Thuburbo Minus

Thuburbo Minus

A titular see in Africa Proconsularis, suffragan of Carthage. Thuburbo Minus is mentioned in the "Itenerar. Antonin.", 44, and the "Tabula Peutinger." It is to-day Tebourba, a city of 2500 inhabitants, on the left bank of the Medjerda (ancient Bagradas), 21 miles by railway west of Tunis. Situated on a hill, the city proper occupies only a part of the ancient site. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by the Andalusian Moors. The Roman amphitheatre was still standing at the end of the seventeenth century, when it was destroyed in order to build a bridge. It was at Thuburbo Minus that the illustrious martyrs St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas with their companions were arrested. The two bishops of this city of whom we know anything are: Victor, present at the Conference of Carthage (411), where he had as his competitor the Donatist Maximinus; and Germanus, who signed (646) the letter of the bishops of the proconsultate to the Patriarch Paul of Constantinople against the Monothelites. Thuburbo Majus, another bishopric of Africa Proconsularis, was a Roman colony the full name of which was Julia Aurelia Commoda Thuburbo Majus. Its many ruins may be seen at Henshir Kasbat, on the banks of the Oued Melian about 34 miles south of Tebourba. It is the country of St. Servus (7 December, Roman Martyrology), who suffered for the Faith under Genseric and Huneric. Four of its bishops are known: Sedatus, present at the Council of Carthage, 256; Faustus, at the Council of Arles, 314; Cyprianus, at the Conference of Carthage, 411, with his competitor, the Donatist, Rufinus; Benenatus, exiled by Huneric, 484. It is impossible to decide to which of these two cities belongs the great number of martyrs, known especially by the "Martryologium Hieronymianum=94 as having suffered at Thuburbo.

TOULOTTE, Geographie de l=92Afrique chretienne. Proconsulaire (Paris, 1892), 276, 278.

S. PÉTRIDÈS