Because of its strategic position commanding the Strait of Gibraltar, Ceuta was, from Antiquity onward, one of the most fiercely contested ports in the entire western Mediterranean. It was successively Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, then Moroccan under the Idrisids, Almoravids, Almohads and Marinids, with a few interludes of domination by the Kingdom of Granada.
Ceuta was founded in the 7th century BC by Phoenician sailors, who called it Abyla, a name referring to Jebel Musa, which in Antiquity was the southern pillar—that is, the African pillar—of the Pillars of Hercules. Abyla is thought to be a Punic word meaning “high mountain” or “mountain of God.” The Phocaean Greeks of Marseille, who succeeded the Phoenicians, renamed the city Hepta Adelphoi, “Seven Brothers,” a reference to the seven hills overlooking it.
In 319 BC, Carthage took the city and retained it until the end of the Second Punic War in 201 BC. Between that date and its annexation by Rome in the 1st century AD, the city preserved its Punic culture, with the population continuing to speak Punic, as attested by funerary inscriptions.
During the era of Mauretania—present-day Morocco—Ceuta was one of the kingdom’s principal ports, alongside Tingis/Tangier and Lixus. Under Juba II, who reigned from 25 BC to AD 23, the city was integrated into the Romanized political sphere. In AD 40, Caligula had King Ptolemy, the last Mauretanian ruler, assassinated. Rome then seized his kingdom, which was annexed in AD 42 by Emperor Claudius and divided into two provinces: Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana. Ceuta, now known as Septem Fratres, was incorporated into Mauretania Tingitana and administered from Tingis (Tangier). It later received the status of a Roman colony, granting Roman citizenship to its inhabitants. A forward position controlling the Strait of Gibraltar, Roman Ceuta was a military and commercial port of the first order between Tingitana and Baetica (Hispania).
In 534, under Emperor Justinian, Ceuta was conquered by the Byzantines. Then, following the Arab expansion, the Byzantines, having lost their possessions in what is now the eastern and central Maghreb, retained control only over Tangier and Ceuta, two possessions that were completely isolated and cut off from their imperial center.
«Entry into the city was through a monumental gate known as the “Gate of Fez,” the capital of the Marinids.»
— Bernard Lugan
In 708, after taking Tangier, Musa ibn Nusayr failed before Ceuta, which was well defended by its Byzantine governor, Count Julian. Then, the following year, in 709, somewhere between history and legend, the latter handed his city over to the conquerors, and in 710 he supplied the ships that enabled them to land in Spain. Thus began, in 711, the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, launched from Tangier and Ceuta.
In 788, the latter came under the authority of the Idrisids, founders of the first dynasty and the first Moroccan state. In 931, the city was taken by the Umayyad caliph of Córdoba, Abd al-Rahman III.
In the 11th century, the city became Moroccan again when it passed under the control of the Almoravid dynasty. In 1083, Ali ben Youssef was born there, under whose reign the dynasty experienced both its apogee and the beginning of its decline. In 1086, it was from Ceuta that the great Almoravid movement to conquer Al-Andalus was launched, after the Taifa princes called for their help in the face of the Castilian advance. The expeditionary force embarked from Ceuta, from where Youssef ben Tachfine ferried his army north across the Strait of Gibraltar before defeating the Christian forces of King Alfonso VI of Castile at the Battle of Zallaqa on October 23, 1086.
In the 12th century, still Moroccan, Ceuta came under the administration of another Moroccan dynasty, the Almohads. The city then served as a military and commercial port and as a naval base for operations against the Christian kingdoms of Spain.
Then, at the beginning of the 13th century, another Moroccan dynasty, the Marinids, established its sovereignty over Ceuta-Sebta, which then entered its golden age. The imposing fortifications, stretching over 1,500 meters around the city, bear witness to this period. Built between the 13th and 14th centuries, they stand as evidence of the city’s essential role in the defense and control of the Strait of Gibraltar. Comprising seven rectangular towers, each 16 meters high, with walls ranging in thickness from 1.2 to 1.9 meters, these fortifications were preceded by a defensive moat. Entry into the city was through a monumental gate known as the “Gate of Fez,” the capital of the Marinids.
At the end of the 14th century, the Marinid dynasty entered a severe political crisis that greatly weakened Morocco. Portugal, then in a phase of expansion, took advantage of this weakness to launch the expedition that, in 1415, would allow it to seize Ceuta from Morocco by surprise.
