Tricomia or Trikomia was a town 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 ...

Palaestina Prima Palaestina Prima or Palaestina I was a Byzantine province that existed from the late 4th century until the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, in the region of Palestine. It was temporarily lost to the Sassanid Empire (Persian Empire) in ...

that at one time was thought to have been a

suffragan see 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, ...

Caesarea Caesarea () ( he, קֵיסָרְיָה, ), ''Keysariya'' or ''Qesarya'', often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesare ...

, but is non included in 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 ...

's list of

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 ...

s for lack of evidence that it was ever in fact a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, 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 Roman province, pro ...

. It has been identified with modern-day

Tarqumiyah Tarqumiyah ( ar, ترقوميا) is a Palestinian city located 12 kilometers northwest of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine. History Tarqumiyah is an ancient town situated on a rocky hill. Ci ...

, near

Hebron Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East J ...

Description

The town is mentioned in the ''Descriptio orbis romani'' of

George of Cyprus George of Cyprus ( el, Γεώργιος Κύπριος; Latinized as ''Georgius Cyprius'') was a Byzantine geographer of the early seventh century. Nothing is known of his life save that he was born at Lapithos in the island of Cyprus. He is kno ...

, and seems to have been situated in southern Palestine, since the other cities that he mentions immediately before and after belong to that area. The ''Descriptio orbis romani'', a civil document, was mistaken for a ''

Notitia episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') are official documents that furnish Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church. In the Roman Church (the -mostly Lati ...

'', leading to Tricomia being considered for a while to be a titular see, as it still was in the early 20th century, when Siméon Vailhé wrote of it in the ''

Catholic Encyclopedia The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...

''.Siméon Vailhé, "Tricomia" in ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' (New York 1912)
/ref> It is therefore no surprise that

Le Quien Michel Le Quien (8 October 1661, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 12 March 1733, Paris) was a French historian and theologian. He studied at Plessis College, Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made his pro ...

could find no account of any bishop of Tricomia. In his ''Chronographia'', V,''

Patrologia Graeca The ''Patrologia Graeca'' (or ''Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca'') is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers and various secular writers, in the Greek language. It consists of 161 volumes produced in 1857– ...

'', XCVII, 236.

Malalas John Malalas ( el, , ''Iōánnēs Malálas''; – 578) was a Byzantine chronicler from Antioch (now Antakya, Turkey). Life Malalas was of Syrian descent, and he was a native speaker of Syriac who learned how to write in Greek later in ...

relates an ancient legend regarding Tricomia, which he calls Nyssa and confounds with Scythopolis. According to his account Tricomia was the site of a famous temple of

Artemis In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Artemis (; grc-gre, Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. She was heavily identified wit ...

. It is now a village called Terkoumieh on a high hill between

and Bet-Djibrin. It must not be confused with a Tricomia in Arabia which was the camping place of the ''equites promoti Illyriciani''.

References

History of Palestine (region) Populated places in ancient Palestine