Augustamnica or Avgoustamnikai (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

) was a Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

 of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 created during the 5th century and was part of the Diocese of Oriens first and then of the Diocese of Egypt, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 640s. Augustamnica was later used as a suffix for provinces of the modern Catholic Church.

Augustamnica

The province was instituted in tetrarchic

Tetrarchy

The term Tetrarchy describes any system of government where power is divided among four individuals, but usually refers to the tetrarchy instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293, marking the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the recovery of the Roman Empire...

 times with the name of Aegyptus Herculia (for Diocletian's colleague Maximian

Maximian

Maximian was Roman Emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Trier but spent...

) with ancient Memphis

Memphis, Egypt

Memphis was the ancient capital of Aneb-Hetch, the first nome of Lower Egypt. Its ruins are located near the town of Helwan, south of Cairo.According to legend related by Manetho, the city was founded by the pharaoh Menes around 3000 BC. Capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, it remained an...

 as capital (315-325), but later re-merged in Aegyptus. In 341 the province was reconstituted, but the name was changed into Augustamnica to remove pagan connotations. It consisted of the Eastern part of the Nile delta and the ancient Heptanomia, and belonged to the Diocese of Oriens.

Augustamnica was the only Egyptian province under a Corrector

Corrector

A corrector is a person who or object that practices correction, usually by removing or rectifying errors.The word is originally a Roman title corrector, derived from the Latin verb corrigēre, meaning "an action to rectify, to make right a wrong."Apart from the general sense of anyone who corrects...

, a lower ranking governor.

Around 381 the provinces of Egypt become a diocese in their own, and so Augustamnica become part of the Diocese of Egypt. Between 386 and the end of the 4th century the new province of Arcadia, named after Emperor Arcadius

Arcadius

Arcadius was the Byzantine Emperor from 395 to his death. He was the eldest son of Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the Western Emperor Honorius...

, was created with territory from Augustamnica, the Heptanomia; Augustamnica's capital was moved to Pelusium

Pelusium

Pelusium was a city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. Alternative names include Sena and Per-Amun , Pelousion , Sin , Seyân , and Tell el-Farama...

.

From the military point of view, the province was under the Comes limitis Aegypti. According to the Notitia dignitatum

Notitia Dignitatum

The Notitia Dignitatum is a unique document of the Roman imperial chanceries. One of the very few surviving documents of Roman government, it details the administrative organisation of the eastern and western empires, listing several thousand offices from the imperial court down to the provincial...

, the province hosted several military units: the Ala secunda Ulpia Afrorum at Thaubasteos, the Ala secunda Aegyptiorum at Tacasiria, the Cohors prima sagittariorum at Naithu, the Cohors prima Augusta Pannoniorum at Tohu, the Cohors prima Epireorum at Castra Iudaeorum, the Cohors quarta Iuthungorum at Affroditus, the Cohors secunda Ituraeorum at Aiy, the Cohors secunda Thracum at Muson and the Cohors quarta Numidarum at Narmunthi.

Augustamnica I and II

Before 539, Augustamnica was dived into 2 provinces: Augustamnica Prima (First - North) and Augustamnica Secunda (Second - South).

Augustamnica Prima had Pelusium

Pelusium

Pelusium was a city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. Alternative names include Sena and Per-Amun , Pelousion , Sin , Seyân , and Tell el-Farama...

 as metropolis (administrative centre) and was under a Corrector

Corrector

A corrector is a person who or object that practices correction, usually by removing or rectifying errors.The word is originally a Roman title corrector, derived from the Latin verb corrigēre, meaning "an action to rectify, to make right a wrong."Apart from the general sense of anyone who corrects...

, who governed the following cities: Pelusium

Pelusium

Pelusium was a city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. Alternative names include Sena and Per-Amun , Pelousion , Sin , Seyân , and Tell el-Farama...

, Setroithes (or Sethroitis), Tanis, Thmuis

Thmuis

Thmuis is a city of Lower Egypt, on the canal east of the Nile, between its Tanitic and Mendesian branches. In Greco-Roman Egypt, Thmuis replaced Djedet as the capital of Lower Egypt's 16th nome of Kha [ Herodotus ]. The two cities are only several hundred meters apart...

