ADRUMETO. – An agricultural and commercial centre in Byzacena, today Sousse (French *Sousse*) in Tunisia. For a time it was called Hunericopolis and then Iustinianopolis after being taken first by Huneric and later 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 twelve others, Arontius, and under the Vandals, Felix and Victorianus. Its learned bishop was 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). Only one Byzantine chapel has been found in the city, in the area of the *souks*.
To the southwest of the city a group of underground Christian cemeteries has been discovered, carved into the limestone hills of Kalaa Srira, where there is also an open-air pagan necropolis. The first investigations date to the end of 1888; subsequent systematic excavations were described in 1910 by the then parish priest of Sousse, Monsignor A. F. Leynaud (*Les Catacombes Africaines*, Sousse-Adrumeto 1910, 1922, 1937).
The “Catacomb of the Good Shepherd,” so named from an image engraved on the marble slab sealing a tomb, has a linear development of over 1,750 m., with 105 galleries, and contains 139 inscriptions: two in Greek, the rest in Latin, one in mosaic, fifteen on stone slabs, the others 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, and the monogram 3. The deceased are commemorated in the nominative followed by *hic dormit* or *in pace*.
Another catacomb is called “of Hermes,” from the name marked in mosaic on the floor of a cubiculum. It is dug along the track of the Oued Laya, near the Roman necropolis, and was explored between 1907 and 1909. It results from the merging of three hypogea originally with separate staircases; it has a development of nearly 550 m.; it contains 2,061 loculi and about 500 floor tombs. A cistern was used and 184 burials were made there; a pagan hypogeum containing a cubicolo with mosaic scenes of fishing was also utilized. All the inscriptions are in Latin: one in marble, eight in mosaic, the others scratched or painted. Of a girl named *Florentia* it is said *Dei opulo fidelis*, *mente consociata Deo*; the greeting *in pace* is frequent.
The “Catacomb of Severus” near the track of Akouda takes its name from the inscription *Seberum cum pace in Deu*. Exploration took place in the years 1910–17. It extends for 1,767 m. of galleries with 3,783 loculi in the walls and about 1,000 floor tombs. It has 47 inscriptions, of which three are in Greek, twenty-five on marble, twelve in mosaic, and ten scratched.
Among the symbols are the fish and the dove; besides the equilateral cross there is also the monogram \( \mathcal{R} \), either isolated or within a crown.
Leynaud also described another hypogeum discovered in 1907, which he called the “Catacomb of Agrippa” because of the inscription placed by a L. Septimius Agrippa for his son. It is situated near the one called the Good Shepherd; it contains 18 galleries with about 172 tombs; eight marble inscriptions were found there, all with the dedication *Diis 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). – See Plate XXV, Enrico Josi.