Constantina. 229 



by the rival armies of Marius and Sulla, and its produce was wasted 

 by the exorbitant demands of the Roman proconsuls, and finally by 

 the civil war. Hiempsal, conquered by Caesar at Thapsus, together 

 with Cato and Labienus, lost a portion of his kingdom ; but Cirtha 

 was still left to him, and the mercantile transactions which he carried 

 on with the interior of Africa re-established his fortune. At length 

 in the year 45 A. n. Numidia became a Roman province and was 

 governed by proconsuls. 



In process of time the luminous influence of the Christian religion was 

 even spread over Numidia ; but the internal tranquillity of the people 

 was soon interrupted by the schisms that originated from the various 

 doctrines preached by the followers of Arian and other sectarians. 

 In the midst of fanatical tumult Cirtha was reduced by the hands of 

 incendiary religionists to a heap of ruins. Constantius, the son 

 of Constantinus the Great, re-built it in the year 340 A. D,, and gave 

 its present name of Constantina. 



Constantina suffered much from the devastations of the Vandals ; it 

 however retained its municipal privileges and franchise, which it had 

 borrowed from the Romans or Carthaginians. In 659 it was over- 

 run by the Arabs, but its inhabitants did not embrace the Mussulman 

 creed until the year 710. Finally, having recognised many different 

 masters, and having fallen into a variety of hands, the ancient city 

 was submitted to the sway of the deputies of the Ottoman empire, 

 in the year 1550. 



The richness of a soil the most fertile in Africa, a vast population 

 well initiated in agricultural knowledge, its trade in the centre of 

 Africa, and its advantageous situation between the finest tract of 

 Beled-el-jerede, or the county of dates, the province of Sousah, which 

 is the finest part of the kingdom of Tunis, and the territory of Algiers ; 

 these circumstances have given a certain importance to Constantina, 

 which existed even under the arbitrary sway of the Turks and their 

 despotic Beys. Its exports were chiefly sent to Tunis, through the 

 medium of El Juef and Juayrouan on the east, and by the moun- 

 tainous chains of Aouress and Maheghalah?, or on the north by the 

 Magerdah and Byzerte. This extensive trade excited the jealousy 

 of the Dey of Algiers, who declared war against the Bey of Tunis in 

 the years 1782 or 1783. These hostilities, which were .rendered 

 remarkable by no extraordinary combat nor instances otherosim, 

 were interrupted by the plague in 1784, and the contagious disease 

 robbed both armies of their flower and support. 



Until the year 1780 the population of Constantina amounted to 

 nearly 50,000 inhabitants, at present it does not reach the moiety of 

 that number. We may also add that until the period of its disasters 

 in 1784, it sent to Tunis a monthly caravan of merchandise to the 

 value of 100,000 Spanish piastres, making an annual sum total of 

 260,000/. Constantina had at the same time a trade with Bona, the 

 small sea-ports of Quol and Storra, and the Royal African Company 

 of Marseilles, to the amount of 200,000/. per annum. Within the 

 few last years the commercial intercourse between Constantina and 

 Tunis has experienced a rapid arid considerable increase, and we 

 cannot entertain the slightest doubt that if Achmet-Bey had been less 



