Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Bageis

by Sophron Pétridès

A titular see of Lydia in Asia Minor. This name is found on coins, but becomes Bagis in the Synecdemos of Hierocles and Bage in later "Notiti æ gracæ episcopatuum". Bageis takes the epithet Cæsarea and names the River Hermos on its coins. It has been placed by Keppel's inscriptions near Sirghe on the Hermos (Guediztchai); but the site of the city is said to be on the north bank, while Sirghe is on the south side of the river. Harnack (Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, 486) maintains that its bishop was present at Nicæa, but this is an error caused by a confusion with Baris, another Lydian city; the lists edited by H. Gelzer and C. H. Turner are silent about Bageis. We know really only three bishops of Bageis: Chrysaphius, or Chrysanthus, at Ephesus (431), placed wrongly by Lequien in a non-existent see, Balcea or Balicia; Leonides, who subscribed the letter of the Lydian bishops to the Emperor Leo I (458); Basilius, at the council under Photius (879). The city still figures in a list about 1170-79. The Lydian Bageis, Bagis, or Bage, is not to be confounded with Bagæ in Numidia.

LEQUIEN, Oriens Christ., I, 889; RAMSAY, Hist. Geogr. of Asia Minor, 131.

S. Pétridès.