, Rhinocorura, Ostracine

Ostracine

Ostracine is a Roman Catholic Titular bishopric and suffragan of Pelusium in the former Roman province of Augustamnica prima.-History:...

 (or Ostracina), Pentaschoinon, Casium

Casium

Casium is an Catholic titular see. The original see was in Lower Egypt, not far from Pelusium, and near the sandhills known by Greek geographers as Kasion Oros, to-day El-Katieh, or El-Kas....

, Aphnaion, Ephaestos (or Hephaestus), Panephysis, the Tents outside Gerra, the Tents inside Gerra, Thennesus, Panephusis.

It was also home to a number of Catholic titular sees including (but not limited to): Casium

Casium

Casium is an Catholic titular see. The original see was in Lower Egypt, not far from Pelusium, and near the sandhills known by Greek geographers as Kasion Oros, to-day El-Katieh, or El-Kas....

, Damiata

Damiata (titular see)

Damiata is a Catholic and Melkite Greek titular see in Egypt. It corresponds to Damietta, in the Roman province of Augustamnica Prima.Damietta is also, probably since the fifth century, a see for the Monophysite Copts; moreover, one of the non-Catholic Greek metropolitans subject to the Patriarch...

, Hephaestus

Hephaestus (titular see)

Hephæstus was a town in Roman Egypt, in the province of Augustamnica Prima, the eastern part of the Nile Delta.The name Hephæstus is known only from ecclesiastical sources; its Egyptian name and its site are unknown.-Ecclesiastical history:...

, Ostracine

Ostracine

Ostracine is a Roman Catholic Titular bishopric and suffragan of Pelusium in the former Roman province of Augustamnica prima.-History:...

, Phacusa

Phacusa

Phacusa is a Catholic titular see. The original diocese was a suffragan of Pelusium, in Augustamnica Prima.Ptolemy makes it the suffragan of the nomos of Arabia in Lower Egypt; Strabo places Phacusa at the beginning of the canal which empties into the Red Sea; it is described also by Peutinger's...

, Thennesus

Thennesus (titular see)

Thennesus is a Catholic titular see, originally a suffragan see of Pelusium in Augustamnica Prima. It was on the Tanitic branch of the Nile. It is to-day Tell-Tenis, at the extremity of an island in Lake Menzaleh, near the Suez Canal. There are remains, ruins and tombs, of the Roman era.Cassian...

, Thmuis

Thmuis

Thmuis is a city of Lower Egypt, on the canal east of the Nile, between its Tanitic and Mendesian branches. In Greco-Roman Egypt, Thmuis replaced Djedet as the capital of Lower Egypt's 16th nome of Kha [ Herodotus ]. The two cities are only several hundred meters apart...

.

Augustamnica Secunda was home of the titular sees Pharbaetus

Pharbaetus

Sheten or Šetennu, also known by the Greco-Roman name of Pharbaethus or Pharbaetus, was a town in the Nile Delta, capital of the nome of Pharbaethites/Lapt in Lower Egypt....

 and Leontopolis

Leontopolis

Leontopolis or Leonto or Latin: Leontos Oppidum or Egyptian: Taremu, was an Ancient Egyptian city that is known as Tell al Muqdam today.-History:The city is located in the central part of the Nile Delta region...

.

Modern Catholic Church

In 1658, the Catholic Church established the Titular Episcopal See

Episcopal See

An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

 of Heliopolis in Augustamnica in Egypt which lasted until 1935.

In 1854 the church established the Titular Metropolitan See

Episcopal See

An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

 of Leontopolis in Augustamnica, also in Egypt which lasted until 1970.

See also

• Egypt (Roman province)
• Praetorian prefecture of the East
  Praetorian prefecture of the East
  The praetorian prefecture of the East or of Oriens was one of four large praetorian prefectures into which the Late Roman Empire was divided...
  
  
• History of the Catholic Church