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The Catholic Encyclopedia

Thermae Basilicae

3 sections

Charles G. Herbermann and others (editors)

Transcribed from a dated scan; artifacts may remain. Edition notes

Thermæ Basilicæ, a titular see in Cappadocia Prima, suffragan of Cæsarea. The Greek “Notitiæ Notitize episcopatuum” down to the thirteenth century describe the see as the first suffragan of Caesarea. Perhaps there was a bishop from the time of St. Basil; in any case four others are mentioned: Firminus, present at the Council of Chalcedon, 451; Photinus, at the Council of Constantinople, under the patriarch Gennadius (459); Musonius, exiled by Justin I, about 518; Theodore, present at the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, 681, and at the Council in Trullo, 692 (Le Quien, “Oriens christ.”, I, 389). This see is evidently the city which Hierocles (Synecdemus, 699, 2) names Therma, and which he places in Cappadocia Prima under the Caesarean metropolis. It may quite probably be identified with Aquae Sarvenae, which the “Tabula” of Peutinger places on the road between Tavium and Caesarea, the same, doubtless, as Sarvena, a city described on an inscription and by Ptolemy (V, 6, 12). This would be to-day Terzili Hammam, a village about twenty hours north of Caesarea, a vilayet of Angora, where there are hot mineral sulphur waters, still frequented. A part of the building containing the baths is of Roman construction; a Christian inscription has been found thereon. Therma, which the ‘“Itinerarium Antonini”, 204, places also on the road from Tavium to Caesarea, must be Iamush Pisheren Sou, a mineral spring to the north of Kir Shehir.

Ramsay in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, VII (Paris, 1883), 302 sq.; IDEM, Asia Minor (London, 1890), passim; MtLER, ed. DIDOT, Notes on Ptolemy, I, 854, 876.

S. Pétridès.

Trans. None. Written in English by the contributors whose signatures close each article., The Catholic Encyclopedia, An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church, in fifteen volumes, 1907-1912. Public domain.

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