Thenae
Thenae or Thenai (), also written Thaena and Thaenae, was a Carthaginian and Roman town ("") located in or near Thyna, now a suburb of Sfax on the Mediterranean coast of southeastern Tunisia. Name. The city was founded with the Punic name (), similar to Semitic transcriptions of Tayinat in Turkey. Head also transcribes it as "Thainath". The Punic name was transcribed into Greek as "Thaína" () and Thenae (Θεναί), and into Latin variously as "Thenae", "Thaena", and "Thaenae". Strabo called the town Thena (ἡ Θένα) and Ptolemy called it both Thaina (Θαίνα) and Theaenae (Θέαιναι). At a later period it became a  Roman colony with the name of Aelia Augusta Mercurialis. History. Thenae was founded as a Phoenician colony on the Mediterranean coast of what is now southeastern Tunisia. Along with the rest of ancient Tunisia, it passed into Carthaginian and then Roman control during the time of the Punic Wars. Thenae issued its own bronze coins around the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus, with a female head (either Serapis or Astarte) obverse and a four-columned temple reverse. It also bore the town's name in Punic characters. In the surviving ruins, there are a bath house, a wealthy house  ("), city walls, lower-class housing, and an early Christian basilica. Bishopric. Thenae was the seat of a Christian bishopric during late antiquity. According to a life of StFulgentius, a council was held at Thenae (). There are six documented bishops of the ancient diocese: Today, Thenae survives as a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church. Modern bishops have been: