Mila is a city in the northeast of Algeria and the capital of Mila Province. In antiquity, it was known as Milevum or Miraeon, Μιραίον and was situated in the Roman province of Numidia.
History
Ancient history
In Ptolemy's Geography, IV, iii, 7, the city is mentioned under the name of Mileum or Mireon. During the Roman era it was called Colonia Sarnensis Milevitana, after the River Sarnus in Campania, whence the colonists had emigrated. This name is often found in the inscriptions of the city. Together with Cirta, Collo and Rusicade, Milevum formed the confederation known as the Four Colonies, the territory of which was very extensive. In the 6th century the Byzantine Emperor Justinian had Milevum enclosed by a fortified wall, which still stands and forms a rampart for the Muslim city of Mila. It has yielded quite a number of Latin inscriptions from this city and a colossal statue of Saturn.
Under Arab Islamic rule
Between 675 and 682 the city have conquered by the Umayyad Arabs commanded by Abu al-Muhajir Dinar. In multiple book mentioned precisely City Mila conquered by Abu Muhajer General Umayyad Dinar in 675 AD in it, says in "The Berbers: study on the conquest of Africa by the Arabs, according to the printed Arabic texts. "Volume 1 by Henri Fournel on page The Mosque Sidi Ghanem of Mila was built around 675 by Abu Muhajer Dnar Dinar In the tenth century AH, historian and geographer Abu Ubayd-Allah Abd Al-Bakri quoted the mosque of Sidi Ghanem as "the first Mila mosque adjoining Dar El Imara" As multiple significant evidence was found of Mila in the Arab period, as standard weight of 745 Umayyad registered with: "'Translation: "In the name of Allah. Among the steps ordered / Emir Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib / Masal ibn Hammad, Wali Mila / twenty ûkîya /" The name of the governor mentioned on the standard is well known: ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn Habīb, the grandson of ‘Uqba ibn al-Nāfī’, who governed the Maghreb between 744 and 754 after returning from Spain, where he had taken refuge following the disastrous battle of Tangiers. In the 11th-century al-Bakri describes Mila population consists of Arabs, people from the millice and males mixed. But according to al-Idrissi it remained in the 11th century that 4000 Kutama Berbers throughout Ifriqiya
Ottoman rule
Finally in the 19th century it was the largest colony Koulouglis of the East-Algeria
French colonial era
According to the scientist and military E.Carette, author of the tribal map of Algeria, and studies "inquiry into the origin and migration of the main tribes of North Africa, particularly of Algeria '"on page there was a Mila 19th century about 800 ethnic Arabs and 800 ethnic Berbers in the city Milevum, modern Arabic name Mila, was under French colonial rule a city in the department of Constantine in Algeria, with in the early 20th century 8000 inhabitants, 400 of whom are Europeans.
Modern history
Constantine department later became Constantine Province after the independence of Algeria, of which Mila was dependent till the creation of Mila Province in 1984. At the 1998 census the city had a population of 59,959.
Ecclesiastical history
Milevum was among the many towns of sufficient importance in the Roman province of Numidia, in the papal sway, to become a suffragan diocese. The historically recorded bishops of this episcopal see were
Pollianus, present at the Council of Carthage called by saint Cyprianus of carthage on the lapsi, Christians who accepted forced pagan sacrificing to avoid martyrdom, himself martyred two years later
St. Optatus, noted for his work De schismate Donatistarum against the Donatist heresy; he died in about 385 and is commemorated on 4 June
Severus, fellow-countryman and correspondent of the above St. Augustine; attended, with his schismatical Donatist counterpart Adeodato, the Council of Carthage of 411, with other African bishops of both sides
Morcelli next list Optatus II, who was probably in fact bishop of Vescera
Two church councils were held at Milevum, one in 402 and the other in 416. The second appealed to Pope Innocent I for repression of the Pelagian heresy. The bishopric is last mentioned, as one of the thirteen subsisting suffragan sees in Numidia, in the Notitiae Episcopatuum'' in the reign of Byzantine emperor Leo VI.
Titular see
The diocese was nominally restored, no later than the 17th century, as Latin titular bishopric of Milevum / Milevi / Milevitan. It has had the following incumbents, mostly of the fitting Episcopal rank, with two archiepiscopal exceptions :
