Achilla
Ἀχολλαῖος
Achilla, ACHOLLA, or ACHULLA (Ἀχόλλα: Eth. Ἀχολλαῖος, Achillitānus: El Aliah, large Ru.), a town on the sea-coast of Africa Propria (Byzacena), a little above the N. extremity of the Lesser Syrtis, and about 20 G. miles S. of Thapsus. It was a colony from the island of Melita (Malta), the people of which were colonists from Carthage. Under the Romans, it was a free city. In the African war, B.C. 46, it submitted to Caesar, for whom it was held by Messius; and it was in vain besieged by the Pompeian commander Considius. Among its ruins, of a late style, but very extensive, there has been found an interesting bilingual inscription, in Phoenician and Latin, in which the name is spelt Achulla (Steph. B. sub voce Strab. p. 831; Liv. 33.48; Appian. Pun. 94; Hirtius, Bell. Afric. 33--43; Plin. Nat. 5.4; Ptol.; Tab. Peut., name corrupted into Anolla; Shaw's Travels, p. 193; Barth, Wanderungen, &c. vol. i. p. 176; Gesenius, Monum. Phoenic. p. 139.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.