Bageis

This page concerns Lydian Bageis, Bagis or Bage, not to be confounded with Bagae in Numidia.

Bageis, Bagis, or Bage was a city in the Roman province of Lydia in Asia Minor (modern Turkey).

Name

The name of the city appears in the form Bageis (in the genitive plural case of the name of its inhabitants, ΒΑΓΝΩΝ or ΒΑΓΗΝΩΝ) on its coins, but "Bagis is the form given in the Synecdemos of Hierocles, and Bage in later Notitiae Episcopatuum.[1][2] Some of its coins add the epithet Caesareus, "of Caesar", i.e., imperial (in foundation?).[3]

Location

Inscriptions uncovered by Keppel place the ancient town near Sirghe on the left (south) side of the Hermos River.[1][2]

Ecclesiastical history

The episcopal see of Bagis, being in the Roman province of Lydia was a suffragan of Sardis, the capital of the province.

The acts of the First Council of Nicaea (325) mention a Pollio as bishop of Baris in that province. Since there is no evidence of a bishopric of that name, Janin (1931),[1] following Adolf von Harnack,[4] consider "Baris" to be an error for "Bagis", while Pétrirdès (1907), who cites Heinrich Gelzer and C. H. Turner, does not accept that correction.[2] Other known bishops of Bagis are Chrysapius or Chrysanthus, who was at the Robber Council of Ephesus in 449, Leonides, who was a signatory of the joint letter that the bishops of Lydia sent in 459 to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian with regard to the murder of Proterius of Alexandria, and Basilius and Clemens, who were at the Council of Constantinople (879), presumably one of them ordained by Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople, the other by Photius.[1][2]

Bagis must have disappeared as a residential see during the Turkish-Byzantine wars, perhaps in the 12th century, although it continued to be listed in Notitiae Episcopatuum.[1] No longer a residential bishopric, Bagis is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[5]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Raymond Janin, v. Bagé, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. VI, 1932, col. 201
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Sophrone Pétridès, "Bageis" in Catholic Encyclopedia (New York 1907)
  3. ↑ Asia Minor Coins - Roman coins from ancient Bageis
  4. ↑ Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, p. 486
  5. ↑ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 845

Coordinates: 38°39′56″N 29°09′28″E / 38.66556°N 29.15778°E