Sétif lay in the region of the Numidian kingdom of Massaesyles. It was near Sétif that Jugurtha campaigned and lost against Marius in 105 BC. Overcome by Marius, he was taken to Rome where was executed in the prison of Tullianum. No remains of this period have been found.
Sitifis was founded by the Romans, during the reign of Nerva, as a colony for veterans. Although no buildings of this period are known, a cemetery excavated in the 1960's seems to have contained tombs from the early colony. The Romans built a circus at Sitifis, which aerial photographs show survived substantially intact until the 20th century; today only a small part of the curved end continues visible; the remainder has been destroyed or built over. As the town grew, around 297 AD, the province of Mauretania Sitifensis was established, with Sitifis as its capital. In the newly prosperous town a bath building was built, decorated with fine mosaics: its restoration in the fifth century had a cold room (frigidarium) paved with a large mosaic showing the birth of Venus.. On the northwest edge of the town two great Christian basilicas were built at the end of the fourth century, decorated, again, with splendid mosaics..
Although we do not know what happened under Vandal rule, the Byzantine reconquest brought with it a major fort, of which parts are still standing.
In 647 AD (the year 27 of the Hegira), the first Muslim expedition to Africa took place. By 700 AD, the area had been conquered and converted to the Islamic faith. We know little of the early Islamic town, but by the tenth century the area outside of the fortress was once more filled with houses: on the site of the Roman baths over twelve of these were excavated, with large courtyards surrounded by long, thin, rooms.. In the mid-eleventh century this development stopped abruptly, and a defensive wall was built around the city. The historian Leo Africanus reports that a major wave of destruction followed the invasion of
