Ptolemais Hermiou

Ptolemais Hermiou or Ptolemais in the Thebaid was a city and Metropolitan Archbishopric in Greco-Roman Egypt and remains a Catholic titular see.

Today, the city of Al Manshah (or El-Menchiyeh, El-Menchah) in the Sohag Governorate is located where the ancient city used to be.

History

It was established on the west bank of the Nile at the site of the Egyptian village of Psoï in the Thinis nome by Ptolemy I Soter sometime after 312 BCE to be the capital of Upper Egypt,

According to Strabo, it was the largest city in the Thebaid, equal to Memphis in size. It also had its own constitution, an assembly with elected magistrates and judges not unlike a traditional Greek polis. Greek settlers to the city where brought over from the Peloponnese and northern Greece. The city housed temples to Greek and Egyptian gods (Zeus, Dionysus, Isis) as well as a cult for the worship of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. There was also a theater and actor's guild present in the city.

Titular see

The provincial capital and hence Metropolitan archdiocese of the Late Roman province of Thebais Secunda, which had faded, was nominally restored as a Latin Metropolitan titular archbishopric in the late 19th century as Ptolemais antea Syis, renamed simply Ptolemais in 1025, Ptolemais in Thebaide in 1933.