in the Museum of Sousse.
Hadrumetum In the 11th centuryBC,
Tyrians established
Hadrumetum as a trading post and waypoint along their trade routes to
Italy and the
Strait of Gibraltar. Its establishment (at a river mouth about north of old Sousse) preceded
Carthage's but, like other western
Phoenician colonies, it became part of the
Carthaginian Empire following 's
long siege of Tyre in the 580s and 570sBC. The city featured in the
Third Sicilian War, the
Second and
Third Punic Wars (in the latter of which it secured additional territory and special privileges by aiding
Rome against what was left of the Carthaginians), and
Caesar's Civil War, when it was the scene of Caesar's famously deft recovery: upon tripping while coming ashore, he dealt with the poor
omen this threatened to become by grabbing handfuls of dirt and proclaiming "I have you now, Africa!" () The second city in
Roman Africa after Carthage, it became the capital of the
province of
Byzacena during the
Diocletianic Reforms. Its native sons included the jurist
Salvius Julianus, the emperor
Clodius Albinus, and numerous
Christian saints. The Roman and Byzantine
catacombs beneath the city are extensive: they were mainly investigated in 1913-1927 by French missionaries and soldiers. The
Vandals sacked Hadrumetum in 434 but it remained a place of importance within
their kingdom;
a bishop and
proconsul were martyred there during the Vandals' periodic
forced conversions of their subjects to
Arianism. The
Byzantine Empire reconquered the town in 534 during the
Vandal War and engaged in a public works program that included new fortifications and churches. The town was sacked during the
Umayyad Caliphate's 7th-century
conquest of North Africa. According to a 1987
ICOMOS report,
Uqba ibn Nafi's siege and capture of the city resulted in its almost complete destruction, such that no monument of Hadrumetum "subsists in situ". A soaring structure that combined the purposes of a minaret and a watch tower, it remains in outstanding condition and draws visitors from around the world.
Its mosque is sometimes accounted the oldest surviving in the region and the town's main mosque, also built during the 9th century, has a similarly fortress-like appearance. Susa was briefly occupied by
Norman Sicily in the 12th century; it fell to the
Ottoman Empire in the 16th; and it was bombarded by a
French and
Venetian fleet in the 18th. Medieval Susa was known for its textile industries, producing silk and
flax fabrics called
Sūsī. Especially renowned were its robes called , some of which were mass-produced and sold
ready-to-wear throughout the Mediterranean. After the decline of
Mahdia in the 15th and 16th centuries, Susa remained as the most important town in the Sahel region, with a population of about 15,000. On 26 June 2015, a lone gunman, Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi,
opened fire on tourists sunbathing on a beach near the Riu Imperial Marhaba and Soviva hotels, killing 38 and wounding 39, before being shot dead by the police. == Cityscape ==