Tigisis in Numidia

Under the Roman Empire, Tigisis was a colony in the province of Numidia.[2]

The account in Procopius's History of the Vandal War of an ancient Punic inscription near the town, which read "We fled here from the face of Joshua the Robber, son of Nun",[3] is almost certainly hokum, though it is uncertain whether the passage represents Procopius's own invention, his overly credulous reliance on a local guide, or a garbling of earlier Jewish traditions elsewhere.[4]

The emperor Justinian had Tigisis fortified with a wall and fourteen towers. Known as Tījis during the Islamic middle ages, the city was captured by a Kutama Berber force led by Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i in the winter of 907-908, during the latter's campaign against the Aghlabid emir in Kairouan. Proceeding eastward along the northern of the two main Roman roads to Kairouan, Abu Abdallah's army laid siege to Tijis and eventually got the 500-strong Aghlabid garrison to surrender in exchange for safe passage.[5]

Tijis was later involved in the founding of the Hammadid dynasty: in 1014, the Zirid emir Badis ibn Mansur designated his son al-Mansur as the crown prince and heir to the throne. Attempting to create a principality for al-Mansur, Badis demanded that his governor Hammad ibn Buluggin hand over the cities of Tijis and Constantine. Hammad refused and declared independence by changing the sovereign's name mentioned in the khutba from that of the Fatimid caliph in Cairo to that of the Sunni Abbasid caliph in Baghdad.[6]

The town of Tigisis was the seat of a bishopric during the Roman, Vandal, and Byzantine eras.[7] The persecution under Diocletian appears to have reached its height in Tigisis during February 304.

Although the diocese ceased to function in the early 7th century, a titular continuation (Latin: Tigistanus in Numidia; Italian: Tigisi di Numidia) was established by the Roman Catholic Church in 1933.