Thapsus, also known as Tampsus and as Thapsus Minor to distinguish it from Thapsus in Sicily, was a Carthaginian and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

port near present-day Bekalta,

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

Geography

Thapsus was established on Ras ed-Dimas, an easily defended promontory on Tunisia's

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

coast. It was near a

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per liter). I ...

. It was about from the island of Lampedusa and approximately southeast of

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

History

Thapsus was founded by the

Phoenicians Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syrian coast. They developed a maritime civi ...

. It served as a waypoint on the trade routes between the

Strait of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Fe ...

and

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

and as a market for the inland products of the area.

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...

write that

Agathocles of Syracuse Agathocles (, ''Agathoklḗs''; 361–289 BC) was a tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily, Syracuse from 317 BC and king of much of Sicily from 304 BC until his death. Agathocles began his career as a military officer, and raised his profile as a supp ...

conquered the city. During his civil war,

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

defeated Metellus Scipio and the

Numidia Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia and Libya. The polity was originally divided between ...

n king JubaI at the costly 46BC

Battle of Thapsus The Battle of Thapsus was a military engagement that took place on April 6, 46 BC near Thapsus (in modern Tunisia). The forces of the Optimates, led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, were defeated by the forces of Julius Caesar. It was fo ...

. Caesar exacted a payment of sesterces from the vanquished. The victory marked the end of opposition against him in Africa. Thapsus subsequently became a

Roman colony A Roman (: ) was originally a settlement of Roman citizens, establishing a Roman outpost in federated or conquered territory, for the purpose of securing it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. It ...

in the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Byzacena Byzacena (or Byzacium) (, ''Byzakion'') was a Late Roman province in the central part of Roman North Africa, which is now roughly Tunisia, split off from Africa Proconsularis. History At the end of the 3rd century AD, the Roman emperor Dioclet ...

. The town's enormous mole may have been begun by the local emperors , II, and III, but their reigns were too brief to have finished the work. The construction may have been abandoned partway through; Thapsus was never known as a world-class port and, after the collapse of Thysdrus in the 3rd century, all the area's maritime trade is known to have occurred through the harbors at Sullecthum, Thaenae, Leptis, and Gummi.

Remains

Thapsus's surviving ruins include an

amphitheatre An amphitheatre (American English, U.S. English: amphitheater) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ('), meani ...

and various

mosaics A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

. Thapsus was the site of one of the Roman Empire's greatest harbor moles, a huge

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

and stone breakwater extending almost a kilometer from shore; only the first hundred or so meters, however, remain above water.

Religion

In antiquity, Thapsus was a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

. It was probably a

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...

but no metropolitan is known. The only known bishop was Vigilius, the author of several controversial works against the Arians and the Eutychians. He was one of the Catholic bishops whom king Hunneric of the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

summoned to his court in

in 484 and then exiled. The

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

reëstablished it in 1914 as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ), p. 983 It is a Latin title of the lowest rank, with one archiepiscopal exception. * Valentín García y Barros (1914.12.10 – 1916.08.26) * Arturo Celestino Alvarez (1919.12.18 – 1921.05.09) * Andrew James Louis Brennan (1923.02.23 – 1926.05.28) * Vincenzo Celli (1927.04.08 – 1951.10.17) * Antonio Torasso, I.M.C. (1952.01.10 – 1960.10.22) * Paul-Émile Charbonneau (1960.11.15 – 1963.05.21) * Tomás Enrique Márquez Gómez (1963.06.25 – 1966.11.30) * Alfredo Cifuentes Gómez (1967.03.10 – 1970.12.02), as titular Archbishop * Ludwig Averkamp (1973.01.18 – 1985.11.07) * Vladas Michelevičius (1986.11.13 – 2008.11.12) * Ignacio Carrasco de Paula (2010.09.15 – ...), president-for-life of the

Pontifical Academy A pontifical academy is an academic honorary society established by or under the direction of the Holy See. Some were in existence well before they were accepted as "Pontifical." List There are ten Pontifical academies headquartered at the Vatic ...

References

Citations

Bibliography

* . * .

External links

GigaCatholic, linking to titular see incumbent biographies

Mosaics of Thapsus

Amphitheatre of Thapsus
* {{Authority control Phoenician colonies in Tunisia Catholic titular sees in Africa Roman towns and cities in Tunisia