Tingis

Tingis

A titular see of Mauretania Tingitana (the official list of the Roman Curia places it in Mauretania Caesarea). Tingis, now Tangier, is an ancient Phoenician town; Greek legend ascribes its foundation to the giant Antaeus, whose tomb and skeleton are pointed out in the vicinity, or to Sophax, son of Hercules and the widow of Antaeus. The coins call it Tenga, Tinga, and Titga, the Greek and Latin authors giving numerous variations of the name. Under the Romans this commercial town became, first, a free city and then, under Augustus, a colony (Colonia Julia, under Claudius), capital of Mauretania Tingitana. Portuguese in the fifteenth century, Spanish in the sixteenth, it became an English possession by the marriage of Charles II with the Infanta Catharine of Portugal. The English vacated it in 1684. When it was bombarded by the Prince de Joinville in 1844, it belonged to Morocco. The natives call it Tandja. It has about 40,000 inhabitants, of whom half are Mussulmans, 10,000 Jews, 9000 Europeans (7500 Spanish). Towards the end of the third century Tangier was the scene of the martyrdom of St. Marcellus, mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on 30 October, and of St. Cassian, mentioned on 3 December. It is not known whether it was a diocese in ancient times. Under the Portuguese domination it was a suffragan of Lisbon, and in 1570 was united to the Diocese of Ceuta. Six of its bishops are known, the first, who did not reside in his see, in 1468. Tangier is now the residence of the prefect Apostolic of Morocco, which mission is in charge of the Friars Minor. It has a Catholic church, several chapels, schools, and a hospital.

SMITH, Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Geogr., S.V.; JORDAO, Memoria historica sobre os bipados de Ceuta e Tanger (Lisbon, 1858); TISSOT, Recherches sur la geographie comparee de la Mauretanie Tingitane (Paris, 1876), 44 sq.; TOULOTTE, Geographie de l'afrique chretienne. Mauretanies (Montreuil, 1894), 247; MULLER, Ptolemy, ed. DIDOT, I, 580.

S. PÉTRIDÈS