Zama

ZAMA(Ζάμα μείζων, Ptol. 4.3.33), a town of Numidia, situated five days' journey to the SW. of Carthage. (Plb. 15.5; Liv. 30.29.) It lay between Sicca Veneria and Suffetula, and bore the name of Regia;whence we find it erroneously written Zamareigia in the Tab. Peut. Zama is particularly renowned as the scene of Scipio's victory over Hannibal in 201 B.C. It was a very strong place, and hence adopted as a residence by Juba, who brought his harem and his treasure hither, as to a place of safety. (Hirt, B. Afr. 91;Vitr. 8.3.(or 4.) § 24.) Strabo represents it as destroyed by the Romans, and as being in a ruinous state in his time (xvii. pp. 829, 831). But it must have been subsequently restored, since Pliny (Plin. Nat. 5.4. s. 4) mentions the Zamense oppidum as a free city. It also appears in the Tab. Peut., and a bishop of Zama is mentioned by St. Augustine. ( De Civ. Dei, 7.16.) In an inscription in Gruter (364. 1) Zama Regia appears with the title of a colony (Col. Aelia Hadriana); though it is not mentioned as a colony in any of the ancient writers. It is the present Jama, SE. of Kess. (Cf. Dio Cass.; Sail. J. 60, 61.)
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