IN THE WAKE OF THE ROMAN
The path of the Roman through North Africa was widely strewn with civic
and military monuments as grand as any of the same class elsewhere in
the Western Empire.
One comes to associate the ancient Roman with Gaul, and is no longer
surprised when he contemplates the wonderful arenas of Arles and Nîmes
or the arch and the theatre at Orange. Pompeii and Herculaneum are
classic memories of our school-time days, and we think it nothing
strange that their ruins exist to-day. When, however, we view the vast
expanse of vertical marbles at Timgad in Algeria's plateau of the Tell,
the Prætorium at Lambessa, the great Roman Arch at Tebessa, the
amphitheatre at Djemel, or the ruined portal of Dougga, it all comes so
suddenly upon us that we wonder what nature of a hodge-podge dream we
are living in.
The effect is further heightened when one sees a caravan of camels,
horses, and donkeys, and its accompanying men and women of the desert,
camped beside some noble Roman arch or tomb standing alone above the
desert plain. It is not alone, of course. There are other neighbouring
remains buried round about, or there are still fragments that serve some
neighbouring settlement as a quarry from which to draw blocks of stone
to build anew, as did the builders of certain Italian cathedrals draw
some of their finest marbles from the ruins of old Carthage.
All North Africa is very rich in Roman ruins, and the Arabs are as
interested in these antique remains as are the whitest, longest-bearded
archæologists that ever lived. It is not their love of antiquity that
accounts for this, but the possibility of getting information which will
lead to treasure. Most of these North African Roman ruins were despoiled
of all articles of value by the ancestors of the present Arabs long
before the antiquarians took it into their heads to exploit them; but
the traditional game still goes on.
The Arab of Algeria to-day still looks forward to the time when he may
yet discover a vast buried treasure. Perhaps he may! Who knows?
Tradition and legend all but definitely locate many buried hoards which
have not yet been touched, and any grotto or cavern miraculously or
accidentally discovered may prove a veritable gold mine. The Arab thinks
that this is as sure to happen to him as for the clock to strike twelve
on the eve of the Jour des Rameaux. And that he will tumble on all fours
into the midst of a cavern paved and walled with gold, pearls, and
precious stones.
From Tlemcen on the west (the ancient Pomaria of the Romans, and an
important Roman camp) to Tozeur in the Sud-Tunisien (the site of the
still more ancient Thusuros) is one long, though more or less loosely
connected, chain of relics of the Roman occupation.
At Cherchell are vestiges of an antique Roman port; at Tipaza various
civic monuments; and not far distant the enigmatic "Tombeau de la
Chrétienne." On the coast, to the east of Algiers, is Stora, a port of
antiquity, and Bona (the ancient Hippo-Regius), where the tourist to-day
divides his attentions between the commonplace basilica erected to Saint
Augustin, who was bishop of Hippo-Regius in the fourth century, and the
tomb of the Marabout Sidi-Brahmin, with the balance of appeal in favour
of the latter simple shrine. Modern Christian architecture often
descends to base, unfeeling garishness, whereas the savage
[Illustration: _The Kasba, Bona_]
simplicity of the exotic races often produces something on similar
lines, but in a great deal better taste. Here is where the onyx and
marble basilica at Bona, albeit one of Christendom's great shrines,
loses by comparison with the simple _kouba_ of the Mohammedan holy man.
On the route from Bona to Hippo-Regius (to-day Hippone) is a restored
Roman bridge, so restored indeed that it has lost all semblance of
antiquity, but still it is there to marvel at.
"_Bône la belle!_" the French fondly call the antique city. Bona of
to-day is beautiful as modern cities go, but it is so modern with its
_quais_, its promenades, its esplanade, and its pompous Hôtel de
l'Orient, that one loves it for nothing but its past. The _Kasba_, the
military headquarters on the edge of the town by the shore, piles up
skyward in imposing fortress-fashion and is the chief architecturally
interesting monument of the town itself.
Eastward from Bona, eighty kilometres or so along the coast, is La
Calle, another port of antiquity, the Tunizia of the Romans, and one of
the old French trading-posts on the Barbary coast. There are few ancient
remains at La Calle to-day, but it is one of the most interesting of all
the Algerian coast towns all the same.
