Hippone3

3.Name:

 

’pwn (Ph)                                             

Hippo Regius (lat)

(al)-‘Annaba (arab)

 

The name Hippo is not unknown in antiquity. There is a harbour with that name near to Erythrai in Greece. There was a town Hippo at the mouth of the Maiandrus river. At the lake Galilea we find a mountain Hippo, 30 stadia away from Tiberias (al hosn afeka). In the Red sea there is a cape Hippo, which is now called Ras Maaras (1900 m) and it is the name of a tributary of the river Phasis. In Spain there is a town Hippo of the Carpetani, east of Toletum. In Italy we find a town Hippo or Hipponium, which develops as a Roman colony.

 

In Africa we find the towns of Hippo Diarrhytos and Hippo Regius. There is however no literary of epigraphic tradition available. On the other hand we find a numismatic testimony ’p’ on a Sidonian coin: lṢdnm ’m knb ’p’ kt Ṣr : of the Sidonians, the mother-city of Kambê, Hippo, Kition and Tyre (Hill CVI 155 ph). Here is Hippo Diarrhytos in the picture, but we have also a coin from Hippo Regius: ’pwn (Müller 3,53 pu). On the other side of the ’pwn coin we find the letters ṭp‘tn (=Tipasa). Why is this combination made?

One has tried to explain the name as -> ippos (gr) = horse. Another possibility is the NW semitic ’p = nose. In the end the explanation as a Libyco-Berber name seems to be the solution.

[See: Werner Huss, Die Punische Namen der Nordafrikanischen Städte Hippo Diarrhytos und Hippo Regius (Semitica XXXVIII 1990).]

 

Another explanation is, that Hippo (’pwn) is Libyco-Berber name just like krṭn, sbrtn, tbrkn, šyg‘n, gngn, ṭp’tn. Respectivily: Cirta, Sabratha, Tabarka, Siga, Gunugu and Tipasa.

 

The following adjectival forms of the name of the town occur:

Hipponiensis               CIL VII no.4894 etc

Hipponensis                Aug.D.C.D.XXII 8,11

Hipponienses regii      P.L. no.11 col.1316, Aug.Epist.29

Hipponeregienses       Mansi, Amplissa Collectio Conciliorum IV 334

Hipporegii                  Victor Vitensis I.10