UTICA (Atica, the Old Town, as opposed to Carthage, or New Town) was situated not far from Carthage. The simplicity and constant repetition of the Phoenician names show the want of poetry in that nation; the Greeks have an endless variety of names. _Utica_ and _Hippo_ are the two old towns on that coast; they were more ancient than Carthage, and independent of it, being sometimes even allied with it on equal terms. This honour they retained until the second Punic war; they also concluded treaties with full independence, but were virtually subject to Carthage. Hence in the war of Agathocles, both declared in his favour, and in the same manner they acted in the war of the mercenaries, until, in the end, they separated themselves entirely and joined the Romans, whence, notwithstanding their Punic origin, they remained _civitates foederatae_. It is interesting to observe, how easily Greek culture was engrafted upon those Punians; the Carthaginian senate, on one occasion, found it necessary to enact a law against it,[80] and at times Utica had a theatre, in which Greek plays, translated into Punic, were performed. Both St. Augustin and Apuleius (the latter was a native of Madaura in the interior) spoke Punic as their mother tongue, whence we see that the people throughout the province of Carthage spoke Punic, and that the language of the Amazirghs had become extinct. In some parts of the coast, Latin was spoken. When the Arabs conquered the country, the inhabitants still employed the Punic language, and the adoption of the Arabic was facilitated by the kindred nature of the two languages. The foreign elements in the languages of Tunis and Malta are probably derived from that of the Amazirghs; Latin also is mixed up with them. The coast of _Byzacene_ is one of the most fertile in the world: the olive-tree, which is one of the richest blessings of the temperate zone, was, strange to say, not introduced into those parts until a late period, and that district is the only one in which the palm and the olive-tree grow side by side. In the earlier times, Carthage obtained its oil from Greece and Italy. The coast was studded with towns, just like the country of Cyrene. Notwithstanding the destruction of Carthage, those countries were perhaps never so well cultivated and so thickly peopled as under the Roman emperors, especially in the reign of Severus, as is attested by Tertullian, a contemporary writer, and by the immense number of ruins in the territory of Tunis. _Zeugitana_ is the basin of the bay of Tunis. The southern part of the eastern coast of Tunis was called _Byzacion_, _Byzacene_ or _Byzacitis_. _Tunis_ deserves to be mentioned among the provincial towns on account of its subsequent importance, of which antiquity knows nothing.