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Sullecthum

Statio 23 on the Piazzale delle Corporazioni has a depiction of a lighthouse, two ships (one with a convex, one with a concave bow), and two dolphins attacking a crab (an octopus according to some). In between is the text [NAVIC]VLARI SYLLECTI[NI]. It has been altered slightly by restorations, but an old photo leaves no doubt: we are dealing with the city of Sullecthum.



Statio 23 on the Piazzale delle Corporazioni. Photo: Gerard Huissen.

A citizen of Sullecthum is attested in Ostia. He was buried by his wife, so most likely lived in Ostia. His wife may have come from Thysdrus, an important centre for the trade in olive oil, near Sullecthum. The specific reference to his city may well indicate that he worked for the city, on the Piazzale.

D(is) M(anibus) S(acrum)
P(ublius) CAESELLIUS FELIX
CIVIS SVLLECTHINVS
VIXIT ANN(is) N(umero) XLVII M(ensibus)
N(umero) VI POMPONIA LICI
NIA MARITO DIGNI
SSIMO		 To the gods of the underworld.
Publius Caesellius Felix,
citizen of Sullecthum.
He lived years numbered 47, months
numbered 6. Pomponia Licinia,
for her husband, most
worthy.
Funerary inscription from Ostia. CIL XIV, 477; EDR147084.



Sullecthum on the Tabula Peutingeriana, on the coast between Thapsus and Acholla.

Sullecthum was a harbour city on the east coast of Tunisia, today called Salakta. A jetty with a length of 350 meters has been identified. On the Tabula Peutingeriana it appears as Sullecti, between Leptiminus and Thapsus to the north, Acholla to the south, and Thysdrus (El Djem) to the west. Two inscriptions document a commander of the fleet of Ravenna in the Severan period called L. Aemilius Sullectinus (written as Sulleptinus in AE 2001, 2161; CIL XIII, 1770). An Aemilius Sullectinus, presumably his son, is documented in Macedonia (IG X,2.1.149). Bishops are attested in 394 and 484 AD.

Left.
Sketch of the Roman harbour of Sullecthum.
Image: Wilson 2011, fig. 2.24.

Bottom.
Christian funerary inscription of the
nine months old baby Iohannes.
CIL VIII.1, 57 = VIII Suppl. 1, 11106.
HIC IOHANNES IACET EX G[e]
NERE PROBINCIE SVRIE APA
MIA FIDELIS IN D(e)O BICXIT IN
PACE MENSES (novem) D(epositus) K(a)L(endas) IA
NVARIAS INDICTIONIS
(sextae)

In 533-34 AD Sullecthum appears in the account of the Vandalic War by Procopius:

With these words Belisarius dismissed the assembly. And at that time he heard that the city of Syllectus was distant one day's journey from the camp, lying close to the sea on the road leading to Carthage, and that the wall of this city had been torn down for a long time, but the inhabitants of the place had made a barrier on all sides by means of the walls of their houses, on account of the attacks of the Moors, and guarded a kind of fortified enclosure; he, accordingly, sent one of his spearmen, Boriades, together with some of the guards, commanding them to make an attempt on the city, and if they captured it, to do no harm in it, but to promise a thousand good things and to say that they had come for the sake of the people's freedom, that so the army might be able to enter into it. And they came near the city about dusk and passed the night hidden in a ravine. But at early dawn, meeting country folk going into the city with waggons, they entered quietly with them and with no trouble took possession of the city. And when day came, no one having begun any disturbance, they called together the priest and all the other notables and announced the commands of the general, and receiving the keys of the entrances from willing hands, they sent them to the general.

And when Belisarius reached Syllectus, the soldiers behaved with moderation, and they neither began any unjust brawls nor did anything out of the way, and he himself, by displaying great gentleness and kindness, won the Libyans to his side so completely that thereafter he made the journey as if in his own land; for neither did the inhabitants of the land withdraw nor did they wish to conceal anything, but they both furnished a market and served the soldiers in whatever else they wished.
Procopius, De Bello Vandalico III,16,9-11 and 17,6. Translation H.B. Dewing.

