Utica

/yooh"ti keuh/, n.

1. an ancient city on the N coast of Africa, NW of Carthage.

2. a city in central New York, on the Mohawk River. 75,632.

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Ancient Phoenician settlement, North Africa.

Considered the oldest Phoenician settlement, it was located in what is now modern Tunisia. After its founding (с 8th century BC), it grew rapidly and was second in importance only to Carthage. Made the capital of the Roman province of Africa after the Third Punic War (149–146 BC), it later declined after the emperor Augustus rebuilt Carthage. Excavations have uncovered Phoenician graves dating from the 8th century BC and a substantial residential section of the Roman city. See also Punic Wars.

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▪ New York, United States

      city, seat (1798) of Oneida county, central New York, U.S., on the Mohawk River and New York State Canal System, 45 miles (72 km) east of Syracuse. The first settlers were Dutch and Palatinate Germans, and in 1758 the British built Old Fort Schuyler, near the site of an ancient Oneida Indian council stone. Destroyed by the Indian-Tory raid in 1776, the early village was rebuilt and connected by stagecoach to Albany (1793) and by river to Schenectady.

      Incorporated as the village of Utica (its name was drawn from a hat) in 1798, it grew as a textile-industrial centre following the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. In 1879 F.W. Woolworth (Woolworth Co.) opened his first store in Utica, selling only merchandise costing five cents or less (the store failed the same year). Diversified manufacturing developed after World War II and now includes medical and surgical equipment, wood furniture, jewelry boxes and desk accessories, power transmissions (aerospace), and textile reinforcements for tires.

      The city is surrounded by dairylands with truck farms to the west. Mohawk Valley Community College of the State University of New York (New York, State University of (SUNY)) system and the Utica College of Syracuse University were established there in 1946, and the State University of New York Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome in 1966. The Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute (incorporated as a school of art in 1919) maintains a museum. Utica is the site of the Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center, the Masonic Home and Health Facility, and several hospitals. Inc. city, 1832. Pop. (1990) city, 68,637; Utica-Rome MSA, 316,633; (2000) city, 60,651; Utica-Rome MSA, 299,896.

▪ Tunisia

modern  Utique 

      traditionally the oldest Phoenician settlement on the coast of North Africa. It is located near the mouth of the Majardah (French Medjerda, ancient Bagradas) River 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Tunis in modern Tunisia. After its founding in the 8th or 7th century BC, Utica grew rapidly and was second only to Carthage among Phoenician settlements in Africa. In the Third Punic War (149–146 BC), Utica sided with Rome against Carthage; after the destruction of Carthage it was made a free city and the administrative centre of the Roman province of Africa. Utica supported Pompey against Julius Caesar in the Civil Wars and was the city where Marcius Porcius Cato the Younger committed suicide rather than surrender to Caesar. After Caesar's victory Utica was heavily fined, and Carthage (refounded by Caesar in 44 BC) became the new capital of Roman Africa. Utica became a municipium (a community that exercised partial rights of Roman citizenship) under Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) in 36 BC and a colonia (a Roman settlement with full rights) under the emperor Hadrian (ruled AD 117–138). Little is known of its later history. Excavations have uncovered a number of Phoenician graves dating from the 8th century BC onward and a substantial residential section of the Roman city.

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