Milevum (in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

even "Milev" or "Mireon"; ''Μιραίον'' in

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

) was a

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 ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

–

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

city 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 ...

Numidia Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunis ...

. It was located in present-day Mila in eastern

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

History

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

's "Geography" (vol. IV, iii, 7), the

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

is mentioned under the name of ''Mileum''. During the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

, it was called ''Colonia Sarnensis Milevitana'', after the River Sarnus in

Campania Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...

(southern Italy), whence the colonists had emigrated. This name is often found in the inscriptions of the city. Together with

Cirta Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria. Cirta was the capital city of the Berber kingdom of Numidia; its strategically important port city w ...

Collo Collo ( ar, القل, links=, lit=, translit=al-Qull) was an ancient Roman– a city of the Ottoman empire and Berber. Located in the northern Skikda Province, Algeria. It was the capital and one of three municipalities of Collo District, and ...

and Rusicade, Milevum formed the Confederation known as the 'Four Colonies', the territory of which was very extensive. This confederation area was fully romanised in the fourth century (when was renamed as "Numidia Cirtense"), with nearly all the population speaking local Latin, according to historian

Theodor Mommsen Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th cent ...

. In the fourth century's second half Milevum was fully Christian and had a population of nearly 15000 inhabitants. In the 6th century, the

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 ...

Emperor Justinian Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...

had Milevum enclosed by a fortified wall, which still stands and forms a rampart for the Muslim city of Mila. It has yielded quite a number of Latin inscriptions from this city and a colossal statue of Saturn. Christianity appeared in the second century and dominated Miletum in the fourth century. Two

church council A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word ''synod'' comes from the meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin word meani ...

s were held at Milevum, one in 402 AD and the other in 416 AD. The second appealed to

Pope Innocent I Pope Innocent I ( la, Innocentius I) was the bishop of Rome from 401 to his death on 12 March 417. From the beginning of his papacy, he was seen as the general arbitrator of ecclesiastical disputes in both the East and the West. He confirmed the ...

for repression of the

Pelagian Pelagianism is a Christian theological position that holds that the original sin did not taint human nature and that humans by divine grace have free will to achieve human perfection. Pelagius ( – AD), an ascetic and philosopher from th ...

heresy. After 682 AD the city may have been conquered by the

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

Arabs commanded by

Abu al-Muhajir Dinar Abu al-Muhajir Dinar ( ar, أبو المهاجر دينار) was a governor of Ifriqiya under the Umayyad Caliphate and lead the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. He died in Tabuda after the Battle of Vescera in 683. Biography His biography is co ...

and since then Milevum disappeared from History.

Bishopric

The city was the center of a small

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 ...

. Among the bishops of this

episcopal see An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, mak ...

were: *Pollianus, present at the

Council of Carthage (255) A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/ shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nati ...

and martyred two years later; *

St. Optatus Saint Optatus, sometimes anglicized as St. Optate, was Bishop of Mila, Algeria, Milevis, in Numidia, in the fourth century, remembered for his writings against Donatism. Biography and context Optatus was a convert, as we gather from Augustine of ...

, noted for his work against the

Donatists 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 th ...

, who died in about 385 AD and who is commemorated on 4 June; *Honorius; *Severus, fellow-countryman and friend of St. Augustine; *Benenanus (484 AD); and Restitutus, who attended the Fifth Œcumenical Council in 553 AD. Charles Lavigne Bishop of Milevum Bischof Anton Gisler

Milevum remains today 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 archbish ...

in the

ecclesiastical province An ecclesiastical province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United State ...

.David M. Cheney
Milevum
at catholic-hierarchy.org. *Emmanuel a Santo Ludovico, O.F.M. † (8 Feb 1672 appointed – ) *Hyacinthus de Saldanha, O.P. † (28 Jan 1675 appointed – ) *Johann Ignaz Dlouhovesky de Longavilla † (10 Apr 1679 appointed – 10 Jan 1701) *Caius Asterius Toppi † (15 Nov 1728 appointed – 20 May 1754) *Anton de Révay † (20 May 1754 appointed – 16 Sep 1776 Bishop of Rožňava) *Wilhelm Joseph Leopold Willibald von Baden † (12 Jul 1779 appointed – 9 Jun 1798) *Angiolo (Angelo) Cesarini † (28 Sep 1801 appointed – 7 May 1810) *Thomas Coen † (26 Jan 1816 appointed – 9 Oct 1831 Succeeded, Bishop of Clonfert) *

Bernard Collier Bishop Bernard William Allen Collier, Order of Saint Benedict, O.S.B. (1802 – 21 November 1890) was an English-born Roman Catholic prelate. He was the second Vicar Apostolic and the first Diocesan Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Port-Loui ...

, O.S.B. † (14 Feb 1840 appointed – 7 Dec 1847) *Jean-Marie Tissot, M.S.F.S. † (11 Aug 1863 appointed – 25 Nov 1886 Bishop of Vizagapatam) *Charles Lavigne, S.J. † (13 Sep 1887 appointed – 27 Aug 1898) *

James Bellord James Bellord (26 February 1846 – 11 June 1905) was an English-born Roman Catholic bishop who served as the Vicar Apostolic A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or ag ...

(16 Feb 1899 appointed – 11 Jun 1905) *Ivan Borzatti de Löwenstern (15 Mar 1907 appointed – 17 Feb 1926) *Acacio Chacón Guerra (10 May 1926 appointed – 1 Aug 1927) *Anton Gisler † (20 Apr 1928 appointed – 4 Jan 1932) *Jean-Félix de Hemptinne, O.S.B. † (15 Mar 1932 appointed – 6 Feb 1958) *José Manuel Piña Torres † (12 May 1958 appointed – 7 Jul 1997) *

Joseph Ignace Randrianasolo Joseph Ignace Randrianasolo (31 July 1947 – 4 February 2010) was the Roman Catholic bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mahajanga, Madagascar. Ordained to the priesthood on 20 December 1975, Randrianasolo earned a doctorate in canon law f ...

† (24 Oct 1997 appointed – 3 Jun 1999, Bishop of Mahajanga) *Joseph Chennoth (24 Aug 1999 appointed – )

Bibliography

*A. Benabbès: "Les premiers raids arabes en Numidie byzantine: questions toponymiques." In ''Identités et Cultures dans l'Algérie Antique'', University of Rouen, 2005 () *Heurgon J. ''Les origines campaniennes de la Confédération cirtéenne'', Libyca archéol. Epigr.,t.V,1957, pp. 7–24. * Laffi, Umberto. ''Colonie e municipi nello Stato romano'' Ed. di Storia e Letteratura. Roma, 2007 * Mommsen, Theodore. ''The Provinces of the Roman Empire'' Section: Roman Africa. (Leipzig 1865; London 1866; London: Macmillan 1909; reprint New York 1996) Barnes & Noble. New York, 1996 * Reynell Morell, John. ''Algeria: The Topography and History, Political, Social, and Natural, of French Africa''. Publisher N. Cooke. London, 1854
Chullu
* P. Trousset (2002). ' v. 10, pp. 143–150.

Notes

{{Romano-Berber cities in Roman Africa Archaeological sites in Algeria Roman towns and cities in Algeria Numidia (Roman provinces) Ancient Berber cities de:Titularbistum Milevum#top es:Milevum#top it:Diocesi di Milevi#top pl:Milevum#top

History

Bishopric

See also

Bibliography

Notes