History of Tunis

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Once insignificant , Tunis (ancient Tynes) features on 5th-century BC maps , and the Roman general Regulus camped here in 255 Be during the First Punic War .

The Carthaginians and the Romans ruled from Byrsa Hill , on the coast to the east , but after ousting the Byzantines in AD 695 , the victorious Arab Hassan bin Nooman decided to build at Tunis , which he felt was in a better defensive position . The medina was sited on a narrow band of high ground flanked by the Sebkhet Sejoumi (a salt lake) to the southwest and Lake Tunis to the east . A deep-water channel was dug across the lake to access the sea .

The city was born with the building of the Zaytouna (Great) Mosque in AD 732 , but it was in the 9th century , when Aghlabid ruler Ibrahim ibn Ahmed II moved his court here , that it became the seat of power .

Tunis declined under the Fatimids , who chose Mahdia as their capital in the 10th century , and escaped the ravages of the llth-century Hilalian invasion , emerging again as capital following the Almohad North African conquest in 1160 .

The city flourished and trade boomed under the Hafsids , who ruled from 1229 to 1574 . The population more than tripled (to about 60 , 000) . Souqs (markets) , mosques , medersas (Quranic schools) and the Zay­touna Mosque University were established .

Tunis suffered badly during Turkish­Spanish tussles , leading to the fall of the Hafsids . Much of the city was destroyed and the population fled . Sinan Pasha finally se­cured the city for the Ottomans in 1574 , and

people began to return , including refugees fleeing religious persecution: Moorish Anda­lusians from Spain and Jews from Livorno in Italy . Many were fine artisans who played an important role in the city's reconstruction .

In the 19th century , the colonising French built their elegant Ville Nouvelle (new town) on land reclaimed from Lake Tunis , moving the city's focus and causing the medina to decline .