Barbalissos
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Barbalissos was a city in the Roman province of Mesopotamia, now in Syria.
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[edit] History
It was a city in the Provincia Augusta Euphratensis, where the Equites Dalmatae Illyriciani (a cavalry unit recruited in the Balkans) kept garrison (Notit. Dignitat. Orientis, ed. Boecking, 88, 389).
In 253 it was the site of the Battle of Barbalissos between the Sassanid Persians under Shapur I and Roman troops.
Byzantine Emperor Justinian raised anew its walls (Orocop., Deaedific., II, 19; Malalas, Chronograph., XVIII, in Migne, P.G., XCVII, 676).
[edit] Ecclesiastical history
At an early date it was a suffragan of Hierapolis, a metropolis in the Patriarchate of Antioch. Its bishop Antonius was present at the Council of Nicaea (325); two other bishops, Aquilinus and Marinianus, are known between 431 and 451 (Lequien, II, 949). The see is still mentioned in the sixth century.
From 793 to 1042 five Jacobite bishops are known bearing this title (Revue de l'Orient chretien, VI, 191).
As of 1913, it remained a Roman Catholic titular bishopric in the former Roman province of Mesopotamia.
[edit] Ruins
Its site is marked by the ruins at Qala'at Balis, which partly retains the old name, south of Tell Meskene, in modern Syria on the road from Aleppo to Soura, where the Euphrates turns suddenly to the east. The spellings Barbarissos and Barbairissos in later "Notitiae" are wrong; so is Barbaricus campus in Procopius (De bello Persico, II, 99). Lequien (I, 407) wrongly gives Barbalissus as synonymous with Balbisse, another bishopric in Cappadocia, known only in 1143.
[edit] Source
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia, so may be out of date, or reflect the point of view of the Catholic Church as of 1913. It should be edited to reflect broader and more recent perspectives. [1]
