Haidra

HAIDRA. - Arabic name of a small Roman town called Ammaedera or also Ammaedara in an inscription (CIL, 8, 11532), "Ad Medera" in the Antonine Itinerary and in the Peutinger Table, Ammetera by Procopius (De aedif., VI, 6). A Christian inscription from Rome of the 4th century records a Victorina de regione Admederenium (E. Diehl, Inscriptiones christ. latinae veteres, Berlin 1925-31, no. 4454).

It was founded during the Flavian dynasty in the southern part of proconsular Africa, on the road that linked Carthage to Tebessa; it bore the name "Colonia Flavia Augusta emerita Ammaedera." Christianity flourished there from the 3rd century, since its bishop Eugenius was present at the Conference of Carthage of 256; later Speratus attended that of 411; in the Byzantine era the bishop Crescentianus is recorded (CIL, 8, 11645).

Among the monuments of H. relating to Christianity, mention must immediately be made of the marble slab with handles (2.50 × 0.53 m) discovered in 1934 and set up by a "Marcellus illustris" in honor of an imposing group of local martyrs, "qui persecutione Diocletiani et Maximiani divinis legibus passi sunt" (L. Poinsot, in Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques, Feb. 1934, pp. xiii-xviii).

S. Gsell illustrated a group of ruins of five Christian buildings identified at H., namely a Christian building of 21.15 × 8.60 m, in which was found a block of marble with the inscription: "Hic habentur memoriae sanctorum Pantaleonti Iuliani et comitum," of the 5th-6th century (CIL, 8, 10515); a second church in the Byzantine citadel, 13.20 × 5.60 m, with the opening of the hymn "Gloria in excelsis" carved in the apse (ibid., 8, 462), with an adjoining dwelling. A third church with an apse and to the north of the citadel, a fourth, smaller one (8.38 × 8.65 m) to the east of the town, with an adjoining building believed to be a monastery; there in 1934 was found a block of stone, formerly a funerary cippus, in which was hollowed out a receptacle for relics with the inscription: "Hic habentur reliquiae beati martiris et antistis Cypriani depositae a beato Mallo episcopo anno IIII Domini Iustini Imperatoris." It is therefore from the years 568-69; the relics are those of the bishop of Carthage St. Cyprian; and Mellus is the bishop of H. (L. Poinso, Une inscription mentionnant des reliques de st Cyprien, in Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des inscr. et belles lettres, 1934, p. 249 ff.). A fifth church is near the theater (16.50 × 7 m), with a floor formed of funerary inscriptions, among which one from the 14th year of the reign of Thrasamund, that is, of 510-11.

Enrico Josi