page_title: Béjaïa
section_title: Antiquity and Byzantine era
hierarchical_section_title: Béjaïa / History / Antiquity and Byzantine era
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a map of the Western Roman empire around the Mediterranean, around the time of Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. It specifically shows Saldae, at this time an important port city, and later the capital of the Vandal Kingdom.
context_page_description: Béjaïa, formerly Bougie and Bugia, is a Mediterranean port city on the Gulf of Béjaïa in Algeria; it is the capital of Béjaïa Province, Kabylia. Béjaïa is the largest principally Kabyle-speaking city in the Kabylie region of Algeria.
context_section_description: According to Al-Bakri, the bay was first inhabited by Andalusians.
  Béjaïa stands on the site of the ancient city of Saldae, a minor port in Carthaginian and Roman times, in an area at first inhabited by Numidian Berbers and founded as a colony for old soldiers by emperor Augustus. It was an important town and a bishopric in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis, and later Sitifensis.
  In the fifth century, Saldae became the capital of the short-lived Vandal Kingdom of the Germanic Vandals, which ended in about 533 with the Byzantine conquest, which established an African prefecture and later the Exarchate of Carthage.
caption: The Western Roman empire in the second century AD during the reign of Hadrian. Saldae can be seen on the south coast of the Mediterranean.
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