Quiza Xenitana

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 Christianity. 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. 1 2 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

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