La Calle would be worthy of exploitation as a tourist resort if one
could only get to it comfortably as it lies half hidden just to the
westward of the Bastion de France and hemmed in on the south by the
Khoumir region. The road from Bona to La Calle is the worst in Algeria,
and the light railway is very poor. La Calle has become the centre of
the world's coral fishery since the Italians have worked out their own
beds. Out of about 5,000 Europeans, La Calle has quite half of its
population made up of sunny Neapolitans and Sicilians, whose chief
delight is to dive into deep water and bring up coral, or dig a cutting
for a canal or railway. Wherever there is a job of this kind on hand,
the Italian is the man to do it.
The town is very ancient, and its name is derived from the word meaning
dock, or _cale_, hence it is not difficult to trace its origin back to a
great seaport of history. Its commerce has been exploited since 1560 by
Marseillais merchants; but in spite of this it is to-day more Italian
than French.
The coral industry is still great, but here, too, the supply is on the
wane. It has been fashionable for too long a time, in spite of the
traffic in pink celluloid and porcelain, which furnishes most of the
"coral" to kitchen maids and _midinettes_.
With the falling off of the coral industry, the sardine fishery has
developed, and now the little fishes boiled in oil, the universally
popular _hors d'oeuvre_, are as likely to have come from the harbour
of La Calle as the Bay of Douarnenez. They are not so good as the latter
variety (though as a fact the sardine is a Mediterranean fish, only
caught in northern waters because it migrates there in summer), but they
are a good deal better than the Nova Scotia or Norway sardines of
commerce, which are not sardines at all.
From the coast down into the interior Constantine, the Cirta of the
ancients, looms large in the roll-call of antiquity. After the Numidian
kings came Sittius with the backing of Cæsar, and the whole neighbouring
region blossomed forth with prosperous and growing cities, Mileum
(Mila), Chellu (Collo), and Rusicade (Philippeville). Among Cirta's
famous men was Fronton, the preceptor of Marcus Aurelius. In the latter
days of the Empire and under Byzantine domination, Cirta became the
capital of a province, as is the Constantine of to-day.
Constantine's Roman remains are not many to-day. Those of the great
bridge across the Gorge of the Rummel are the principal ones. Various
antique constructive elements are readily traced, but the present bridge
swings out boldly away from the old stone piers, leaving the Roman
bridge an actual ruin and nothing more. Its keystone did not fall until
1858, though probably the actual arch of that time only dated from the
century before, as great works of restoration, perhaps indeed of entire
reconstruction, were then undertaken by Salah-Bey.
[Illustration: SO-CALLED TOMB OF CONSTANTINE]
Near Constantine, on the road to Kroubs, is the absurdly named Tomb of
Constantine, absurdly named because this Græco-Punic monument could
never have been the tomb of Constantine from its very constructive
details, which so plainly mark its epoch. It is nevertheless a very
beautiful structure,--what there is left of it. Moreover it is a
mausoleum of some sort, though the natives call it simply _souma_ or
tower.
[Illustration]
Its ground-plan and its silhouette are alike passing strange, though
plain and simple to a degree.
Another tomb in this province which is one of the relics of antiquity
(over which archæologists have raved and disputed since they got into
competition by expressing their views and printing books about them) is
the tomb of Médracen or Madghasen, on the road from Constantine to
Batna.
It is a great cone of wooden-looking blocks of stone, a sort of
pyramidal cone, with a broad, flat base. At a distance it looks like a
combination of Fingal's Cave and the Pyramid of Cheops.
Supposedly this was a royal mausoleum, the burial-place of Médracen. The
entrance to this really remarkable monument was discovered in 1850, but
only recently has its ground-plan been made public by those secretive
antiquarians who sometimes do not choose to give their information
broadcast.
El Bekri, the Arab writer of the eleventh century, wrote something about
this monument which, being rediscovered in later centuries, led to
investigations which unearthed a monument according to the above plan.
In the interior of the Constantinois, between Constantine and Biskra, in
the midst of that wonderfully fertile plateau of the Tell, are three
magnificently interesting Roman cities, Lambessa, Timgad, and Tebessa.
They are only to be reached from Batna by diligence, by hired carriage,
or by automobile,--if one has one, and cares to take chances on getting
through, for of course there are no supplies to be had _en route_. The
distance from Batna to Tebessa--where one is again in touch with the
railway, a branch leading to the Bona-Guelma line at Souk-Ahras--is
about a hundred and eighty kilometres.
