THAPSnS
556
THAYER
Congress, recommended Thursday, 26 November,
1789, to the people of the United States "as a day of
public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by
acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and
signal favours of Almighty God". This proclama-
tion exhorted the people to "beseech Him to pardon
our national and other transgressions, to promote the
knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue,
and to grant unto all mankind such a degree of tem-
poral prosperity as He alone knows to be best". It
was the first observation of the day on the date that
present custom holds it. In 1817 Thanksgiving Day
was first officially noticed in New York State, and by
1859 its observance had spread to twenty-eight states
and two territories. In 1863 President Lincoln made
his first proclamation, naming the last Thursday of
November as a day of national observance, which
day President Johnson also selected in 1867 and
President Grant in 1870. Since then there has been
no change, the last Thursday in November being
named in each year's proclamation. Catholic recog-
nition of the day by special religious features has only
been of comparatively recent date and not as yet
(1911) of official general custom. Historians of the
day attempt to trace the origin of Governor Brad-
ford's idea (1621) back to the old Hebrew Feast of
the Tabernacles and through the ages to the ancient
Greek Harvest Feast, Thesmophoria, the Roman
Cerealia, and the English Harvest Home. In the
Dominion of Canada the governor-general by proc-
lamation sets aside the last Monday in October as a
legal hohday for the purpose of acknowledging God's
providence and expressing the nation's dependence on
His bounty.
ScHAtiFFER, Thanksgiving (New York, 1907); Hodgh. Procla- mations for Thanksgiving (Albany, 1S58) ; Love, The Fasts and Thanksgiving Dags of New England (Boston, 1895); America (New York, 19 Nov.. 1910), files.
Thomas F. Meehan.
Thapsus, a titular see in Byzacene Africa. It was a Phoenician market on the coast of Byzacium in Africa Propria, established near a salt lake on a point of land eighty stadia from the Island of Lopadussa, confronting it, between Leptis Minor and Sullectum, and had both military and trading ports. In 46 B. c. it was the scene of the defeat by Caesar of the generals of Pompey and King Juba. He exacted of the van- quished a payment of ."iO.OOO sesterces. Thapsus then became a Roman colony. Vigilius, the only known bishop, assisted at the assembly convoked at Carthage in 484 by King Huneric and was exiled by the latter with his colleagues. He is the author of several con- troversial works against the Arians and the Euty- chians (see Vigilius). The ruins of Thapsus are lo- cated at Ras Dimas, near Bekalta in Tunisia. They consist of the remains of a mole, a fortress, an amphi- theatre, and large cisterns; in the neighbourhood there is a Punic necropolis.
Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (London, 1878), 8. v.; MijLLER, Notes to Geographi grtEci minores, ed. DiDOT, I (Paris, 1882), 88, 469; TonLETTE, Giographie de V Afrique chrHienne, Byzackne et Tripolitaine (Montreuil, 1894), 201.
S. P^TBIDfcs.
Thasos, a titular see in Macedonia, suffragan of Thessalonica. The island of Thasos was anciently known under many names, such as iEria, jEthra, and, on account of its gold mines, Chrysos. Its fir.st known inhabitants were the Phtrnicians, whom the Greeks supplanted. The latter extended the jjrosperity of the i.sland, which had a powerful navy and founded many colonies — Parium, Datos (afterwards Philippi), and others. After having repulsed, in 494 B.C., an at- tack by Histiicus of Miletus, Thasos surrendered in 492 n. c. to Xerxes, who took its navy and exhausted tlu^ island with the taxes he levied. After the defeat of the Persians, Thasos joined the Confederation of Delos, but, having quarrelled with Athens, was de-
feated by sea and by land and, completely ruined by
its rival, became its tributary in 46.5 b. c. Polyg-
notus, the celebrated painter, a native of Thasos,
then followed the Athenians. The island passed from
the dominion of Athens to that of Sparta, then again
to that of Athens, and at last became a Macedonian
possession. The Romans gave it back its independ-
ence in 197 B. c, until it was annexed to the Roman
Empire and included in the Province of the Islands.
Le Quien (Oriens chri.stianus, II, 87) mentions only
one bishop, Honoratus, who was present at Chalcedon
in 451. Alexander, in the eighth century, is known
by an inscription (Echos d'Orient, IV, 93). At least
as early as the tenth century, Thasos was a suffragan
of Mitylene (Gelzer, "Ungedruckte . . . Texte der
Notitia; Episcopatuum", 559); under Manuel Palaeo-
logus (1391-1425) it was raised to the rank of an au-
tocephalous archbishopric (Gelzer, op. cit., 613). The
rehcs of the holy martyrs Mark, Sotericus, and Valen-
tina, venerated on 24 October, were brought thither.
The Patriarch St. Nicephorus lived as an exile there
under Leo the Armenian.
The Venetians took Thasos in 1204, and it was given to the Dandolo family; the Greeks afterwards recaptured it, and it was then occupied by the princes Gateluzi of Lesbos, and finally conquered by Mo- hammed II, in 1462. In 1S41 the Sultan Mahmoud II granted its revenues to Mehomet Ali, Khedive of Egypt, who introduced a garrison of Egyptians into the island; but the Turks reoccupied it in 1908, and Egypt now (1911) receives only the revenues, accord- ing to the terms of the treaty of 1841. The island constitutes a caza depending upon the sanjak of Drama and the vilayet of Salonica. It is fertile and well timbered, and has an area of 100 square miles and a population of 18,000, all Greek schismatics.
Lacroix, lies de la Grice (Paris. 1853), 372-6; Hasselbach, De insula Thaso (.Marburg, 1S30); Prokesch d'Osten, DelV isola di Taso in Dissertazioni delta pontificia academia romana di archeologia, VI (Rome, 1835), 181 sq.; Miller. Le Mont Alhos, Vatopedi, I' tie de Thasos (Paris, 1889) ; CniNET, La Turquie d'Asie, I (Paris. 1892), 524-528.
S. Vailh^.
Thaumaci, a titular see in Thessaly, suffragan of Larissa, commanding the defile of Coele at the en- trance to the Thessalonian plain. Vainly besieged in 198 B. c. by Phihp, it was taken in 191 by the consul Acihus Glabrio in the war against Antiochus. The Greeks call it to-day Domokos; it is the chief town of the demos of Thaumakoi, and a well-fortified place; it has 1600 inhabitants, and is beautifully situated on a rock crowned by a medieval fortress, west of which are some old walls. During the last Greco-Turkish war, in 1897, it was the final halting-place of the van- quished Greek army. We do not know if Thaumaci was a bishopric whilst Thessaly owned allegiance to the pope; in any case, when Illyricum, in 732, was with- drawn from the pope's jurisdiction by the emperors of Constantinople, this city became a suffragan of La- rissa. In 1882, during the annexation of Thessaly to Greece, the diocese became dependent upon the auto- cephalous Church of the Kingdom of Greece. After a while the diocese was suppressed by the new organiza- tion of this Church (1899). Le Quien, "Oriens cliris- tianus", II, 127, names only three bishops of Thau- maci from the sixieenth to the eighteenth century; it would be easy to augment this list. After the Frank- i.sh conquest in the tliirteentli century, Thaumaci be- came a Latin bi.shopric, :mu1 four of its titularies are mentioned: Gualo, 120S Marcus Morellus, about 1334; John, d. 1366; and another John, a Franciscan monk, who replaced him.
Le Quien, Oriens chrislianus. III. 981. 1123; Eibel, Hierarchia catholica medii oevi, 1, 233.
S. PiTKinfes.
Thayer, John', missionary, convert, first native of New England ordained to the priesthood, b. at Bos-
