Utica

Utica may refer to:

In the United States

Utica (Rome)

"Utica" is the ninth episode of the first season of the television series Rome.

With Scipio and Cato defeated, Caesar returns home to a hero's welcome. Vorenus and Pullo's showdown with local thug Erastes gets an unexpected reprieve from Caesar. Servilia's plan to use Octavia to unearth a secret about Caesar backfires.

Plot summary

On the dusty plains of Africa, a defeated Cato and Scipio drag themselves to the nearest town, only a handful of soldiers and slaves in their wake. Despite gathering an army with the King of Numidia, they were overtaken by Caesar and his legions in a final battle at Thapsus, and now they must consider their fates.

Cato urges Scipio to consider making peace with Caesar. "You have a tolerant spirit," he tells him, before disappearing into another room to take his own life. Scipio soon follows his lead, instructing his aide Aquinas to cut his throat.

When word of the final battle makes it back to Rome, a newsreader pronounces that "the last standard of the bastard Pompeian scum is fallen, and Rome is at peace." Caesar, Mark Antony and their triumphant legions soon return to a hero's welcome.

Utica, Tunisia

Utica /ˌjuːtɪkə/ is an ancient city located between Carthage in the south and Hippo Diarrhytus (now Bizerte) in the north, near the outflow of the Medjerda River into the Mediterranean Sea. It is traditionally considered to be the first colony to have been founded by the Phoenicians in North Africa. After the defeat of Carthage by Rome, Utica was an important Roman colony for seven centuries. Today, Utica no longer exists, and its remains are located in Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia - not on the coast where it once lay, but further inland because deforestation and agriculture upriver led to massive erosion and the Medjerda River silted over its original mouth.

Utica's beginnings

Utica was founded as a port located on the trade route leading to the Straits of Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean, thus facilitating Phoenician trade in the Mediterranean. The name "Utica" is from the Phoenician ˁattiq (identical to modern Arabic ( أُتِيكْ, عُتَيقة) ˁuttayqah and Hebrew עתיק ˁatiq) meaning "old [town]", contrasting with the later colony "Carthage", meaning "new town".