KEF  , more correctly El-Kef (the

Rock), a town of Tunisia, 125 M. by rail S.S.W. of the capital, and 75 M . S.E. of Bona in Algeria . It occupies the site of the Roman colony of Sicca Veneria, and is built on the steep slope of a rock in a mountainous region through which flows the Mellegue, an affluent of the Mejerda . Situated at the intersection of main routes from the west and south, Kef occupies a position of strategic importance . Though distant some 22 M. from the Algerian frontier it was practically a border post, and its walls and citadel were kept in a state of defence by the Tunisians . The town with its half-dozen mosques and tortuous, dirty streets, is still partly walled . The southern part of the wall has however been destroyed by the French, and the remainder is being left to decay . Beyond the part of the wall destroyed is the French quarter . The kasbah, or citadel, occupies a rocky eminence on the west side of the town . It was built, or rebuilt, by the Turks, the material being Roman . It has been restored by the French, who maintain a garrison, here . The Roman remains include fragments of a large temple dedicated to Hercules, and of the baths .

The

ancient cisternsremain, but are empty, being used as part of the barracks . The town is however supplied by water from the same spring which filled the cisterns . The Christian cemetery is on the site of a basilica . There are ruins of another Christian basilica, excavated by the French, the apse being intact and the narthex serving as a church . Many stones with Roman inscriptions are built into the walls of Arab houses . The modern town is much smaller than the Roman colony . Pop. about 6000, including about 100 Europeans (chiefly Maltese) . The Roman colony of Sicca Veneria appears from the character of its worship of Venus (Val . Max. ii . 6, § 15)to have been a Phoenician settlement . It was afterwards a Numidian stronghold, and under the Caesars became a fashionable residential city and one of the chief centres of Christianity in North Africa . The Christian apologist Arnobius the Elder lived here .

See H .

Barth, Die Kiistenlander des Mittelmeeres (1849); Corpus Inscript . Lat., vol. viii . ; Sombrun in Bull. de la soc. de geog. de Bordeaux (1878) . Also Cardinal Newman's Callista: a Sketch of the Third Century (1856), for a " reconstruction " of the manner of life of the early Christians and their oppressors .