Zattara was a
Roman municipality. Its stone ruins cover an area of fifteen hectares, hemmed in by the foothills of Kef Rih-west Hills and bounded on one side by a deep
wadi ravine. A necropolis was also situated to the west. The edifices were destroyed in Roman times, but rebuilt by the
Byzantines.
There are many inscriptions at Zattara.[2] Among these inscriptions is an important one attesting to its status as a municipium, which reads municipii Zat(taresis) porticu et rostris.[3][4]
Bishopric
The town was also the seat of an ancient
bishopric in the province of
Numidia.[5] It was founded around 400AD but ceased to effectively function with the coming of Islam in the 7th century. The see was nominally refounded in 1927[6] and remains a
titular today.[7][8][9][10]
Gennaro or Januarius (fl 484) participated in the
Council of Carthage (484) under the Vandal king
Huneric and was one of the four prelates who presented the Arian king of the profession of the
Catholic-faith African bishops.
^J. Mesnage, L'Afrique chrétienne, (Paris 1912), p. 398.
^H. Jaubert, "Anciens évêchés et ruines chrétiennes de la Numidie et de la Sitifienne" (Recueil des Notices et Mémoires de la Société archéologique de Constantine, vol. 46, 1913), p. 105.
^Stefano Antonio Morcelli, Africa christiana, Volume I, (Brescia 1816), p. 188
^Serge Lancel, Saint Augustine (Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd, 2002)
p251.
^Henri Irénée Marrou, André Mandouze, Anne-Marie La Bonnardière, Prosopographie de l'Afrique chrétienne (303–533) p443.