building, but it proved that it could only be something of which the
Latin name ended in the letters OTHECA. Now in the Latin language there
are five such words;—_pinacotheca_, a picture gallery; _apotheca_, a
wine-shop; _oporotheca_, a store-room for fruit; _zotheca_, an apartment
with niches for statuary; _bibliotheca_, a library. Of these the only
words at all applicable were the two last. Between them the usual
controversy of _savants_ arose; much could be said, and was said, on
either side. From the first the advocates of the library seemed to have
the best of it. They based their arguments on the nature of the
building. It occupies with its dependencies a rectangular space
measuring 77 by 80 feet. Its principal front, facing east, is composed
of a portico in the form of a letter U sustained by twelve columns of
white calcareous stone, framing a court which opens on to the street. On
each side of the portico was an entrance to two partially open chambers,
bounded by two side streets leading to the Cardo. Behind these was a
great central hall with a room on either side of it, each having a niche
at the further end. The termination of the hall was of semicircular
form; on each side of it were six detached columns of white marble,
corresponding to the same number of pilasters in the wall, between each
side pair of which was a square recess. In the middle of the semicircle
was a larger and deeper recess, which doubtless contained a statue. The
advocates of the _zotheca_ theory urged that the main purpose of the
building was to be the shrine of an important statue, bequeathed by
Quintianus Flavus Ro—— to his mother city. The case for a library seemed
stronger and more attractive. It was suggested that the rectangular
recesses were receptacles for volumes or rolls of papyrus, and that
benches or steps which led up to them from the centre of the building
were intended to serve as seats for readers. The detached columns were
considered to have supported two upper galleries containing a second set
of bookcases, while the great niche at the end was an architectural
feature, doubtless containing a statue of Minerva. The head of such a
statue was found in the neighbourhood. The two side rooms were held to
be further store-rooms for books; one of them, having a door into the
street, perhaps reserved for the use of the librarian. There are
indications of recesses in their walls also. The great hall, it was
observed, was exceptionally well lighted by a skylight in the vaulted
roof of its semicircular portion, and therefore very suitable for
reading.
[Illustration: TIMGAD: THE PUBLIC LIBRARY]
The question was settled in 1906,—on the 17th of March, at five p.m.,—as
M. Ballu records with exulting precision. In making an experimental hole
beside the Cardo, a workman drove his pick against a fragment of
inscribed stone, which proved to be the missing piece containing the
first portion of the inscription. The supporters of the library theory
were right. The words on the stone were as follows:—
EX LIBERALITA
GATIANI. C.M.V. QV
COLONIAE THAM
GAVIT OPUS BIBLI
CVRANTE REPVBLIC
“There is no necessity,” says M. Ballu, “to tell with what joy we
received a telegram announcing this discovery. It was the consecration
of our suppositions, certitude succeeding to probabilities, which had
nevertheless not left much room for doubt. It was, above all, a
revelation of the arrangements of those ancient Roman libraries of which
so many Latin authors speak; but as to the construction of which we
possessed no evidence.”
The full inscription is to the following effect:—
“Out of the funds bequeathed by Marcus Julius Quintianus Flavus
Rogatianus, of senatorial memory, by his will to the colony of Thamagudi
his mother city, the erection of a library has been completed at a cost
of 400,000 sesterces, under the direction of the city authority.”
The name of this benefactor is otherwise unknown. The building which
bears it was well built of fine materials, with marble columns, and
marble veneerings to the walls, of which copious fragments have been
found. Among these fragments are some of particularly fine coloured
marbles which perhaps adorned the niche in which stood the statue of the
presiding goddess. The pavement, which remains, is of a very finished
type.
It is not possible to assign a precise date to the building, but it is
considered to be of the third century. It doubtless took the place of an
_insula_, or large private house isolated by four streets, of which
other examples line the Cardo. It occupies a rather larger space than
these houses; the semicircular portion of the hall extends into the back
street, and on the south side the normal width of the street is reduced
by it.
