Thagora

(Tagora)

Titular see in Numidia, mentioned by the "Rabula Peutingeriana", which calls it Thacora, and by the "Itinerarium Antoninum"; Justinian fortified it. It is now the village of Taoura, near Ain Guettar, about thirteen miles southeast of Souk Ahras (ancient Thagaste), Department of Constantine, Algeria. It has ruins of baths, a church, and the fortress of Justinian, and a number of inscriptions have been discovered. Thagura was the birthplace of St. Crispin, martyred at Theveste (now Tebessa) under Diocletian, whose feast is observed 5 December. It was also the scene of the martyrdom of Sts. Julius and Potamia and ten other martyrs who are likewise commemorated in the Roman martyrology on the same day. The first two figures in the Hieronymian Martyrology and the Calendar of Carthage. Three bishops of Thagura are known: Kanthippus in 401, mentioned in a letter of St. Augustine's; Restitutus, present in 411 at the Conference of Carthage; Timotheus, exiled by Huneric in 484

TOULOTTE, Geographie de l'Afrique chrétienne ; Numidie (Paris 1894), 285-87; DIEHL, l'Afrique byzantine (Paris,1896), 605.

S. Pétridès.