Ghar el-Melh (, Ghar al-Milh, "Salt Grotto"), the classical Rusucmona and CastraDelia and colonial is a town and former port on the southern side of Cape Farina in Bizerte Governorate, Tunisia. History Phoenician colony The Phoenician settlement, which was called 𐤓𐤔𐤀𐤔𐤌𐤍 (meaning "the Cape of Eshmun"), at Ghar el-Melha little inland from the present sitebegan around the same time as Utica and its dating presents the same problems. Several classical authors place northern Tunisia's colonization BC but modern archaeology has only found evidence suggestive of a date closer to BC. In either case, the settlement at Ghar el-Melh came to serve as Utica's chief port as the Medjerda changed course and began silting up Utica's harbor. Its Punic name Rus Eshmun meant "Cape Eshmun", after the Punic name for Cape Farina. Scipio Africanus landed nearby, took the town, and pillaged the surrounding countryside in 204BC ahead of his siege of Utica during the Second Punic War. A naval battle ending in Roman victory was fought off the town's coast the next year, ahead of Zama and the end of the war. Roman city The port fell under Roman rule along with the rest of the Carthaginian Empire during the course of the Punic Wars. It sometimes preserved its former nameLatinized as Rusucmonabut also came to be known as or Delia, presumably after Scipio's friend and lieutenant G. Laelius. Its peninsula preserved an ancient and important temple to "Apollo", probably representing a continuation of the Carthaginian worship of the healing god Eshmun harmonized with the Greco-Roman pantheon. held native city () status as part of the province of Byzacena. It flourished from around 30BC to around AD330. During this time the city was also the seat of a Christian bishopric. Pirate base Much later, it became an important base for the Barbary corsairs. Following the conquest of Tunisia by CharlesV in 1534 and 1535, Spaniards tried to remove the pirates unsuccessfully. John of Austria also visited the bay during his reconquest of Tunis in October 1573, following his victory at Lepanto. The Italian convert, Ottoman corsair, and Tunisian dey Usta Murad expanded the citythen known as PortoFarinagreatly enough to consider it a second founding. He established fortifications to prevent the harbor's use by Christian powers and attracted refugee Moriscos by the provision of certain liberties at Porto Farina, Rafraf, and Ras el-Djebel. During this era, it rivaled the size and importance