ADRUMETO. — An agricultural and commercial center in Byzacena, today Sussa (French Sousse) in Tunisia. For a time it was called Hunuricopolis and later Iustinianopolis, after having first been captured by Unneric and then by the Byzantines.
Tertullian recalls two of its martyrs: Maiulus (Ad Scapulam, 3) and Rutilius (De fuga in persec., 5). Later, in 304, there were the martyrs Bonifatius and Thecla with twelve others, Arontius and, under the Vandals, Felix and Victorianus. Its bishop was the learned Primasio. It was the seat of a council for the bishops of Byzacena in the year 347. (P. Monceaux, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne, III, Paris 1905, p. 213). In the city, only a Byzantine chapel has been found, in the area of the souks.
Southwest of the city, a group of underground Christian cemeteries was discovered, excavated in the limestone rock of the hills of Kalaa Srira, where there is also an open-air pagan necropolis. The first investigations date from the end of 1888; following regular excavations, they were illustrated in 1910 by the parish priest of Sussa at the time, Mons. A. F. Leynaud (Les Catacombes Africaines, Sussa-Adrumeto 1910, 1922, 1937).
The “catacomb of the Good Shepherd,” so called because of an image engraved on the marble slab closing a tomb, has a linear extension of more than 1,750 m, with 105 galleries, and contains 139 inscriptions: two in Greek, the others in Latin, one in mosaic, 15 on stone slabs, and the remainder either painted or scratched. Among the symbols are the Good Shepherd (bearded), the fish, the dove, the anchor, the palm, the T, the equilateral and Latin crosses, and the monogram P. The deceased are commemorated in the nominative, followed by hic dormit or in pace.
Another catacomb is called “of Hermes,” after the name marked in mosaic on the floor of a cubiculum. It is excavated along the track of the Wadi Laya, near the Roman necropolis, and was explored between 1907 and 1909. It resulted from the merging of three hypogea, originally having separate stairways; it extends for almost 550 m.; it contains 2,061 loculi and approximately 500 tombs in the floor. A cistern was used, and 184 graves were made in it; a pagan hypogeum containing a mosaic cubiculum with fishing scenes was also utilized. The inscriptions are all in Latin: one on marble, eight in mosaic, and the others scratched or painted. Of a girl named Florentia it is said: Dei opulo fidelis, mente consociata Deo; the wish in pace is frequent.
The “catacomb of Severus,” near the track of Akouda, takes its name from the inscription Seberum cum pace in Deo. Its exploration dates from the years 1910–17. It extends for 1,767 m of galleries, with 3,783 loculi in the walls and approximately 1,000 tombs in the floor. It has 47 inscriptions, of which 3 are in Greek, 25 on marble, 12 in mosaic, and 10 scratched.
Among the symbols are the fish and the dove; in addition to the equilateral cross, there is also the monogram *, either isolated or within the wreath.
Leynaud also described another hypogeum discovered in 1907, which he called the “catacomb of Agrippa,” after the inscription placed by an L. Septimius Agrippa for his son. It is situated near the one called that of the Good Shepherd; it contains 18 galleries with approximately 172 tombs. Eight marble inscriptions were found there, all bearing the dedication Dis manibus, in full or abbreviated form, but there is no Christian character either in the formula or in the decoration of the tombs.
A new Christian hypogeum with arcosolia has recently come to light (cf. Bull. archéol. du Comité de l’Afrique Française [1943], p. xii). — Vedi Tav. XXV.