IPPONA. — City near the Mediterranean coast, in Numidia (North Africa), today situated 2 km southwest of present-day Bona in Algeria.
It was a Phoenician colony; its name Hippo Regius has been in use since the time of Julius Caesar, creator of the Kingdom of Numidia; Augustus made it a Roman municipium, Trajan a colony. But even at the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th, some of its inhabitants spoke Punic, and St. Agostino was obliged to seek priests who could speak II.
Christianity flourished there from the middle of the 3rd century, as attested by its bishops and two groups of martyrs. It was plagued by the Manichaeans and the Donatists, against whom St. Agostino fought strenuously. It was attacked by the Vandals, who entered it in 430, and Genseric remained there until 439, when he conquered Carthage. Justinian recovered it in 533 through the conquest of Belisarius. The Arabs abandoned I. and settled by the sea where Bona now stands.
The known bishops of I. are: Theogenes in 256, present at the Council of Carthage; Leontius ca. 303, who built the Basilica called Leontiana (St. Agostino, Sermones, 260 and 262; P. Monceaux, Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique, III, Paris 1910, p. 152); Florentius or Fidentius, one of the twenty martyrs during the Diocletian persecution (St. Agostino, Sermones, 148, 325-26; De civitate Dei, XXII, 8, 4); Valerius in 388; St. Agostino (393-430). The bishops of I. after the Vandal invasion and during Byzantine rule are unknown.
St. Gsell, from the works of St. Agostino, has derived information about the following churches existing in I. (Monuments antiques de l'Algérie, II, Paris 1901, pp. 212-14).
The Basilica maior (St. Agostino, Serm., 325), also called the Basilica Pacis (id., Ep. 213). It had a raised apse (De civitate Dei, 22, 8, 22); nearby was the Chapel of the protomartyr Stephen, with his relics beneath the altar (Serm., 318).
The Basilica Leontiana, founded by the same bishop and martyr, Leontius (Sermones, 260 and 262).
The Chapel ad viginti martyres (De civitate Dei, 22, 8), whose memory «est apud nos celeberrima», St. Agostino states (ibid., 148), held «ad sanctos viginti martyres» (PL 38, 799), as did the other two Sermones 325 and 326 (ibid., 1447 and 1449), and the Sermo in honor of St. Eulalia (G. Morin, in Miscellanea Agostiniana, I, Rome 1930, p. 595). Of the twenty martyrs, St. Agostino recalls only the names of the bishop Florentius or Fidentius and of Valeriana and Victoria; the others, whose names are recorded in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 15 November (p. 600, n. 9), although betraying their African origin, cannot certainly be shown to belong to the same group.
The Basilica ad octo Martyres (Serm., 356, 10).
In the vicinity of I., St. Agostino also mentions: a Memoria martyrum (De civit. Dei, 22, 8, 19); a chapel dedicated to the ss. Gervasius and Protasius in the locality of Victoriana Villa (ibid., 8, 7); an oratory containing earth from the Holy Sepulchre at Fussula (ibid., 8, 6); a basilica at Hasna whose altar the circumcellions demolished (Ep., 29, 12); a church at Andurus with relics of St. Stephen (De civitate Dei, 22, 8, 15).
Finally, from St. Agostino we learn of the existence of a monastery founded by him (Serm., 355, 2); of the domus episcopii (ibid.); of two other male monasteries (ibid., 356, 10 and 15); and of one or more female monasteries (Ep., 211). On 28 August 392 he also held his controversy with the Manichaean presbyter Fortunatus in balneis Sossii, praesentia populi (PL 42, 111-12).
Very little is so far known of the ancient Christian monuments of I., and until 1949 discoveries had been limited to Christian funerary inscriptions known through manuscripts, such as the acrostic inscription of the deacon Nabor, killed by the Donatists (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 4th series, 4 [1886], pp. 8-10; P. Monceaux, Enquête sur l'épigraphie chrétienne d'Afrique, in Revue archéol., 4th series, 7-8 [1906], p. 473, n. 191), and one by a poet contemporary with St. Agostino (P. Monceaux, ibid., p. 473, n. 192); or to sporadic discoveries (St. Gsell, Les inscriptions latines de l'Algérie, I, Paris 1922, pp. 1-9 and 393).
One must also mention ampoules bearing the image of the martyr Menas (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 5th series, 5 [1894], p. 56); a fragment of a comb with Damele among the lions (J. Straygowski, Der Algerische Damstianum, in Oriens Christianus, new series, 1 [1911], pp. 83-87); and a group of jewels from the Vandal period (J. de Baye, Bijoux vandales des environs de Bane, in Mém. de la Soc. nation. des antiquaires de France, 48 [1887], pp. 179-82).
Only in 1949, through a report by R. Leschi, director of the Monuments of Algeria, was news received of the discovery of a three-aisled Christian building dating from the Vandal period or earlier and subsequently reused by the Arians. The floor is covered with a mosaic containing numerous Christian funerary inscriptions; among them, one in marble contains the epitaph of a Suevian woman (Suaba) named Ermengon, wife of an Ingomar.