Send Gift Baskets to Melilla, Spain

Under the Phoenician and later Punic name Rusadir (Rusaddir for the Romans and Russadeiron for the Greeks), Melilla was a Phoenician and Punic trade establishment. Mauretania Tingitana became part of Roman Mauretania after Rome absorbed it. The Greek historian Ptolemy (IV, 1) and the Roman poet Pliny (V, 18) mention Rusaddir as a fortified city and port. The Itinerarium Antonini referred to it as Rusicada. Mela (I, 33) also cited it as Rusicada. Despite the claim that Rusaddir was once the bishop’s seat, no record of a bishop has been found of the purported see, which does not appear on the Catholic Church’s list of titular sees.

The Vandals, Byzantines, and Visigoths ruled the region throughout the centuries. There is a lot of similarity between the political history of towns in the Moroccan Rif region and southern Spain as local rule passed through a succession of rulers, the Phoenician, Punic, Roman, Umayyad, Arab, Idrisid, Andalusian, Almoravid, Almohad, Marinid, and finally Wattasid.

In the 15th century, the city was subsumed into decadence, like most Mediterranean coast cities of the Kingdom of Fez, which were eclipsed by those on the Atlantic coast. In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs conquered the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. In anticipation of a possible territorial expansion, their Secretary Hernando de Zafra collected information about the sorry state of the North African coast. Field agents were sent to investigate, and they reported to the Catholic Monarchs that, by early 1494, locals had expelled the Sultan of Fez and offered to serve. Despite the 1494 Tordesillas Treaty placing Melilla and Cazaza (formerly Portuguese territory) under Castile’s sphere, the city’s conquest had to wait due to the occupation of Naples by Charles VIII of France.