Germaniciana

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Africa proconsularis. Africa proconsularis SPQR.png
Africa proconsularis.

Abbir Germaniciana [1] also known as Abir Cella [2] is the name of a Roman and Byzantine-era city in the Roman province of Africa proconsularis (today northern Tunisia). [3] The city was also the seat of a bishopric, in the ecclesiastical province of Carthage, and is best known as the home town of the Pre Nicaean father, Cyprian, who was bishop of Abbir Germaniciana around 250AD.

Roman Empire Period of Imperial Rome following the Roman Republic (27 BC–395 AD)

The Roman Empire was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization. Ruled by emperors, it had large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. From the constitutional reforms of Augustus to the military anarchy of the third century, the Empire was a principate ruled from the city of Rome. The Roman Empire was then divided between a Western Roman Empire, based in Milan and later Ravenna, and an Eastern Roman Empire, based in Nicomedia and later Constantinople, and it was ruled by multiple emperors.

Byzantine Empire Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Both the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical exonyms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire simply as the Roman Empire, or Romania (Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as "Romans".

<i>Civitas</i> Roman civil law

In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas, according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law. It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities (munera) on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other. The agreement (concilium) has a life of its own, creating a res publica or "public entity", into which individuals are born or accepted, and from which they die or are ejected. The civitas is not just the collective body of all the citizens, it is the contract binding them all together, because each of them is a civis.

Contents

Location

The location of Abbir Germaniciana is unknown but:

Medjerda River river

The Medjerda River, the classical Bagrada, is a river in North Africa flowing from northeast Algeria through Tunisia before emptying into the Gulf of Tunis and Lake of Tunis. With a length of 450 km (280 mi), it is the longest river of Tunisia. It is also known as the Wadi Majardah or Mejerha.

El Fahs Tunisian town

El Fahs is a town and commune located in the Zaghouan Governorate, 60 kilometers south-west of Tunis, Tunisia. Its population in 2014 was 23,561.

Theveste

Theveste was a Roman- colony situated in the present Tébessa, Algeria.

Which ever location it was in, it was definitely on along the coastal hinterlands of the Maghreb.

Maghreb region of Northwest Africa

The Maghreb, also known as Northwest Africa or Northern Africa, Greater Arab Maghreb, Arab Maghreb or Greater Maghreb, or by some sources the Berber world, Barbary and Berbery, is a major region of North Africa that consists primarily of the countries Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania. It additionally includes the disputed territories of Western Sahara and the cities of Melilla and Ceuta. As of 2018, the region has a population of over 100 million people.

Ksour-el-Maïete is a set of ruins in Tunisia near the Cherita and the Sebkhet de Sidi El Hani lakes.

Sebkhet Cherita

The Sebkhet Cherita is a salt lake wetland in the Sousse Governorate of Tunisia, 25 kilometers southwest of the city of Sousse and 25 kilometers southeast of the city of Kairouan. It covers an area of 11600hectares and is 17 by 9 kilometers wide. Fueled by several wadis, such as the Oued Merguellil, Oued Nebhana and Oued Zeroud.

Sebkhet de Sidi El Hani

The Sebkha Sidi El Hani (سبخة سيدي الهاني) is a salt lake in the Sousse Governorate of Tunisia, 25 kilometers southwest of the city of Sousse and 25 kilometers southeast of the city of Kairouan. It covers an area of 36,000 hectares and consists of three depressions: the Sidi El Hani sebkha stricto sensu, the Sebkha Souassi and the Sekha Dkhila. Fueled by several wadis, such as the Wadi Chrita, the Wadi Mansoura and the Wadi Oum El Mellah, it retains water all year round only occasionally. The catchment area is 360km² and the system empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

Bishopric

The town was also the seat of an ancient bishopric. The city appears to have been Catholic before the Diocletian Persecution but was taken into the Vandal Kingdom around 429 AD, and with the arrival of the Islamic armies at the end of the 7th century the bishopric ceased to effectively function. In 1933 the diocese was re-established in name at least, as a titular see. [9]

Catholic Church Christian church led by the Bishop of Rome

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with approximately 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2017. As the world's "oldest continuously functioning international institution", it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church is headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope. Its central administration, the Holy See, is in the Vatican City, an enclave within the city of Rome in Italy.

Vandal Kingdom Kingdom existed in North Africa from 429 to 534

The Vandal Kingdom or Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans was established by the Germanic Vandal people under Genseric, and ruled in North Africa and the Mediterranean from 435 AD to 534 AD.

Diocese Christian district or see under the supervision of a bishop

The word diocese is derived from the Greek term dioikesis (διοίκησις) meaning "administration". Today, when used in an ecclesiastical sense, it refers to the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.

Known bishops

Saint one who has been recognized for having an exceptional degree of holiness, sanctity, and virtue

A saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness or closeness to God. Depending on the context and denomination, the term also retains its original Christian meaning, as any believer who is "in Christ" and in whom Christ dwells, whether in Heaven or on Earth. In Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, and Lutheran doctrine, all of their faithful deceased in Heaven are considered to be saints, but some are considered worthy of greater honor or emulation; official ecclesiastical recognition, and consequently veneration, is given to some saints through the process of canonization in the Catholic Church or glorification in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Floruit, abbreviated fl., Latin for "he/she flourished", denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the word may also be used as a noun indicating the time when someone flourished.

Martyr person who suffers persecution and death for advocating, refusing to renounce, and/or refusing to advocate a belief or cause, usually a religious one

A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, or refusing to advocate a belief or cause as demanded by an external party. This refusal to comply with the presented demands results in the punishment or execution of the martyr by the oppressor. Originally applied only to those who suffered for their religious beliefs, the term has come to be used in connection with people killed for a political cause.

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References

  1. ↑ Abbiritanus Germanicianorum
  2. ↑ Edward White Benson, Cyprian: His Life, His Times, His Work: His Life, His Times, His Work (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004) p604
  3. ↑ Anna Leone, Changing Townscapes in North Africa from Late Antiquity to the Arab Conquest(Edipuglia srl, 2007) p90
  4. ↑ Adolf Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, 2 Volumes (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997) p 425.
  5. ↑ Henri Irénée Marrou, André Mandouze, Anne-Marie La Bonnardière, Prosopographie de l'Afrique chrétienne (303–533) (Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1982) p. 1315.
  6. ↑ Situation of the town of Théveste during the cutting of Africa by Genséric.
  7. ↑ Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques Et scientifiques.
  8. ↑ Itinéraire d'Antonin, éd. d'O. Cuntz, Leipzig, 1929 (1990 ISBN   3-519-04273-8). and Pierre Salama, Les voies romaines de l'Afrique du Nord, Alger, 1951 (with a map of 1949).
  9. ↑ Titular Episcopal See of Abbir Germaniciana at GCatholic.org.
  10. ↑ Vita of Cyprian, Cap. Xiv.
  11. ↑ Edward White Benson, Cyprian: His Life, His Times, His Work (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004) p. 471.
  12. ↑ Cypr. Epistle. lvii., lxvii., lxx., lxxx.

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