Gibbon’s great work. We are disposed to think that its decline began
with its establishment. Gibbon had always at the back of his mind the
belief that Christianity was the cause of its ultimate ruin, and that
the Empire began to totter on the day when the first Roman citizen was
baptised a Christian. But for two or three hundred years, though the
Empire was frequently torn by political dissensions, its material
prosperity was very great. We know now that it was ruined in the end by
its financial errors, its unwise and unjust system of land taxation, the
grasping greed of Treasury officials and the anxiety of upstart Emperors
to gratify their supporters in the army and the Roman mob at anybody’s
cost.
It is a vice of civilizations to believe themselves invulnerable. As
late as the fifth century it was inconceivable to a Roman gentleman that
the mighty structure could be swept away; and it is perhaps true that
even then it might have been saved by a return to sounder systems of
finance. Even so to-day the European nations are arming to the teeth
against each other, instead of husbanding their resources and concerting
measures of defence against races more numerous and more prolific. The
uprising of the Asiatic peoples is a fact to which we cannot be other
than wilfully blind. A beginning of the trouble may be upon us at any
minute.
Timgad was built by the soldiers of the Third Legion, then stationed at
Tebessa. Its head-quarters were shortly afterwards moved to Lambessa,
and during the second and third centuries the frontier outposts were
gradually pushed forward. They occupied a line on the south side of the
Aurès range, extending to the south and south-east of Biskra and then
branching north-west to Bou-Saida. At least in some districts a ditch
and rampart marked the limits of the Empire.
Lambessa grew into a large city said to have contained 60,000
inhabitants. Its considerable ruins, of which the most important are the
Prætorium and certain arches, are visible to-day. The importance of the
position is realized by the French, who have large barracks and a force
of 4000 men at Batna, only a few miles off. Striking evidence of the
success of Rome’s treatment of subject races is to be found in the fact
that with all the wealth of numerous great cities to protect, her
military force in North Africa consisted only of one legion of 5500 men
and auxiliary forces of infantry and cavalry, making a total of 15,000
men. At first the legionaries were raised in Europe, chiefly in Gaul,
but in the second century they were recruited entirely among the
indigenous population. Retired soldiers were granted lands and
exemptions on the condition that their sons enlisted. In this way towns
like Lambessa, half military, half commercial, grew up. The actual
number of emigrants from Italy was small; with her declining population
she had no emigrants to send.
There is, therefore, reason to believe that the inhabitants of such
cities as Timgad were not to any appreciable extent colonists from
Europe; they were rather Romanized Berbers. The names as they appear in
inscriptions corroborate this. They are not Latin, if Latin in form.
This point is of great importance in considering not only the nature of
the Roman rule in North Africa, but also the history and possibilities
of the Berber population. They were Romanized once, they are Arabized
to-day; what may they be to-morrow?
As we stand in the Forum of Timgad to-day, we may reflect that this
noble city was built and inhabited by the ancestors of the gabbling
native crowd which is holding its market at the gate. Doubtless in their
simple minds these robed figures are wondering what in the world we come
for. They must be aware that it is not a religious exercise; we have our
holy places to which they observe that some of us betake ourselves on
Sunday mornings; no Christian marabout lies buried here, and we are
therefore not votaries making a pilgrimage. Yet is our conduct not mere
levity; we wander about with little books in our hands and are very
earnest and sometimes vociferous to our companions. Perhaps the most
enlightened native opinion inclines to the belief that we are working a
spell or enchantment, it may be for the benefit of our motor-cars, which
we bring with us to the gate.
