Map of the Roman Empire - Sabratha
Sabratha
H-9 on the Map
Ancient Sabratha. A Phoenician city on the north coast of Africa in Roman times.
Sabrata - Another name for Abrotonum (q.v.). - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.
Ancient Sabratha - Sabratha's port was established, perhaps about 500 BC, as a Phoenician trading-post that served as a coastal outlet for the products of the African hinterland. The Phoenicians gave it the Lybico-Berber name 'Sbrt'n'[2], which suggests that there may have been a native town built there prior to the Phoenicians' arrival. Sabratha became part of the short-lived Numidian Kingdom of Massinissa before being Romanized and rebuilt in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. The Emperor Septimus Severus was born nearby in Leptis Magna, and Sabratha reached its monumental peak during the rule of the Severans. The city was badly damaged by earthquakes during the 4th century, particularly the quake of AD 365. It was rebuilt on a more modest scale by Byzantine governors. Within a hundred years of the Arab conquest of the maghreb, trade had shifted to other ports and Sabratha dwindled to a village. - Wikipedia
Sabratha
SABRATA (Saß??ta, Ptol. 4.3.41; Plin. Nat. 5.4. s. 5; Solin. 37; Itin. Anton.;
Peut. Tab.; Saßa?a??, Procop. de Aed. 6.4; Saß???a, Stadiasm. § § 99, 100), a
Phoenician town (Sil. Ital. 3.256) on the coast of N. Africa between the Syrtes.
The name, which is Phoenician and occurs on coins (Movers, Die Phöniz. vol. ii.
p. 491), received the Graecised form ABROTONUM; for although Pliny (l.c.)
distinguishes the two towns they are undoubtedly the same places. It became
afterwards a Roman colonia, and was the birthplace of Flavia Domitilla, the
first wife of Vespasian, and mother of Titus and Domitian. (Sueton. Vespas. 3).
Justinian fortified it (Procop. l.c.), and it remained during the middle ages
one of the most frequented markets upon this coast, to which the natives of
central Africa brought their grain (comp. Ibn Abd-el-Hakem, Journal Asiatique,
1844, vol. ii. p. 358). Barth (Wanderungen, p. 277) has given an account of the
extensive ruins of Sabrata, which he found to the W. of Tripoli, at Tripoli
Vecchio, or Soâra-esch-Schurkîa, lat. 32° 49', long. 12° 26'. (Smyth,
Mediterranean, p. 456.)
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.