Vageata

Vageata, also known as Vageatensis, ^[1] was a Roman-Berber town in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis. ^[2] It is also known as Bagatensis, ^[3] and epigraphical evidence remains attesting to this etymology, ^{[4] [5] [6]} due to the interchange of 'v' for 'b' is a common phenomenon in Latin and Greek place names.

The city has been identified with ruins at El-Haria, located east of Cirta en route to Thibilis. ^[7] It was mentioned by Optatus of Milevis, in Numidia. ^[8]

Bishopric

The city was also a seat of an ancient bishopric though only two bishops are known to history. Donatus of Vageaensis was known from the Council of Carthage (411). ^{[9] [10]}

Fulgentius (Catholic bishop) fl.484 was exiled by Vandal king Huneric in 484AD. Richard Oliver Gerow of Natchez-Jackson was bishop in the 1970s. Long-term bishop Franz Xaver Schwarzenböck(1972-2010) ^[11] was then succeeded by Wieslaw Szlachetka, who has been bishop since December 21, 2013. ^[12]

References

1. Historical-Portable Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Sacred Geography, 1759 p733.
2. Vageatensis
3. Leslie Dossey, Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa (University of California Press, 2010) p205.
4. Jesper Carlsen, Vilici and Roman Estate Managers Until AD 284, Part 284 (L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER, 1995) p81-82.
5. Leslie Dossey, Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa (University of California Press, 2010)p205.
6. Epigraphic Text Database.
7. Brent D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine. (Cambridge University Press, 2011) page xvi.
8. Saints Zeno and Optatus, the first at Verona, the works of all the bishops of the other Milevi: Cui accessit - The history of the Donatists, the Bishops of Africa, together with the tombs that belong to it and geography (Vrayet, 1845).
9. Jean Louis Maier, The Episcopate of Roman, Vandal and Byzantine Africa (Swiss Institute of Rome, 1973)p301.
10. Antoine-Augustin Bruzen from La Martinière, THE GREAT GEOGRAPHIC AND CRITICAL DICTIONARY, Volume 9 (1739).
11. Le Petit Episcopologe, Issue 204, Necrology
12. Le Petit Episcopologe, Issue 217, Number 18,066.