Roman Villas Park

On the eastern slope of Odeon Hill lay a residential quarter of Roman Carthage. Villas here were the large urban homes of the elite. In the first century, modest dwellings and workshops stood crowded together on these plots, where, among other things, garum fish sauce was made. From the second century, wealthy families began combining plots and rebuilding the quarter for themselves. The slope made it possible to place shops along the lower street, living rooms a level above, while vaulted galleries served both as walking corridors and as supports for the soil.

Archaeologists named one of the houses the House of Tellus, after a mosaic found here depicting the Roman goddess of the earth. The owner is unknown. He and his heirs expanded the rooms and changed the decoration over several centuries. By the end of the fifth century, part of this villa was already being used by a completely different community.

North Africa was then ruled by the Vandal king Huneric, a supporter of the Arian branch of Christianity. He sought to make the monasteries of the Nicene Church adopt the confession of the royal court. The difference concerned the understanding of Christ's nature, but for a monk, rejecting his own church meant breaking with the community in which he lived.

Around the year four hundred eighty-three, Huneric's men arrested seven monks in Capsa—present-day Gafsa—and brought them to Carthage. It was an established community: the abbot Liberatus, a deacon, two subdeacons, and three brothers. They tried to separate the youngest, Maximus, from the others, expecting that he would agree to convert first. An ancient hagiography reports that Maximus refused to abandon his brothers.

The same text relates that the seven were tied aboard an old ship among dry firewood and an attempt was made to burn them. The fire supposedly went out several times; this is already part of hagiographic tradition, not a verifiable detail of the execution. The monks were then beaten with oars, and their bodies were thrown into the sea.

According to the hagiography, Carthaginian Christians recovered the remains washed ashore and buried them here, at Bigua Monastery. The burial changed the purpose of the former residential house. Beside the rooms where the villa owners had once received guests, a place of veneration was created; later, a shelter for pilgrims operated at the monastery.

In nineteen fifty-seven, archaeologists found a mosaic inscription near the House of Tellus referring to “seven holy brothers.” They associated them with the Seven Maccabean Martyrs—biblical martyrs who also refused to renounce their faith. The inscription was created later than the execution itself, so it testifies to the veneration of the seven but does not confirm every detail of the hagiography. It was the discovery of this mosaic that made it possible to link the Christian rooms in the eastern part of the park with Bigua Monastery.

There, you can see the low walls of the Roman house and the monastery rooms adjoining it. The name of the wealthy owner of the House of Tellus has been lost. The inscription laid over his former villa preserved the names of the seven whose remains Christians brought here after the execution.