MADAUROS (MDAOUROUCH). - In Algeria, from the end of the 1st century a Roman colony of veterans with the name Colonia Flavia Augusta Veteranorum. It was part of Numidia until the 3rd century A.D. It was the birthplace of Apuleius, and St. Augustine studied grammar there (Confess., 1, 13, 21; 19, 30). Christianity established itself there very early, as its four martyrs attest (v. below).
It was an episcopal see. Among its bishops are known Placentinus, mentioned in the acts of the Conference of Carthage of 411, a fragment of whose epitaph has been recovered (P. Monceaux, in Comptes-Rendus de l'Acad. des Inscriptions et belles lettres, 1915, p. 32), and Pudentius of 484. M. was still largely pagan at the time of St. Augustine (Ep. 232 ad Madaurenses idololatros: PL. 33, 1025-29).
To the northwest of the settlement a Christian basilica surrounded by tombs has been found. In the Byzantine fortress built by Solomon, around the year 539, the bilingual inscription with Greek crosses remains (CIL, VIII, 1686). Among the rich Christian epigraphic harvest are remembered: the epitaph of a priest Donatianus, who died in 540 at M., «per fide catolica... relegatus» in exile (S. Gsell, Inscriptions latines d'Algérie, I, Paris 1922, no. 2759), like his colleague Liberatus (loc. cit., no. 2760); they perhaps belonged to the clergy of Carthage, like «Flavianus presbiter, serbus Dominicus sedis Kartaginensis» of the year 539 or 540; of a Peregrinus «presbiter religionis catolicae» (no. 2762); of a Theodore deacon, killed «a Mauris», between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th century (loc. cit., no. 2764). Characteristic are the epitaphs of a Felix, preceded by the letters I P & A M, variously interpreted (loc. cit., no. 2774); and of Caecilius Aemilianus, veteran «catholicae legi fidelissima mente inserviens» (loc. cit., no. 2766).
Bibliography4 works
Enrico Josi
THE MARTYRS OF MADAUROS
This is the designation for four African martyrs: Namphano, Miggin, Sanam and Lucitas, whose cult is attested by a letter from the pagan rhetor Maximus to St. Augustine.
From the text of the letter in which Namphano is called "archimartyr," some have thought that the four, or at least the first, were the protomartyrs of Africa; there is, however, no proof of this. On the other hand, the opinion that they were fanatical Donatists executed in the 4th century for having taken part in the crimes of the Circumcellions is even less proven. In fact, Namphano and Miggin are commemorated in the Martirologio geronimiano, on 18 December and on 16 May and 15 June respectively. St. Augustine, moreover, in the letter replying to Maximus, while defending the Punic character of the name Namphano, makes no mention — and he could have done so — of the alleged heresy of the martyrs.
Bibliography6 works
Agostino Amore