Donutist Robba.
The rebellious Numidian Amazighe. Amazighe woman, she is the daughter of the plains of Msid (sfisef), close to present-day Sidi Bel Abbes, and the area of Gharis in Mascara. This lady was a follower of Donatus the Great, the leader of the anti-Catholic doctrine in the Numidia region (Algeria).
She was born in 384 AD. She was known for her revolt against the Church of Rome and the presence of the Romans at all. She was assassinated by Catholics on March 25, 434 AD.
The Donatists honored her with the status of mourning for her cathedral in Bunyan near the camp. Mount Rabba in Masid, near Sfisef, reminds us to this day of the story of this revolutionary... in the time of Algeria during its Christian era in the fifth century.
The nun Robba is an Amazigh Donatist martyr nun, sister of Honoratus, bishop of Aquae Sirenses, born in the year 384 and killed in 434 by traditional Catholics. She “deserved the palm of martyrdom and the erection of a basilica” in Ala Miliara (today Beniane, 37 km south-southeast of Mascara, in the wilaya of Mascara in Algeria), between the years 434 and 439. Robba was the symbol of the Donatists.
Archaeological excavations carried out in 1898 by Stéphane Gsell in Beniane (Ala Miliara) in the wilaya of Mascara, revealed the Donatist basilica erected in memory of the nun Robba. The building constituted the eastern part of a fortified enclosure, an important military camp (castra) of Caesarian Mauretania, the largest camp in Africa after that of Lambèse.
According to Maurice Lenoir, the Donatist basilica would be the reuse, or restoration, prior to 422, of the principia (headquarters) of the camp, abandoned by the troops in the 4th century. Seven tombs were found dated by their funerary inscriptions between 422 and 434. Robba's epitaph was depicted on a wall of a central crypt placed under the apse of the basilica.
The other six vaults of Donatist dignitaries are those of:
Bishop Nemessanus, who lived for sixty years, died on December 22, 422.
The nun Julia Geliola, sister of Nemessanus, died on October 7, 422. She lived for fifty years.
The priest Victor died on September 21, 433.
Bishop Donatus died at the age of eighty after the year 439.
Priest Cressens died on February 27, 434 at the age of fifty.
The priest Donatus died on March 11, 446, twelve years after the martyrdom Robba.
The epitaph, taken from the Robba vault by Mr. Rouziès, a teacher in Tizi, is the only epitaph ever found of Donatist martyrs. Stéphane Gsell sent it to the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it was exhibited9. The text is as follows:
“Memory of Robba, servant consecrated to God, sister of Honoratus, bishop of Aquae Sirensis; having succumbed to the blows of the traditors, she deserved the dignity of martyrdom; she lived 50 years and gave up the ghost on the 8th day of the calends of April in the year 395 of the province (March 25, 434) »
Stéphane Gsell notes that this date coincides with the conquest of the region by the Vandals, and the loss of control of the imperial authorities could have caused the resumption of religious disorders, of which Robba would have been a victim.
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