A somewhat fanciful calculation has been made of the number of books
which the library might contain; and the figure of 6800 for the interior
hall, and 16,200 for the other chambers, has been arrived at. This seems
to be carrying reconstitution a little too far.
There are some to whom Timgad is the most interesting place in Algeria;
to many antiquaries, and perhaps to many of that large class which is
concerned one way or another about all that appertains to books, this
Public Library, identified beyond all cavil by such happy fortune, will
be Timgad’s most interesting building.
It may be noted that about the time of the discovery of this library,
the Austrian Archæological Institute, in the course of excavations on
the site of Ephesus, found a building in many respects similar to this
one. An inscription in Greek and Latin left no doubt that it was a
library. Its form is rectangular instead of semicircular, but it
possesses a niche at the end for the statue of Minerva, and the walls
contain similar recesses for the reception of books. It has a portico in
front, but lacks the side chambers which occur at Timgad.
The interest of Timgad, and its part in illustrating history, are not
exhausted by a view of those buildings of the second and third centuries
which mark the period of its greatness. If in the troublous times which
followed it suffered, yet it played a part in African affairs until the
Arab conquest. To the understanding of its monuments some slight
acquaintance with events is necessary.
During the latter part of the third century two processes were at work
in Africa, the formation of great estates out of the ruin of small
proprietors, and the spread of Christianity. The two were not
unconnected. The new religion attracted all who were dissatisfied with
the existing order. It ran like a flame through Barbary. It produced
three great men: Tertullian in the second century, Cyprian in the third,
and Augustine in the fourth. But the movement throughout was more
political and social than religious. It was based among the Berber
population rather on discontent than conviction. With the official
recognition of Christianity under Constantine its attraction as a symbol
of revolt disappeared. A substitute was found in schism. The curious
inter-workings of finance, politics and religion have never been more
fully illustrated. The misery of the cultivators under the wretched
financial system of Rome has not been accorded its due weight as a
factor in the most extraordinary event in history, the conversion of the
Empire to Christianity.
Even under Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, the schism of the
Donatists, destined to ruin Roman Africa, grew to a head. It arose from
a personal dispute as to the position of a bishop named Donatus; if
there were any differences on points of doctrine they were
insignificant. But it plunged Africa into anarchy for centuries; it laid
open the way to the invasion o£ the Vandals, and was extinguished only
with Christianity itself.
Timgad was the very focus of Donatist agitation. Its bishops took a
leading part; of one of them Augustine says that for ten years Africa
trembled beneath his yoke. To this century perhaps belong the ruins of
several Christian churches unearthed in the city. The schism was not
bounded by the arguments of doctors. It extended to the pillage of
estates and the sack of cities. The wild tribes of the Aurès and other
mountain districts which had never completely owned the sovereignty of
Rome made common cause with the schismatics. And Roman Africa was
ruined. Then came the Vandals.
The historian Gibbon, who rises to his highest flights in the
consideration of Christianity and its heresies, has sketched the
Donatist pretensions in immortal words: “Excluded from the civil and
religious communion of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the rest of
mankind. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that
the apostolical succession was interrupted; that _all_ the bishops of
Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism; and
that the prerogatives of the catholic church were confined to the chosen
portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the
integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was supported
by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a proselyte,
even from the distant provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the
sacred rites of baptism and ordination; as they rejected the validity of
those which he had already received from the hands of heretics and
schismatics. Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants, were subjected
to the disgrace of a public penance before they could be admitted to the
communion of the Donatists. If they obtained possession of a church
which had been used by their catholic adversaries, they purified the
unhallowed building with the same jealous care which a temple of idols
might have required. They washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt
the altar, which was commonly of wood, melted the consecrated plate, and
cast the holy eucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy
which could provoke and perpetuate the animosity of religious factions.”
