TEMPSA. - Ancient diocese in Calabria. It was a colony of Magna Graecia, founded at the northern extremity of the Gulf of St. Euphemia, near Lampetia or Clampetia.
Since Pausanias recalls it as a maritime city, the thesis of Barrio and others, who identify it with Malveto, cannot be accepted; but its location near Niceto, now S. Lucido, a little south of Paola, may be considered better founded. In order not to fall into the hands of the Bruttians, who were pressing from the Sila hinterland, in the 4th century it accepted the protectorate of Sybaris, then that of Croton, which in 460 was succeeded by that of Locri. Toward the middle of the 4th century it fell into the power of the Bruttians, from whom it was taken by the Romans, who in 194 established a colony of theirs there.
As a seafaring city it must have been one of the first to embrace the Christian faith and to have an episcopal see. L. Duchesne, with others, advances the idea that Maioricus, recalled by a Decretal of Pope Gelasius (492-96), was titular bishop of T. Shortly afterward an Hilary "Tempsanus" took part in the Roman Synods of 501 and 504. In 599 St. Gregory the Great entrusted to its bishop Stephen the visitation of the Church of Thurii, and in 603 he addressed the same man, so that he would promote the transport of timber from the Sila, for the basilica of St. Peter in Rome. At the Roman Synod of 649 Sergius, bishop of T., delivered a speech immediately after the pope St. Martin, and his signature was affixed to the acts immediately after that of the Pontiff. This suggests that the see was of importance or that the bishop was one of the most venerable who took part in that Council. The bishop Abundantius, who subscribed the Synodical letter of Pope Agatho in 679, was chosen as legate of the Pope, together with John of Reggio, to the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. In all the sessions he signed himself "Abundantius humilis episcopus Tempsanae Ecclesiae, provinciae Bruttorum," while in the acts he was recalled as bishop of Paterno. For this reason some have thought that Abundantius had transferred his see to Paterno, that is, to Cremisa, now Cirò, in order to escape the incursions of the barbarians.
In reality it is merely a variant of T., introduced by the Notaries of the Council and carried over into the Latin translation. After 681 there is no further record of the bishopric of T.; John, "Episcopus Tampsi," who appears at the Eighth Ecumenical Council of 869, and who was attributed to T. by De Meo, in reality belongs to Tampsi, a city of Phrygia. T. must have been destroyed by the Lombards or the Saracens in the 8th century. The episcopal see could not have been transferred to Malvito, as some think, because it was too far from it; but to Amantea, as is more natural because this city appears as a suffragan of Reggio in the Diatiposi of Leo VI the Philosopher.
Bibliography8 works
Francesco Russo