  8. ^ JB Ward-Perkins, RG Goodchild: Christian Monuments of Cyrenaica. The Society for Libyen Studies, Hertford 2003, ISBN 1900971011 , pp. 114-124.