Aggar was a town and

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 ...

(now titular) in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

Byzacena Byzacena (or Byzacium) ( grc, Βυζάκιον, ''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 ...

. One of two cities in the area, it left vast ruins that are now called (Henchir) Sidi Amara. These edifices are situated in the plain of

Siliana Siliana ( aeb, سليانة ') is a modern farming town in northern Tunisia. It is located at around , 130 km south-west of the capital Tunis. It is the capital of the Siliana Governorate. It is located 4 miles away from Jama where the Battl ...

, around 60 kilometres east of

Maktar Maktar or Makthar ( ar, مكثر), also known by other names during antiquity, is a town and archaeological site in Siliana Governorate, Tunisia. Maktar was founded by the Berber Numidians as a defense post against Carthaginian expansion. At th ...

. A distinct Sidi Amara further north in Tunisia holds the ruins of the Ancient town of Avioccala, located in the

Africa Proconsularis Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Ruins

The ruins of Aggar, whose identity is confirmed by inscriptions found there, include those of a triumphal arch opening onto a large porticoed area, with a temple behind it, which must have been the forum and the capitol. A

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

fortress, 30 m square with square, slightly projecting corner towers was built on an arcaded structure identified as a temple of Juno. Another temple of unidentified dedication adjoins this citadel. Outside the city proper stands a two-storey mausoleum of a certain C. Marius Romanus with roofing almost intact. A ruined

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

can also be seen. About 1500 metres west of the town, the wadi Jilf was crossed by a bridge originally of ten arches, of which six remain.M. H. Fantar, "Aggar" in ''Encyclopédie Berbère''
/ref>A. Ennabli, ''Aggar (Henchir Sidi Amara) Tunisia" in ''The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites''
/ref>

History

The town, which stood at the outlet of a rocky pass, was 16 miles from

Thapsus Thapsus, also known as Tampsus and as Thapsus Minor to distinguish it from Thapsus in Sicily, was a Carthaginian and Roman port near present-day Bekalta, Tunisia. Geography Thapsus was established on Ras ed-Dimas, an easily defended promontory ...

. It is mentioned in the ''

De Bello Africo ''De Bello Africo'' (also ''Bellum Africum''; ''On the African War'') is a Latin work continuing Julius Caesar's accounts of his campaigns, ''De Bello Gallico'' and '' De Bello Civili'', and its sequel by an unknown author ''De Bello Alexandrin ...

'' attributed to

Aulus Hirtius Aulus Hirtius (; – 43 BC) was consul of the Roman Republic in 43 BC and a writer on military subjects. He was killed during his consulship in battle against Mark Antony at the Battle of Mutina. Biography He was a legate of Julius Caesar's sta ...

, chapters 67 and 79. Aggar appears in the ''

Tabula Peutingeriana ' (Latin Language, Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated ' (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the ''cursus publicus'', the road network of the Roman Empire. The m ...

'' In AD 232, Aggar was granted the rank of ''

municipium In ancient Rome, the Latin term (pl. ) referred to a town or city. Etymologically, the was a social contract among ("duty holders"), or citizens of the town. The duties () were a communal obligation assumed by the in exchange for the privi ...

'' (CIL VIII 1, 714),"Aggar." Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider (editors), ''Brill’s New Pauly. Antiquity volumes'' (Brill Online, 2014) Retrieved 7 October 2014
/ref> and later became a '' colonia''.

Ecclesiastical history

Aggar was among the many cities of sufficient importance in

Roman North Africa Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, ...

to become a

suffragan diocese A suffragan diocese is one of the dioceses other than the metropolitan archdiocese that constitute an ecclesiastical province. It exists in some Christian denominations, in particular the Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria ...

of the Metropolitan of

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, 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 classi ...

, in the papal sway, but faded, plausibly at the seventh century advent of Islam. The only historically documented bishop of Aggar is Donatus, one of the Catholic bishops whom the

Arian Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...

Vandal The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...

king

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was m ...

summoned to a Council of Carthage in 484 and then exiled,Stefano Antonio Morcelli
''Africa christiana''
Volume I, Brescia 1816, pp. 71–72 unlike their schismatical

Donatist Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and t ...

counterparts (none reported from Aggar).

Titular see

The diocese was nominally restored by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in 1933 as a Latin

titular bishopric 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 archbish ...

''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 827 of Aggar (Latin = Curiate Italian) / Aggaritan(us) (Latin adjective). It has had the following incumbents, so far of the fitting Episcopal (lowest) rank: * Joseph Ludwig Buchkremer (28 October 1961 24 August 1986 (death)), first as Auxiliary Bishop of

Diocese of Aachen The Diocese of Aachen is one of 27 dioceses in Germany and one of the six dioceses in the ecclesiastical province of Cologne. The incumbent bishop is Helmut Dieser, who was appointed by Pope Francis on 23 September 2016. The bishop's seat is Aac ...

(Germany) (28 October 1961 4 October 1979), then as emeritate * Alfred Kostelecky (12 November 1986 10 February 1990) as Auxiliary Bishop of Wien (Austria) (12 November 1986 10 February 1990); later

Military Ordinary A military ordinariate is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, of the Latin or an Eastern church, responsible for the pastoral care of Catholics serving in the armed forces of a nation. Until 1986, they were called "military v ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

(Austria) (12 November 1986 22 February 1994), emeritate as Titular Bishop of

Wiener Neustadt Wiener Neustadt (; ; Central Bavarian: ''Weana Neistod'') is a city located south of Vienna, in the state of Lower Austria, in northeast Austria. It is a self-governed city and the seat of the district administration of Wiener Neustadt-Land Distr ...

(10 February 1990 22 February 1994 (death)) * František Radkovský (17 March 1990 31 May 1993) as Secretary General of Czech Bishops' Conference (1990 7 July 1993) and Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Praha (Prague, Bohemia, Czechia) (17 March 1990 31 May 1993); later Bishop of

Plzeň Plzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, in German ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the Statutory city (Czech Republic), fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 169,000 inhabita ...

(Pilsen, Czechia) (31 May 1993 12 February 2016 (retired)) * Antoni Józef Długosz (18 December 1993 ...), first as Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Częstochowa (Poland) (18 December 1993 7 May 2016 (retired)), then as emeritate.

References

Sources and external links