Road station
Thamugadi
Timgâd · Timgad
Thamugadi is Timgad in Algeria, the colony that the emperor Trajan founded for legionary veterans at the start of the second century, on a fertile high plain by the Aurès mountains; it became one of the most flourishing cities of North Africa. In the fourth century Timgad was a centre of the Donatist church, whose bishop Optatus backed the Moorish rebel Gildo. Berber raids left it deserted by 535, as the Byzantine historian Procopius tells, but it was rebuilt and lasted until the Arab conquest. Remarkably, the map gives this colony no symbol.