Rome, the great mother, welcomed all to her bosom, and it seems that all
were glad to come. Little by little the African townships became Latin
or Roman municipalities. Roman citizenship became the ambition and the
pride of their inhabitants. No higher honour could be inscribed on a
tombstone than _Civitatem Romanam consecutus_. And the Roman religion
helped the process of consolidation. Olympus was no close borough. There
was always room for another deity. We know, in fact, that the Romans
were ever ready to welcome a fresh cult. It was the political, not the
religious attitude of the Christians which brought them within the reach
of the law and under the displeasure of the Emperors. So the Berbers’
gods were Romanized like themselves. Baal Ammon became Saturnus
Augustus. The open sanctuaries gave way to closed temples of classical
design. Human sacrifice was abandoned. And the Berbers learnt to raise
shrines to the Roman allegorical deities, Concord, Fortune, Peace, and
Victory; above all to worship the existing order in the divine person of
the Emperor. His personal character had nothing whatever to do with
this. The infamous Caracalla was the object of as much veneration as the
philosopher saint Marcus Aurelius. At the beginning of the third century
Africa gave many of its sons to the purple. Macrinus, who attained it by
the murder of Caracalla, was a native of the district of Cæsarea. His
successor, Elagabalus, of execrated memory, was the son of a former
commandant of the Third Legion. And the Gordians, representing as they
did the noblest blood in Rome, the blood of the Gracchi and of Trajan,
came to the throne from the proconsulate of Africa. Concerning the
younger Gordian Gibbon has left us a memorable sentence, which at once
exhibits the antithetical bias of his style, and a certain sly humour of
which he was master. “His manners were less pure, but his character was
equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two acknowledged
concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes attested the
variety of his inclinations; and from the productions which he left
behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were
intended for use rather than for ostentation.[9] The Roman people
acknowledged in the features of the younger Gordian the resemblance of
Scipio Africanus, recollected with pleasure that his mother was the
granddaughter of Antoninus Pius, and rested the public hope on those
latent virtues which had hitherto, as they fondly imagined, lain
concealed in the luxurious indolence of a private life.”
Footnote 9:
“By each of his concubines the younger Gordian left three or four
children. His literary productions, though less numerous, were by no
means contemptible.”—Note to Gibbon.
Timgad is situate thirty-four miles to the east of Batna, on the fine
modern road which proceeds through the Aurès range to Khenchela and
Ain-Beida. You may cover the distance in a motor-car within the hour,
and you will pass on the way the ruins of Lambessa. These, however, are
scarcely worth the prolonged attention of anyone who is not an
archæologist, and such picturesque qualities as they may possess are
ruined by the proximity of a huge convict prison. The ordinary
sightseer, snatching a few hours between two trains, will hasten on to
Timgad. The drive itself is very interesting. The road is undulating and
at one point ascends to a considerable altitude, and in its way the
scenery is impressive. We traverse a great rolling plain which from end
to end is one vast cornfield. There is a bare range of hills to the
north, and to the south the Aurès mountains, guardians of the desert,
with the snow still, in March, lying among their topmost cedars. At the
highest point of the road we meet a driving storm of sleet. We are
inclined to resent the general treelessness of the landscape, but much
may be forgiven to a corn-growing country, and imagination revels in
what must be its glory when the crop is ripe for harvesting. But for its
fertility the general contour of the country has a very South African
appearance. The soil appears to be “rather light,” and, no doubt,
nothing but the copious rainfall which the Aurès mountains bring redeems
it from the miserable barrenness of the high plateaux to the south of
Algiers.
At last you come to Timgad, and you see at a glance that you are face to
face with what the Americans call “a big proposition.” A whole hill-side
is covered with the dry bones of a town—a town of which the top seems to
have been sliced off, with here and there groups of columns or an arch
or two rising from the dismantled mass.
It has been given to few great towns to spring into being at one leap.
The growth of towns is usually that of mundane things in general, a
gradual process liable to interference from many exterior influences.
But Timgad rose full armed from the fiat of the Emperor, as Athene from
the brain of Zeus. Trajan said, “Let there be a city,” and there was a
city. It was no mushroom growth to serve a temporary purpose. It lasted
more or less intact for six hundred years, and but for the hand of
destroying man it might have lasted six thousand. This is its dominating
note,—its huge, its almost unnecessary solidity. And from the
circumstances of its birth it presents a fine example of Roman
town-planning. British municipal corporations which are concerned in
putting into practice our newborn aspirations in such matters should not
omit to send a deputation to study Timgad on the spot.
