Pomaria

A titular see in Mauretania Cæsarea. It is north of Tlemcen (capital of an arrondissement in the department of Oran, Algeria) and in view of the ruins of Agadir, which was built itself on the ruins of Pomaria. Named after its orchards, Pomaria was formed under the shadow of the Roman camp. At Agadir and in the outskirts may be found numerous Latin inscriptions principally from the Christian epoch, the most recent from the seventh century, and many with the abbreviation DMS, which had evidently lost all pagan meaning. We know of but one bishop, Longinus, mentioned in the list of bishops of Mauretania Cæsarea, who was summoned by King Huneric, returned to Carthage in 484 and was condemned to exile. He was praised by Victor of Vita, Gregory of Tours, and Fredegarius; the martyrology of Usuard inserts his name on 1 Feb. At the end of the eighth century Idris I founded Agadir on the site of Pomaria; on the fall of the Idrisite dynasty, Agadir was the capital of the Beni-Khazer and Beni-Yala, emirs of a Berber tribe, vassals of the Ommiads of Spain. Tlemcen, founded at the end of the eleventh century by Yussef ben Tashfin, was reunited to Agadir and finally supplanted it.

TOULETTE, Géographie de l'Afrique chrétienne. Maurétanies, 117.

S. Pétridès.