Such an account would almost describe proceedings of religious fanatics
at a date much nearer our own age. But the fervour to which the Donatist
schism gave birth produced under the African sun remarkable
developments. “The rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a
very extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed amongst them
in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any country
or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with the horror of
life and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by
what means, or by what hands they perished, if their conduct was
sanctified by the intention of devoting themselves to the glory of the
true faith, and the hope of eternal happiness.” They would disturb
worshippers, waylay travellers, or insult courts of justice, in the hope
of achieving martyrdom. Failing other resources, they would cast
themselves headlong from some lofty rock. “In the actions of these
desperate enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of
God, and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial
philosopher may discover the influence, and the last abuse, of that
inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character and
principles of the Jewish nation.”
Genseric, King of the Vandals, landed in Africa from Spain in A.D. 429.
Born a Catholic, he embraced the Arian heresy, and made common cause
with the African Donatists. He swept through Barbary, an easy conqueror.
His fleets ravaged the coasts of Italy and Sicily. In A.D. 455 he sacked
Rome. For a hundred years the rough Northmen held the fertile provinces.
They rased the fortifications, but did not overthrow the Roman cities;
they rather succumbed to their luxury. They did not destroy, but they
constructed nothing. They had no thought of substituting their own
institutions for those of the conquered races. They considered
themselves merely a garrison, for which the country must provide
subsistence. Their decadence commenced with the death of their leader.
In the early part of the sixth century Byzantium set himself to take up
the mantle which Rome had let fall. The great Justinian determined to
make good his claim to all the former possessions of the Empire. The
Vandals were in no condition to offer a vigorous resistance. The native
population was everywhere in revolt. The tribes of the Aurès descended
from their mountains and sacked the fair cities which had been raised
under the protection of the Third Legion—Tebessa, Bagai, Lambessa, and
Timgad. Belisarius, the Byzantine general, landed in Tripoli in A.D.
533, and, marching rapidly westward, met with little resistance. In a
few years a great part of the corn-growing districts was brought under
effective control. All the ports were held by Byzantine garrisons.
Barbary was to experience an Indian summer.
The first care of the Greeks was to build a series of fortresses to hold
in check the tribes of mountain and desert which for generations had
been acquiring greater boldness in war and pillage. Remains of such
forts are all over the country. There is one at Timgad, situate about
150 yards from the Southern Baths. It is a great quadrilateral flanked
with square towers, and covering more than 7000 square yards. It is
extraordinarily solid in construction, the walls being nine feet thick.
But it is at Tebessa that the most perfect example of Byzantine
fortification exists. The enceinte encloses the Arab town, and to put it
into a state of defence the French have only had to execute a few
repairs. For these hastily constructed fortresses any materials which
came to hand were used. Into the solid walls faced with square blocks
were thrown the debris of private houses, the friezes of temples, the
statues of the gods. What the Vandal had spared, the Berber and the
Byzantine between them made an end of.
Under the shelter of these fortified places a neo-Roman civilization
budded again. The great proprietors and the wealthy financiers of the
later Empire had disappeared. Their place was taken by the Church. The
bishops occupied themselves with business of every description,
political, financial, administrative, and even military. Vast sums were
spent in the construction of great basilicas and monasteries, the ruins
of which may be seen at Timgad and Tebessa to-day. To this period
doubtless belongs the huge building, basilica and monastery, to the west
of Timgad. It covers a space of not less than 20,000 square yards. The
basilica is 200 feet long and 70 feet wide, and is preceded by a
court-yard of the same size as itself. It is built chiefly of stones
taken from the neighbouring pagan temples, which must have been already
in ruin at the time of its erection. If, as some suppose, these great
churches were built originally during the fourth and fifth centuries,
before the Vandal invasion, there can be little doubt that they were
rebuilt with modifications and enlargements during the Byzantine period.
The domination of the Church did not make for the prosperity or security
of the people. The great dreams of Justinian were never realized; his
enterprise from the very beginning had in it the seeds of decay. The
rapacity of the ecclesiastics at least equalled that of the former
Treasury officials; the husbandmen were plunged in a condition of abject
poverty; the persecution of schismatics decimated the population. Native
insurrections, mutinies of troops, sullen detestation of the people
prepared the way for the easy fall of the Byzantine administration
before the invading Arabs of the next century.