[Illustration: TIMGAD: ARCH OF TRAJAN]
But perhaps even with the disquieting possibility of a foreign raid on
our shores, denied by our politicians with such emphasis that we are led
to believe in its existence, it is not necessary for us to base the plan
of our towns on the arrangements of a camp. Such was the underlying plan
of Timgad. It was divided, as was the conventional Roman camp, into four
parts by two main intersecting streets. That which led from east to west
was called _decumanus_, that which pointed north and south _cardo_. The
former was a portion of the main road from Lambessa to Tebessa, and was
doubtless the most used in the town. Its solid pavement shows the wear
of wheels, as do the streets of Pompeii. It was naturally at the
junction of these streets that the chief buildings were situate. Here is
the Forum, with the Theatre behind it and the Municipal Library in
front. Looking east from the Forum along the _decumanus_ we see the
magnificent Triumphal Arch, the most impressive monument in the town. It
is also the best preserved, and thanks to its existence the attention of
scholars was called to Timgad in the first instance. With the aid of the
excellent and well-illustrated handbook prepared by M. Albert Ballu,
Architecte en chef des Monuments historiques de l’Algerie, the visitor
will be able to identify and study the whole of the works excavated and
restored. Probably most visitors to Timgad will have previously seen
Pompeii, and will have some general acquaintance with the arrangements
of a Roman town and the nature of its public buildings. Timgad will
introduce them to some new features; of its Public Library and the
romance of its discovery I shall speak later; it has a remarkably
complete series of markets; and the public conveniences behind the Forum
will interest those who are concerned about sanitary matters.
However satiated with the wonders of the town itself the visitor should
not omit to visit the Museum. Here amid the usual assemblage of mediocre
Roman antiquities he will find some mosaic pavements of the highest
excellence.
Perhaps we are most of us disposed to be more interested in
comparatively trivial matters of decoration and so forth than in the
structure and disposal of important edifices. We are not all architects
and town-planners. And here we may take especial delight in a little
piece of evidence that even in this frontier city life was not all
strenuous. On a stone of the Forum are graven the following words:—
VENARI LAVARI
LUDERE RIDERE
OCCEST VIVERE
“Hunting, bathing, play and laughter,—such is life.” This symmetrical
arrangement of letters is divided by a device consisting of a vase of
flowers surmounted by a bird. It speaks to us across the ages a pleasant
message; in such happy human touches Timgad is less rich than Pompeii.
And perhaps neither town has anything so delightful as the mosaics found
in a bath and a stable at Oued Atmenia between Constantine and Sétif, on
the site of a considerable Roman country house. The mosaics in the baths
depict various incidents of rural life;—hunting scenes in which huntsmen
and hounds are named, a garden scene with a lady spinning under a palm
tree. One mosaic represents six favourite horses with inscriptions
recording their names and qualities;—with Pullentianus is stabled Altus,
“unus es ut mons exultas”—"you have no peer, you leap mountain-high";
Delicatus, “the gentle one,” stands alone; Titas, “the giant,” shares a
manger with Polydoxus, “the glorious”; “vincas non vincas te amamus
Polydoxe,”—"win or lose we love you, Polydoxus." In a corner by himself
stands Scholasticus, “the Scholar.” In the scene representing a
stag-hunt, the master himself appears with his hounds, Fidelis and
Castus. Other mosaics represent the farm, the fish-ponds with aquatic
plants, the quarters of the huntsmen and the mansion-house itself. This
is a large building with several storeys and numerous windows,
surmounted by a balcony or awning. The buildings are roofed with square
red tiles, and chimneys appear below the ridge. “This remarkable series
of mosaics gives some insight into Roman life and customs in North
Africa at the close of the fourth century, and bears striking testimony
to the peaceful condition of the country in the declining years of the
Empire. Sixteen centuries have passed since Pompeianus presided over
this lordly retreat, as a patron of the turf and a lover of sport in all
its aspects. A few years after his decease the disturbing influence of
the invading Vandals must have rendered the maintenance of such an
establishment an absolute impossibility, and one can picture the life
work of this distinguished Roman neglected, abandoned, and finally
becoming a mere hunting-ground for Vandal or Byzantine, Arab or
Moor.”[10]
Footnote 10:
Graham, “Roman Africa,” 1902, p. 294.