In 1958 Myriam Morel Deledalle, during a stroll on the beach near Salakta with her family, discovered Roman ruins and mosaics (1700 meters to the south-west of Cape Salakta). She alerted the curator of the museum in Sousse, Louis Foucher, and the ruins were then investigated, together with Mabrouk Hamrouni. Rooms belonging to baths were unearthed. More baths were discovered nearby in 1968. The establishments are particularly noteworthy because of their mosaics. There is a depiction of two sailing ships, one decorated with a lion and crew members. The ships are labelled LEONTIVS and CANEIVS. Another room has a gigantic depiction of a lion, 4.5 meters wide. In yet another room is a geometric mosaic with a poem about the pleasure of bathing.

Photo and drawing of a ship with steersman and the text LEONTIVS.
Foucher 1959, figs. 3-4 (lost).



The gigantic mosaic of a lion in the museum of Salakta.
Width 4.5 meters. Third century AD. Photo: myrmekochoria.

EN PERFECTA CITO BAIARV(m) GRATA VOLVPTAS
VNDANTESQUE FLVVNT AQ(uae) SAXI DE RVPE SVB IMA
NISIBUS HIC NOSTRIS PROSTRATVS LIBOR ANHELAT
QVISQVIS AMAT FRATRVM VENIAT MECVMQ(ue) LAETETVR 		Here is quickly accomplished the charming pleasure of the bath.
And rippling waters flow at the foot of the rock.
By our efforts here overwhelmed, envy is out of breath.
Whoever among my brothers loves, let him come with me to rejoice.
The mosaic with a poem in the museum of Salakta. Photo: Roberto Piperno.

About 700 meters to the south-west of Cape Salakta extensive salting installations were found in 1963, documenting preservation of fish (salsamenta) and presumably fabrication of fish sauce (garum): basins of various sizes, vaulted or open, with walls faced with opus signinum. More such installations were found on this stretch of coast between Hergla to the north and Rass Kaboudia to the south. We should think of tuna and many other kinds of fish. Many amphorae from Sullecthum, which may carry the stamp ASYL, were found in Ostia and Portus. From the types of these amphorae has been deduced that the city focused primarily on the export of olive oil, with fish sauce and probably wine as complementary products. Kilns for the fabrication of the amphorae have been identified close to Sullecthum.



Fish factory with salting tanks. Photo: Wikimedia, Rais67.

About 2.7 kilometers to the south-west of the harbour, not far from the coast, catacombs were discovered in 1885-1886. Four galleries and an apsidal room were found, with hundreds of loculi, hacked out in the way known in Rome. There were no paintings however. All tombs had been opened and robbed. Seven inscriptions were found, on marble and painted on bricks, pagan and Christian. One was for a soldier from the 13th urban cohort in Rome, named Caius Tanusius Luppus (miles cohortis XIII urban(a)e stationis [---]): he had been sent to the city with police duties.



View of the catacombs. Photo: Wikimedia, Khwissem.

