Sétif

The city lay in the region of the Numidian kingdom of Massaesyles. It was near Sétif that Jugurtha campaigned and lost against Marius in 105 BC. Overcome by Marius, he was taken to Rome where was executed in the prison of Tullianum. No remains of this period have been found. The city was small under the Numidian kings.

Setifis (or Sitifis) was founded by the Romans, during the reign of Nerva (AD 96 to 98), as a colony for veterans. Although no buildings of this period are known, a cemetery excavated in the 1960s seems to have contained tombs from the early colony.[1]

The Conquest of India by Dionysus at the archaeological museum of Sétif.

Byzantine fortress west wall.

The Romans built a circus at Sitifis, which aerial photographs show survived substantially intact until the 20th century; today only a small part of the curved end continues visible; the remainder has been destroyed or built over. As the town grew, around 297AD, the province of Mauretania Sitifensis was established, with Sitifis as its capital.[2]

When Mauretania Sitifensis was created, at the close of the 3rd century, Sitifis became its capital. In the newly prosperous town a bath building was built, decorated with fine mosaics: its restoration in the fifth century had a cold room (frigidarium) paved with a large mosaic showing the birth of Venus.[3] On the northwest edge of the town two great Christian basilicas were built at the end of the fourth century, decorated, again, with splendid mosaics,[4] and a Bishopric was founded at this time. There was a Jewish community in the area.[5] In the 5th century it suffered from a violent earthquake.[6]

Although we do not know what happened under Vandal rule, the Byzantine conquest brought with it a major fort, of which parts are still standing.

Under the Vandals it was the chief town of a district called Zaba. It was still the capital of a province under Byzantine rule and was then a place of strategic importance. The area came under Byzantine control for a short period which saw the introduction of Orthodox doctrines to the mainly Donatist and Catholic town.[7][8]

In 531, the king of the Vandals, Hilderic, was overthrown by the usurper Gelimer, giving the Roman emperor of the East Justinian, anxious to restore the Roman Empire, a pretext for intervention. After his departure from Byzantium (Constantinople / Istanbul), General Belisarius took advantage of uprisings in Tripolitania and the Moors, which enabled him to take Carthage (533) and then Gelimer himself (534). The Byzantines found in Sitifis, a small population, because of the vandal predations. In 539, Sitifis again became the capital of a Byzantine "Roman" province: Mauritania Sitifensis. At that time, Solomon built the Byzantine fortress walls, whose west and south walls are still visible.

Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana map (4th century) showing Sitifi Colonia (Sétif)

The city was the base of a Bishopric.[9] Augustine, who had frequent relations with Sitifis, tells us that in his day the Bishopric had a monastery and an episcopal school. Several Christian inscriptions have been found there, one of 452 mentioning the relics of Saint Lawrence, another naming two martyrs of Sitifis, Justus and Decurius.

Known Bishops

• Servus, mentioned in a letter of St. Augustine in 409
• Novatus present at the Council of Carthage (484),[10] and exiled by Huneric
• Optatus, at the Council of Carthage (525).
• Alexis Lemaître, M. Afr. (24 Feb 1911 Appointed – 28 Jul 1920
• Joanny Thévenoud, M. Afr. (8 Jul 1921 Appointed – 16 Sep 1949)
• André-Maurice Parenty (9 Mar 1950 Appointed – 23 Nov 1983)
• Armando Xavier Ochoa (23 Dec 1986 Appointed – 1 Apr 1996)
• Manuel Felipe Díaz Sánchez (27 Feb 1997 Appointed – 4 Apr 2000)
• John Choi Young-su (22 Dec 2000 Appointed – 3 Feb 2006)
• Broderick Soncuaco Pabillo (24 May 2006 Appointed – )

In 647 AD (the year 27 of the Hegira), the first Muslim expedition to Africa took place. By 700 AD, the area had been conquered and converted to the Islamic faith. We know little of the early Islamic town, but by the tenth century the area outside of the fortress was once more filled with houses: on the site of the Roman baths over twelve of these were excavated, with large courtyards surrounded by long, thin, rooms.[11]

In 903, following the death of the Aghlabid emir Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya, Sétif briefly served as the headquarters of his son Muhammad. Muhammad intended to lead a military campaign against the Isma'ili leader Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i, who had gained a following among the Kutama Berbers, but he aborted it before any battles were fought because his brother Abdallah had been murdered. Intending to seize the throne, Muhammad left Sétif for the capital of Tunis, but he was arrested in Baghaya and then executed by the new emir, Ziyadat Allah III, alongside all of Ziyadat Allah's brothers and uncles, in August 903.[12]

This internal power struggle enabled Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i to go on the offensive and capture Sétif from the Aghlabids. He had already tried to besiege the strongly fortified city twice, but to no avail. However, in probably October or November of 904, after the city's Arab ruler died, a Berber from the Lahisa tribe surrendered the city to Abu Abdallah, who then demolished part of the fortifications to prevent them from being used against him and his Kutama allies. Then, possibly encouraged by Abu Abdallah's military success, the Isma'ili imam Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah (who would later found the Fatimid Caliphate) left Egypt to go to the Maghreb.[12]

After conquering Cairo, the Fatimids abandoned Tunisia and parts of eastern Algeria to the local Zirids (972–1148).[13] The invasion of Ifriqiya by the Banu Hilal, a warlike Arab tribes encouraged by the Fatimids of Egypt to seize North Africa, sent the region's urban and economic life into further decline.[13]

Similar to an army of locusts, they destroy everything in their path.

— Ibn Khaldun, a Muslim historian[14]

Sétif during colonization

About 45,000 Algerians were killed by the French colonists during the Sétif and Guelma massacre, 1945

In the mid-eleventh century this development stopped abruptly, and a defensive wall was built around the city. Nothing more is known of Sétif until the ruins of the town were used by the French army, who built their own fortress on the site in 1848, using the line of the medieval city wall and the Byzantine fortress.

On 8 May 1945, the day of the formal end of World War II in Europe, an uprising against the occupying French forces in Sétif and the nearby towns Guelma and Kherrata resulted in the deaths of 104[15] pieds-noirs. The uprising was suppressed through what is now known as the Sétif massacre. Estimates of Algerian casualties vary widely from 2,000 to 40,000 (see Sétif and Guelma massacre).