It has often been suggested that the great prosperity of this region
under the Empire was due to a climate superior to that of to-day; that
there was in fact a more abundant rainfall and a more equable
temperature. The Romans left us no weather statistics (an essentially
modern passion), and such evidence as we have appears to be against the
theory. The lakes in the province of Constantine were no greater than
they are to-day; Roman ruins on their banks attest this. Roman bridges
exist here and there throughout the country, and they were not designed
to span wider rivers or to resist heavier floods. But this does not
settle the matter. It is certain that there was far more timber; the
Arab has continually destroyed and he does not plant. The rainfall of
to-day is probably less continuous and more uncertain. Yet we cannot
believe that the climate is seriously changed. Sallust complains that in
Africa both sky and earth have too little water. But the Romans made the
best of what there was. The remains of their canals and cisterns are
everywhere. In the country to the south of Sétif they dug hundreds of
wells, many of which still exist. They barred the course of rivers and
created reservoirs. Their extensive works of irrigation are described by
Procopius, and appear to be exactly similar to those now in use.
Elaborate water-rights existed. A monument found at Lambasba sets forth
the number of olives and fruit trees which every farmer possessed and
the number of hours of running water to which he was entitled. This
system of reckoning a right to water-supply by hours is still in vogue
in the island of Madeira, and probably elsewhere. Every effort was made
to encourage planting. Exemptions from taxation for a certain number of
years were granted to cultivators who planted vines or olives, or
grafted the wild olive. Olive oil was exported to Rome in enormous
quantities; fragments of jars found in the Tiber bear the mark of
Tubusuctu, a town near Bougie. Such facts go to show that the great
prosperity of North Africa was rather due to intelligent use of its
resources than to any superiority of those resources. This prosperity
seems to have reached its culminating point under the dynasty of
Septimius Severus, himself a native of Africa. The fact that he died at
York illustrates the extent of his empire. He and his son Caracalla
showered favours on their compatriots, as numerous inscriptions attest.
Arab writers of the seventh century bear ample testimony to the
fertility of the territory which had fallen so easily into their hands.
From Carthage to Tangier, a thousand miles east and west, the whole
country was clothed with olive woods, and it was said that you could
walk from village to village beneath a roof of foliage. Therein they
have written the condemnation of their successors. A pleasant story is
told that the Arab chief who defeated Gregorius expressed his amazement
at the richness of the land. “Whence comes this wealth?” he said. A
peasant picked up an olive and laid it before the conqueror, saying,
“From this.” And he added that the Byzantines who had no olives in their
country were Africa’s best customers.
Timgad is interesting and impressive in itself; in general as a town
surviving through the ages almost untouched at least in its ground plan;
and in particular for its several very uncommon and very informing
details. But it is even more noteworthy in its suggestiveness. It
flashes to us across a yawning chasm a message from a distant past, a
message from a civilization not essentially different from our own; a
civilization based on ordered liberty and individual effort, on public
spirit and service, on private wealth amassed in agricultural and
commercial enterprise; anticipating in its municipal buildings and in
the dwellings of its citizens, rich and poor, with sufficient
resemblance the conditions of our own life, public and domestic; yet
reckoned in the lapse of centuries and the generations of men of an
almost incredible remoteness, a remoteness emphasized, as everything is
emphasized in this land of staring contrasts, by the hopeless barbarism
and neglect which have filled the intervening gulf. Yet there are
differences. The city stood on the very frontier of the Empire, but it
was not built as men build in such situations to-day. Its solidity and
magnificence suggest great local pride, the pride of wealthy citizens,
who preferred to adorn their own city to spending their money as
strangers in the “smart” world of Italy, who chose rather to rule in
Africa than to serve in Rome; and they are evidence of provincial
prosperity and contentment during that great second century which Gibbon
regarded as the happiest period mankind had known. And we cannot
suppress our surprise that the very existence of such a town is scarcely
known to us from historical sources. If it were not for its ruins very
few among scholars would have heard the mean of Thamagudi. In any
endeavour to picture to ourselves the Empire as a whole such a fact is
of great significance. And with such throbbing life at its extremities
it is difficult to regard the heart as unsound.
