FERIANA. — This is the name of the modern village in Tunisia, near which, at the site of Medinet el Kidma, lie the ruins of ancient Thelepte. The city was important especially as a road junction in connection with the military defense of Byzacena, within whose jurisdiction it fell after the Diocletianic reform, and of Numidia: this function persisted into the Byzantine period, when Justinian enclosed it with walls (Procopius, De aedif., VI, 6). Within the Empire it held the rank of a colony, probably from the time of Trajan.
In the history of Christianity, it is already recorded as an episcopal see in 256; other of its bishops appear at the Councils of 401 (at this one, besides a Catholic bishop, there seem to have been two Donatist bishops from the city), of 418, and of 484; it is finally recorded again in the Description orbis Romani of George of Cyprus between the 6th and 7th centuries. Its Christian community thus endured until the time of the Arab invasions; whether it persisted thereafter cannot be said.
Alongside not many remains of pagan monuments (a theatre and baths) and a Byzantine fortress, the city shows the ruins of at least seven churches: four chapels, all generally reduced to a few ruins from which the plan of the original buildings can barely be discerned; nonetheless, the number of these and the size of some of them bear witness to the vigour attained by Christian life in the city. Some churches have adjacent cemetery areas or isolated tombs.
The largest of these, situated at the edge of the Roman settlement, is about 52 m long and 25 m wide, and is preceded by a rectangular forecourt, enclosed and divided into three rooms. Inside it has five naves, the central one separated from the side naves by large square piers with attached columns, and terminates at the far end in an apse; the opening of this seems to have been closed by an architrave on columns, almost like an iconostasis. A fragment of the shaft of one of these columns bears a very low-relief decoration of intertwined vines around a monogram and a chalice between two peacocks; other architectural elements (capitals and corbels) have similar decoration. Attached to the left side of the church is a small apsidal building divided into two rooms: probably a baptistery with its consignatorium. Fragments of decorative terracotta cornices, common in Christian buildings in Tunisia, were found here. The building may be dated to about the mid-5th century.
Another church, right in the centre of the Roman city, seems to have been preceded by a square atrium, a feature very rare in Africa. The interior, about forty metres long, had three naves with an apse and side chapels; noteworthy is the presence of a counter-apse, added later, probably to house the tomb of some venerated person. The first construction of the church may be assigned to the 4th century.
A third basilica resembles the first in size (45 x 18.65 m) and in its internal division into five naves, the central one on columns, the side ones on octagonal piers. It is preceded on the front by a rectangular courtyard and ends in a circular apse inside, polygonal outside; such a form of the apse would suggest that the church is not earlier than the Vandal period, if not actually Byzantine.
Of the other smaller churches, mention should be made of one located outside the city to the south-west, amid a Christian cemetery: in the apse an inscription in mosaic bore the verse of a psalm; another similar inscription was in the presbytery in front of the apse, above a tomb, recording an Antonius et comites, doubtless martyrs buried there, perhaps the same ones noted in the German Martyrology under 10 July. The date of construction of the church may be the 4th century. In the building a small stone column was found, adapted at the top as a basin, perhaps for ablutions. Of the smaller chapels, the most singular is one cut into the rock face on the side of a stream, certainly used for the burial of venerated persons.
St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (458–532) was a native of Thelepte.