A titular see in Africa
Proconsularis, suffragan of Carthage. Thuburbo Minus is mentioned
in the "Itenerar. Antonin.", 44, and the "Tabula
Peutinger." It is to-day Tebourba, a city of 2500
inhabitants, on the left bank of the Medjerda (ancient Bagradas),
21 miles by railway west of Tunis. Situated on a hill, the city
proper occupies only a part of the ancient site. It was rebuilt in
the fifteenth century by the Andalusian Moors. The Roman
amphitheatre was still standing at the end of the seventeenth
century, when it was destroyed in order to build a bridge. It was
at Thuburbo Minus that the illustrious martyrs St. Perpetua and
St. Felicitas with their companions were arrested. The two bishops
of this city of whom we know anything are: Victor, present at the
Conference of Carthage (411), where he had as his competitor the
Donatist Maximinus; and Germanus, who signed (646) the letter of
the bishops of the proconsultate to the Patriarch Paul of
Constantinople against the Monothelites. Thuburbo Majus, another
bishopric of Africa Proconsularis, was a Roman colony the full
name of which was Julia Aurelia Commoda Thuburbo Majus. Its many
ruins may be seen at Henshir Kasbat, on the banks of the Oued
Melian about 34 miles south of Tebourba. It is the country of St.
Servus (7 December, Roman Martyrology), who suffered for the Faith
under Genseric and Huneric. Four of its bishops are known:
Sedatus, present at the Council of Carthage, 256; Faustus, at the
Council of Arles, 314; Cyprianus, at the Conference of Carthage,
411, with his competitor, the Donatist, Rufinus; Benenatus, exiled
by Huneric, 484. It is impossible to decide to which of these two
cities belongs the great number of martyrs, known especially by
the "Martryologium Hieronymianum=94 as having suffered at
Thuburbo.
Toulotte, Géographie
de l'Afrique chrétienne. Proconsulaire (Paris, 1892),
276, 278.
S. Pétridès.
