Thermae Basilicae

Thermae Basilicae

A titular see in Cappadocia Prima, suffragan of Caesarea. The Greek "Notitiae episcopatuum" down to the thirteenth century describe the see as the first suffragan of Caesarea. Perhaps there was a bishop from the time of St. Basil; in any case four others are mentioned: Firminius, present at the Council of Chalcedon, 451; Photinus, at the Council of Constantinople, under the patriarch Gennadius (459); Musonius, exiled by Justin I, about 518; Theodore, present at the Sixth Oecumenical Council of Constantinople, 681, and at the Council in Trullo, 692 (LeQuien, "Oriens christ.", I, 389). This see is evidently the city which Hierocles (Synecdemus, 699, 2) names Therma, and which he places in Cappadocia Prima under the Caesarean metropolis. It may quite probably be identified with Aquae Sarvenae, which the "Tabula" of Peutinger places on the road between Tavium and Caesarea, the same, doubtless, as Sarvena, a city described on an inscription and by Ptolemy (V, 6, 12). This would be today Terzili Hammam, a village about twenty hours north of Caesarea, a vilayet of Angora, where there are hot mineral sulfur waters, still frequented. A part of the building containing the baths is of Roman construction; a Christian inscription has been found thereon. Therma, which the "Itinerarium Antonini", 204, places also on the road from Tavium to Caesarea, must be Iamush Pisheren Sou, a mineral spring to the north of Kir Shehir.

RAMSAY in Bulletin de correspondance hellenique, VII (Paris, 1883), 302 sq.; IDEM, Asia Minor (London, 1890), passim; MULLER, ed. DIDOT, Notes on Ptolemy, I, 854, 876.

S. PÉTRIDÈS