The contemplation of such a town as Timgad helps us to realize the
compelling force of Rome’s unequalled genius. On this remote frontier of
her Empire we may trace to-day the same motives in building—all that
meets the eye—which were dominant in the mother city. “In every branch
of art, whether in sculpture, painting as displayed in the decorative
forms of mosaic, or in architectural design, the same monumental remains
await our coming; the basilica, the amphitheatre, the triumphal arch;
the aqueduct and the fountain; the bridge, the temple and the tomb. They
stand before us as examples of dignity of conception, unerringness of
line, justness of proportion, fitness of purpose and soundness of
construction.”[11] We see nothing but the remains of these buildings,
but we may assume from them that in more vital matters,—in law, in
public life, in the family and in individual habits the pattern set by
the capital was equally predominant. And we may further reflect that
Rome’s influence was not merely geographical in extent; it did not
perish with her fall. Modern civilization is essentially Roman. The
Roman’s “laws, his language, his literature, his festivals, even his
calendar, keep their ground.” The Roman tradition is ingrained in our
minds and conduct, and in small things as in great we unconsciously and
as a matter of course pursue the Roman model. And it may be that the
desperate struggle for the hegemony of Europe—and Africa—now proceeding
is heralding the evolution of another Empire on Roman lines.
Footnote 11:
Graham, “Roman Africa,” p. 304.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_XI—A PUBLIC LIBRARY_
A romantic find—A municipal library of the third century—A Roman
Carnegie—Christian Africa—The Donatists—Genseric the Vandal—
Justinian—Timgad and Pompeii.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“They say that scholars thronged the column’d court;
To drain reluctant learning’s cup they sought;
Lo! all to utter nothingness have passed,
Alike for book and scholar life is short.”
Among the buildings unearthed at Timgad there is one which, from its
nature and the fact that it is unique, or almost unique, is especially
interesting, and merits particular attention. The learned world has long
been aware that the Public Library, which is a comparatively recent
addition to most of our own towns, was a Roman institution. The
allusions of Latin authors tell us so much; there were twenty-eight
public libraries at Rome in the fourth century; and we gather from
inscriptions that there is nothing original about Mr. Carnegie, except
the extent of his munificence. The public libraries of provincial cities
were often due to the liberality of wealthy citizens, and once
established they were frequently enriched by the gifts and bequests of
others. By a succession of fortunate accidents, which happily illustrate
the romantic side of excavation, the Public Library of Timgad has been
found and identified beyond question. This fact in itself gives a very
special distinction to the ruins.
In 1901, in clearing a block of buildings in the Cardo, not far from the
principal gate of the Forum, the nature of which was unknown, the
excavators found a broken portion of an inscription. It seemed to refer
to the dedication of the building as a public institution, but threw no
light on its nature. It was vaguely considered to be a school or _salle
de réunion_. The mutilated inscription was as follows:—
VINTIANI FLAVI RO
MENTO SUO REIPUBLICAE
SIUM PATRIAE SUAE LE
EX IS CCCC MIL. NUM
CTUM EST
This merely indicated that the building had been erected at a cost of
400,000 sesterces, or about £4000, as a result of a legacy of one Q. F.
Ro——.
In 1904, in the course of some digging in a neighbouring house, a little
to the north, a second fragment of this inscription was found. It fitted
exactly to the left-hand side of the former fragment, and read as
follows:—
TE M IVLI Q
AD TESTA
VGADEN
OTHECAE
A PERFE