A placid contemplation of one or all of the cities making up this
magnificent collection of Roman ruins in the heart of Africa will give
one emotions that hitherto he knew naught of.
Batna itself is not a tourist point, though an interesting enough place
to observe the native as he mingles with the military and the European
civilization. "Batna-la-bivouac" the city is called, because of the
great military post here. It is not a dead city, but a sleeping one. At
its very gates rises the conical tomb of the Numidian king, Massinissa.
Just before Batna is reached by the railway, coming from El Guerrah, is
Seriana, so known to the Arabs, though the French have recently renamed
it Pasteur, after the illustrious chemist. The site is that of the
ancient Lamiggiga. A dozen kilometres or more out into the plateau lands
to the northwest is Zana, the ancient city of Diana. Here still exist
two great triumphal arches, one of a single bay and the other of three,
the latter constructed by the Emperor Macrin in 217 A.D. A temple to
Diana formerly here has disappeared, but before its emplacement is a
great monumental gateway still in a very good state of preservation.
There are also vestiges of a Byzantine fortress.
From Batna to Lambessa, on the road to Timgad, is a dozen kilometres.
The ruins of the Lambæsis of the Romans are of enormous extent, even
those so far uncovered to view, and much more remains to be excavated.
The Third Legion of Augustus, charged with the defence of North Africa,
here made their camp in the beginning of the second century of our era,
and the outlines of this camp are to-day well defined.
Of the monumental remains, the Prætorium is a vast quadrangular
structure in rosy-red stone most imposingly beautiful. The forum is
plainly marked, and near by are the baths, with their heating-furnaces
yet visible; and the ruined arcades of an amphitheatre crop up through
the thin soil in a surprising manner. The eastern and western gateways
of this vast military camp are still more than fragmentary in silhouette
and outline.
[Illustration: _Lambessa and Its Ruins_]
[Illustration: LAMBESE]
Farther on is a great three-bayed arch built under Septimus Severus and
a pagan temple to Esculapius. The Capitol, in its ground-plan, and with
respect to a great part of its walls, stands proud and magnificent as of
yore. It was dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The ruins of a
Roman aqueduct lie to the south of the Capitol.
To the north, a matter of four kilometres or so, is a pyramidal tomb to
Flavius Maximus, Prefect of the Third Augustan Legion.
Close beside all this buried treasure is the great government
penitentiary. Two thousand Turk, Jew, and Arab thieves and murderers are
there shut up; when they want exercise, they are given a pick and shovel
and set to work as one of the "outside contingent," digging away the
débris of ages from these magnificent Roman ruins. This is the sort of
criminal labour which doesn't affect competition. The _forçats_ of
Algeria accomplish some good in life after all.
Timgad is twenty-five kilometres beyond Lambessa, and, though only the
site of a ruined Roman city, founded under the Emperor Trajan, has hotel
accommodation of a very acceptable, if not luxurious, kind (Hotel
Meille).
One should take a guide, once arrived at Timgad, to save time, otherwise
he may worry it all out with the map herewith.
Sidi Hassin, our guide at Timgad, was a man of medium size, young, thin
and muscular, with an incipient scraggy beard. He was dressed modestly
and even becomingly, for he
[Illustration: TIMGAD]
had not mingled Manchester goods with his _haïk_ and burnous woven in
some Kabyle village. On his head was a little round turban, and his
sandals were laced with leather thongs. He was decidedly a home-made
product. His compressed visage bespoke energy and intelligence, and a
little mocking laugh, a sort of audible smile, was ever on his lips, in
strong contrast to the melancholic indifference of the average Arab.
Sidi Hassin seemed the right sort of a philosopher and friend for our
journey around Timgad, so we took him as soon as he offered his
services. His recommendation for the job was, in his own words, as
follows:
"_Tu es sous le doigt de Dieu et sous le mien! Je réponds de toi. Tu
reviendras sain et sauf._"
Thamugadi was founded by Trajan in the year 100 A.D., the actual labour
being the work of the soldiers of the Third Legion, then encamped at
Lambessa. Thamugadi, a _foyer_ of Roman civilization in a still
barbarous land, was of great importance and wealth. It lived in security
and prosperity until the early part of the sixth century, when it was
destroyed by the Berbers.