Literature:
- R. du Coudray de la Blanchère, "Découvertes archéologiques à Carthage and dans la presqu'île du Cap Bon", Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques 1886, 215-219.
- R. du Coudray de la Blanchère, "Antiquités chrétiennes de Leptis, de Sullecthum et de Taphrura", CRAI 31,1 (1887), 90-94.
- CIL VIII Suppl. 1, Berlin 1891, 11106-11113.
- L. Foucher, "Notes sur des documents figurés concernant la navigation antique", Actes du 84ème Congrès national des sociétés savantes, Dijon 1959, 215-224.
- A. Beschaouch, "Échec à l'Envieux, d'après une inscription métrique découverte dans des thermes à Sullecthum en Tunisie", RendLinc 23 (1968), 59-68.
- L. Foucher, "Note sur l'industrie et le commerce des salsamenta et du garum", Actes du 93e Congrès national des sociétés savantes, Paris 1971, 17-21.
- M. Morel Deledalle, "L'édifice au lion de Sullecthum (Tunisie)", Africa 7-8 (1980), 55-116.
- D.P.S. Peacock - F. Bejaoui - N. Belazreg, "Roman Amphora Production in the Sahel Region of Tunisia", Amphores romaines et histoire économique, Rome 1989, 179-222.
- B. Caron, "La bibliographie analytique de Sullecthum", Cahier des études anciennes 22 = Sullecthum 1 (1989), 7-38.
- B. Caron, "Le dossier épigraphique de Sullecthum", Cahier des études anciennes 22 = Sullecthum 1 (1989), 39-44.
- K.M.D. Dunbabin, "Baiarum Grata Voluptas: Pleasures and Dangers of the Baths", PBSR 57 (1989), 6-46
- J. Gascou, "Note sur le gentilice Vectimarius/Victimarius", Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise 22 (1989), 391-394.
- S. Busch, Versus balnearum: die antike Dichtung über Bäder und Baden im römischen Reich, Stuttgart - Leipzig 1999, 235-239.
- A.I. Wilson, "Developments in Mediterranean shipping and maritime trade from 200 BC to AD 1000", Maritime Archaeology and Ancient Trade in the Mediterranean, Oxford 2011, 33-59.
- A. Younes - M.A. Tagurti, "Salaisons, sel en Byzacène orientale à l'époque antique", Savoir et savoir faire en Ifriqiya dans l'Antiquité et le Moyen âge, Tunis 2012, 11-41.
- P. Franco, African amphorae from Portus, Southampton 2012.
- A. Mrabet - T. Mani - M.R. Hamrouni, "Nouvelles découvertes de marques amphoriques à Sullecthum (Salakta, Tunisie)", Estudios sobre el Monte Tertaccio (Roma) VI, Barcelona 2014, 629-681.
- D.L. Stone, "The pottery of Sullecthum (Salakta), a major N African producer and supplier (review of J. Nacef - Cl. Capelli, La production de la céramique antique dans la région de Salakta et Ksour Essef (Tunisie), Oxford 2015)", JRA 30 (2017), 763-767.
- R. Ghaddhab, "Centuriation et statut juridique de Sullecthum (Salakta)", Dialogues d'histoire ancienne 44,1 (2018), 75-110.
- A. Gadhoum, "Le port de Sullecthum (Salakta)", Sullecthum-Salakta et ses environs à l'époque antique et médiévale, Sousse 2019, 77-92.
- R. Ghaddab - J. Nacef, "Sullectha/Salakta sous l'Empire romain: un pôle de production et d'exportation", Sullecthum-Salakta et ses environs à l'époque antique et médiévale, Sousse 2019, 93-120.
- J. Nacef, "À propos de la vaisselle commune et culinaire produite sur l'atelier de potier à El Maklouba (Région Ksour Essef-Tunisie)", Sullecthum-Salakta et ses environs à l'époque antique et médiévale, Sousse 2019, 121-136.
- S. Karaoui, "Contribution à l'histoire économique et sociale de Sullecthum/Salakta à partir des mosaïques", Sullecthum-Salakta et ses environs à l'époque antique et médiévale, Sousse 2019, 137-148.
- R. Kaabia, "Remarques sur l'apport de l'épigraphie latine pour la connaissance de la société de Sullecthum à l'époque romaine et tardo-antique, Sullecthum-Salakta et ses environs à l'époque antique et médiévale, Sousse 2019, 149-163.
- O. Ben Aïcha, "Les catacombes de Salakta: un monument funéraire d'époque chrétienne?", Sullecthum-Salakta et ses environs à l'époque antique et médiévale, Sousse 2019, 165ff.
- M.R. Hamrouni, "Encore de nouvelles découvertes de marques amphoriques à Sullecthum (Salakta, Tunisie): un catalogue en constante croissance", Atti dell XXI Convegno de L'Africa Romana, Faenza 2020, 559-567.