Quiza Xenitana

This article is about a colony of the Roman empire. For the Mongolian rap musician, see Quiza (rapper).
Map showing "Quiza", just west of Cartennas, on the coast of Mauretania Caesariensis

Quiza, which Pliny the Elder called Quiza Xenitana,[1] was a minor city or colony in Roman Africa, located in the late Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis.

History

Quiza Cenitana was a place located on the coast of Mauretania Caesariensis. Various ancient authors refer to it by different terms - colonia (Ptolemy), municipium (Antonine Itinerary), and oppidum (Pliny the Elder). Pleiades

Probably a small berber village with Phoenician roots, Quiza grew under the Roman empire: it is recorded that emperor Hadrian built in this city an arch around 120 AD.

William Smith identified Quiza with Giza near Oran, Algeria.[2] More recent investigations have identified it with present-day El-Benian on the coast road between Mostaga and Dara.[3][4][5]

In his Natural History, 4.2.3., Pliny the Elder: writes: "Next to this is Quiza Xenitana, a town founded by strangers"; a remark explained because the word Xenitana is derived from Greek ξένος, "a stranger",[6] as explained also by Victor Vitensis.[7] The town is mentioned also by Pliny elsewhere (5.2), by Ptolemy, and by Pomponius Mela.[2]

Bishopric

Quiza is also a Titular See of the Christianty. Quaestoriana was in the ecclesistical provence of Byzacena.[8]

At the Conference of Carthage in 411, which brought together Catholic and Donatist bishops, Quiza was represented by the Catholic Priscus, who had no Donatist counterpart. He is mentioned also in a letter of Saint Augustine to Pope Celestine I.[9] Tiberianus of Quiza was one of the Catholic bishops whom the Arian Vandal king Huneric summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled. In addition, the name of a Bishop Vitalianus appears in the mosaic pavement of the excavated basilica of Quiza.[10][11][12]

Bishops

No longer a residential bishopric, Quiza is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[13]

Bishop Flores of San Diego.

References

  1. ↑ This is sometimes mistakenly written Quiza Cenitana
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854)
  3. ↑ Marietta Horster, Bauinschriften römischer Kaiser (Franz Steiner Verlag 2001 ISBN 978-3-51507951-8), p. 434
  4. ↑ Wolfram Letzner, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (LIT Verlag 2000 ISBN 978-3-82585041-8), p. 45
  5. ↑ Herbert Cancick et al. (editors), Brill's New Pauly (Brill 2006 ISBN 978-9-00412272-7), p. cxcv
  6. ↑ John Bostock, H.T. Riley (editors), The Natural History of Pliny (Henry G. Bohn, 1855) vol. 1, p. 385
  7. ↑ Thierry Ruinart (editor), Historia persecutionis Vandalicae (1699), p. 344
  8. ↑ Quiziensis at CatholicHeirachy.org.
  9. ↑ Augustine, Letter 209
  10. ↑ J. Mesnage, L'Afrique chrétienne, Paris 1912, p. 484
  11. ↑ Stefano Antonio Morcelli, Africa christiana, Volume I, Brescia 1816, p. 260
  12. ↑ Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 467
  13. ↑ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 957

Bibliography

See also