More luxuriously disposed even than Lambessa, Timgad presents the very
ideal of a ruined Roman city. It had not, perhaps, the wealth of
Pompeii, and it had not Pompeii's wonderful background of Vesuvius and
the Bay of Naples, but it was more ample and more splendid in its
arrangements than any other ruined Roman city left for tourists to
marvel at to-day.
The French "Service des Monuments Historiques" began excavating Timgad's
ruins in 1881, and now one is able to locate with accuracy the various
civic and military structures. These cover such a large territory that
the city must ever take rank as one of the most interesting ruins
unearthed to this date.
The ground-plan here given explains it all precisely, and the reader is
referred to the "Guide Illustré de Timgad," on sale at the Hotel Meille,
for detailed descriptions which cannot be elaborated here.
A Byzantine fortress, built under Justinian in the sixth century, is
also here. It was an outpost or defence which guarded the pass through
the rock wall of the Aures, from the high plateau of Numidia to the
Lybian Desert to the south. Its thick walls, two metres or more, are
still flanked by eight towers.
From Timgad to Kenchela is some seventy kilometres, and is covered by
diligence once a day, the journey taking twelve hours and costs ten
francs. You pass several _foums_, or springs, and cross several _oueds_
or river-beds on the way, and finally, after a steep climb, you reach
Kenchela, built upon the site of the ancient Mascula, one of the
contemporaries of Lambæsis and Thamugadi.
To-day Kenchela has nothing for the tourist but its Hôtel de France, and
its Monday market, which like other _indigène_ markets is full of
iridescent local colour and life. Near by, on the flank of the
mountains, were Roman baths, known as the Aquæ Flavianæ, passed by on
the road from Timgad. Two huge pools, one round and the other square,
are all that remain to-day.
To reach Tebessa from Kenchela one may take the railway to Ain-Beïda,--a
matter of fifty kilometres. There are no ruins _en route_ except at
Ksar-Baghai, a great Byzantine fortress built by Justinian. Its square
donjon and round towers look like those of the feudal strongholds of
Europe. They are not the least African.
From Ain-Beïda to Tebessa is another eighty-eight kilometres of
well-laid modern roadway. It is covered by a daily diligence in ten
hours, at a cost of fifteen francs.
Tebessa is a worthy rival of Lambessa and Timgad. Its ruins are many
to-day. The most notable ones are Caracalla's Arch of Triumph, a temple
of the same epoch (the beginning of the third century of our era), and
innumerable finds preserved in the local museum. The great arch is a
stupendous and very beautiful work, and the temple worthy to rank with
the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, the svelt proportions and marble Corinthian
columns of which are its chief features.
[Illustration: TEBESSA]
The present city of Tebessa sits in the midst of a vast expanse
scattered with Roman ruins and surrounded by the still existing
Byzantine walls built by one Salomon, a general of the Legion of
Justinian.
These walls have stood for thirteen centuries, restored from time to
time, until now, with the coming of the French, the aspect of the modern
walled city has the disposition given above. Fourteen rectangular
towers, including the massive fortress-gate of Caracalla, add
considerably to the value of the defences.
Not only at Tebessa, but all around for a radius of twenty-five
kilometres, the ground is strewn with old Roman and Byzantine relics;
notably at Morsott, where has recently been unearthed the site of the
ancient Theverte of the Romans. It is entirely a new discovery, and what
great finds may ultimately be brought to light, no one as yet can
conjecture.
Two basilicas have already been brought to the surface, two isolated
mausoleums, a vast monumental gateway, a drinking-fountain of
astonishing proportions, baths, and many beautiful and practically
undefiled mosaics.
These ruins are scattered over an area of seven thousand square metres,
and, almost without exception, their preservation is in such a condition
that, so far as outlines are concerned, one is able to construct anew
what must have been a very important centre of Roman civilization. This
group of neighbouring Roman towns and cities of the past, beginning with
Tebessa and ending with Lambessa, form perhaps the most curious and
extensive area of Roman ruins to be found to-day within a like radius.
[Illustration: MORSOTT]
The first exploration of the ruins of Morsott was through the means of
the "Société Archéologique" of Constantine, but the French government
has stepped in and claimed them for its own and classed them as
"Monuments Historiques," which means that no more will strangers be able
to lug away with them as excess baggage a Roman capital, to be used as a
garden seat at home. This is right and proper, the most passionate
collector will admit.