Thapsus

Thapsus, also known as Tampsus and as Thapsus Minor to distinguish it from Thapsus in Sicily,Template:Sfnp was a Carthaginian and Roman port near present-day Bekalta, Tunisia.

Geography

Thapsus was established on Ras ed-Dimas, an easily defended promontory on Tunisia's Mediterranean coast. It was near a salt lake. It was about Template:Convert from the island of Lampedusa and approximately Template:Convert southeast of Carthage.

History

Thapsus was founded by the Phoenicians. It served as a waypoint on the trade routes between the Strait of Gibraltar and Phoenicia and as a market for the inland products of the area. Diodorus Siculus write that Agathocles of Syracuse conquered the city.<ref>Diodorus Siculus, Library, §20.17.1</ref>

During his civil war, Julius Caesar defeated Metellus Scipio and the Numidian king [[Juba I of Numidia|JubaTemplate:NbspI]] at the costly 46Template:NbspBC Battle of Thapsus. Caesar exacted a payment of 50,000 sesterces from the vanquished. The victory marked the end of opposition against him in Africa. Thapsus subsequently became a Roman colony in the province of Byzacena. The town's enormous mole may have been begun by the local emperors Template:Nowrap, II, and III, but their reigns were too brief to have finished the work.Template:Sfnp 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.Template:Sfnp

Remains

Thapsus's surviving ruins include an amphitheatre and various mosaics. Thapsus was the site of one of the Roman Empire's greatest harbor moles, a huge concrete and stone breakwater extending almost a kilometer from shore; only the first hundred or so meters, however, remain above water.Template:Sfnp

Religion

In antiquity, Thapsus was a Christian bishopric. It was probably a suffragan 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 summoned to his court in Carthage in 484 and then exiled.<ref>Sophrone Pétridès, "Thapsus" in Catholic Encyclopedia (New York 1912)</ref>

The Catholic Church reëstablished it in 1914 as a titular see.<ref>Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, Template:ISBN), p. 983</ref> 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

References

Bibliography

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External links

• GigaCatholic, linking to titular see incumbent biographies
• Mosaics of Thapsus
• Amphitheatre of Thapsus
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