Lambaesis

LAMBAESIS. - In Numidia (present-day Algeria) on the Aurès, on the Roman road toward the desert. It was the seat of the III Augusta legion from the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. until the Diocletianic age.

Already by the middle of the 3rd century L. had its bishop; apart from the heretic Privatus, who was deposed, the bishop Januarius took part in 256 in the Council of Carthage. At L. in 258 the Sts. Marian and James (v.) were martyred.

Their names also appear in the inscription carved on the rock near Constantine (v.). The martyrs Lucian, Felix and 36 others, however, whom the Martyrology lists under 23 February at L., are not from that city. S. Gsell described a Christian chapel (m. 20 × 11.75), with three naves, found in a cemetery of L.; it had a raised apse and beneath the altar were two tombs (Monumenta antiques de l'Algérie, II, Paris 1901, p. 220, fig. 128). In the Museum of L. the front part of a Christian sarcophagus is noteworthy, on which are roughly carved, from left to right, between two spiral columns, a laurel wreath with a flower in the middle; a vase with a double handle; a shepherd with a ram on his shoulders, with the characteristic thick African tail (R. Cagnat, Musée de Lambèse, Paris 1895, pl. 7).

Two architectural fragments are also preserved, with the monogram of Christ between the two apocalyptic letters, and a votive and dedicatory inscription that begins: « in n(omine) Domini N(ostr)i Crist(i) » and ends: « in Cristo vivas ut in me (lius crescas) » (CIL, 8, 18488).