ADRUMETUM. - An agricultural and commercial center in Byzacena, today Sussa (French Sousse) in Tunisia. It was called for some time Hunuricopolis and then Iustinianopolis, after having been taken first by Huneric, then by the Byzantines.
Tertullian mentions 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 12 others, Arontius and, under the Vandals, Felix and Victorianus. Its bishop was the learned Primasius. 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 itself only a Byzantine chapel has been found, in the area of the souks.
To the southwest of the city a group of underground Christian cemeteries has been discovered, dug into the limestone rock of the hills of Kalaa Srira, where there is also an open-air pagan necropolis. The first investigations date back to the end of 1888; following regular excavations they were illustrated in 1910 by the then parish priest of Sussa, Msgr. A. F. Leynaud (Les Catacombes Africaines, Sussa-Adrumeto 1910, 1922, 1937).
The "catacomb of the Good Shepherd," so called from an image engraved on the marble slab closing a tomb, has a linear extent of over 1750 m., with 105 galleries, and is rich in 139 inscriptions: two in Greek, the others in Latin, one in mosaic, 15 on stone slabs, the remaining ones 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 cross, the monogram P. The deceased are commemorated in the nominative followed by hic dormit or in pace.
Another catacomb is called "of Hermes," from the name set in mosaic in the floor of a cubiculum. It is dug along the track of the Uadi Laya, near the Roman necropolis, and was explored between 1907 and 1909. It results from the fusion of three hypogea, originally with separate stairways; it has an extent of nearly 550 m.; it contains 2061 loculi and about 500 tombs in the floor. A cistern was used and 184 burials were made in it; a pagan hypogeum was also used, containing a mosaic cubiculum with fishing scenes. The inscriptions are all in Latin: one in marble, eight in mosaic, the others scratched or painted. Of a little girl 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 epitaph Seberum cum pace in Deo. The exploration dates from the years 1910-17. It extends 1767 m. of galleries with 3783 loculi in the walls and about 1000 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; besides the equilateral cross there is also the monogram * either isolated or within a crown.
Leynaud also described another hypogeum found in 1907, which he called the "catacomb of Agrippa" because of the inscription placed by a L. Septimius Agrippa for his son. It is located near the one called that of the Good Shepherd; it contains 18 galleries with about 172 tombs; eight marble inscriptions were found there, all with the dedication Dis manibus, either in full or abbreviated, but there is no Christian character either in the formulary 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). - See Pl. XXV.
