Tacapæ

Titular see of Tripolitana in northern Africa. The official list of titular sees of the Roman Curia calls this see Tacapæ; the ancient milestones bear the name Tacapas, Tacapa, Tacapes; the Greek name was probably Tacape. It is mentioned in numerous ancient geographical documents, but nothing is known of its history. It was located in the interior of Syrtis Minor in a fertile country, was provided with several roads, and was the commercial centre of the region. At first attached to Byzantium, in the third century it became a Roman colony and formed a part of Tripolitana. It is now Gabes, chief town of a civil control and the seat of a military commandery which comprises all the southern part of Tunis. It has 1200 inhabitants of whom 400 are French and live in an oasis due to the waters of Wady Gabes, with the two neighbouring villages of Djara (3000 inhabitants) and Menzel (300 inhabitants). Three of its bishops are known: Dulcitius, legate of the bishops of Tripolitanta to the Council of Carthage (403) and present at the Conference of Carthage in 411; Servilius, exiled by Huneric in 484; Caius or Gallus, legate of the bishops of his province to the Council of Carthage in 525. The see still survived under Justinian who fortified the town.

SMITH, Dict. of Greek and Roman Geogr., s.v.; MULLER, Notes to Ptolemy, ed. DIDOT, I, 626; TOULOTTE, Geographie de L'Afrique chretienne: Byzacene et Tripolitaine (Montreuil, 1894), 261; DIEHL, L'Afrique byzantine (Paris, 1896), passim.

S. Pétridès.