It is natural to compare Timgad with Pompeii, and the comparison has
often been made. But beyond the fact that both were towns of the Roman
Empire, and that the ruins of both have been preserved to an extent
unparalleled elsewhere, they have no great resemblance. It happened to
me, as probably it has happened to few, two or three weeks after leaving
Timgad, while the memory of it was fresh, to stand once again in the
Forum of Pompeii. I recalled their different conditions. They were not
contemporary; Pompeii was destroyed before Timgad was built; Pompeii,
rather Greek than Roman in origin, was a pleasure town of the first
century, which, after damage by an earthquake at the zenith of its
prosperity, was overwhelmed by ashes from Vesuvius; Timgad was a
military and commercial town of the second and third centuries, ruined
first by religious faction and financial breakdown, and finally
overthrown of set purpose by a horde of mountaineers. To compare them is
like comparing the Tunbridge Wells of the eighteenth century with the
Pretoria of the twentieth. The contrasts their ruins present are those
we should expect. Timgad is more solid and more serious; its public
buildings are finer; its main streets are more important; and there is
nothing at Pompeii to compare with the magnificent arch of Trajan. But
Pompeii is richer in minor matters, in all the illuminating incidents of
private life; its chief interest lies in its wonderful houses, and in
the almost miraculous preservation of much of their interior decoration.
And their situations accord with their peculiarities. Timgad lies on a
bare hill-side, far from the habitations of man; Pompeii hard by the
lovely bay of Sorrento, in one of the fairest landscapes of Italy. The
cities are not rivals; they supplement each other; and those of us to
whom a study of what was before is one of the chief interests of life
may be grateful that we have so much of both.
_XII—THE ROAD THROUGH KHABYLIA_
Setif—The Chabet pass—A fishless river—A lovely coast—Bougie—Khabylia—
Greek types—Fort National.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“A rough laborious people, there,
Not only give the dreadful Alps to smile,
And press their culture on retiring snows,
But, to firm order trained and patient war,
They likewise know, beyond the nerve remiss
Of mercenary force, how to defend
The tasteful little their hard toil has earned.”
THOMSON.
He who returns by motor-car from Biskra to Algiers may avoid the detour
via Constantine by taking the new direct road from Batna to Sétif, a
distance of 132 kilometres. It ascends to an altitude of over 5000 feet,
and in winter is sometimes blocked by snow. But this is not likely to be
a frequent trouble. Whichever way he comes, direct or roundabout, by
road or rail, the traveller must make Sétif his point. If he omits to
take the road from Sétif to Bougie, through the Chabet pass, a distance
of 113 kilometres, he will have no idea of what Algeria is capable of in
the way of mountain scenery.
There is a distinct tendency among Englishmen to-day to revolt against
the domination of the guide-book. With our ancient constitution in the
melting-pot, and our most cherished national convictions openly
contested, it is hardly surprising that even the revered name of Murray
has failed to maintain its authority. There are abandoned men who openly
flout it, who want to see nothing of the things that ought to be seen,
to know none of the things that ought to be known. The reaction was
inevitable. Murray and Baedeker and the like set poor human weakness an
impossible ideal. They direct us as if we were an army of invasion; they
map out our operations day by day and hour by hour with a ruthless
precision. Has anyone ever carried through the programme of How to spend
ten days in Rome, and survived to boast of it?
Wherefore in our iconoclastic age there are men to whom the guide-book’s
double star is but a danger signal. Let me implore them to waive their
prejudices as far at least as the Chabet pass is concerned. If much
be-praised it is still quite un-hackneyed; and it is magnificent. And
they may steal a march on the enemy. The guide-books, as far as Algeria
is concerned, have not discovered the motor-car. They direct you to hire
a carriage at Sétif, to sleep at a roadside inn, and to lumber into
Bougie at the close of the second day. We have changed all that. We take
a car at Sétif after _dejeuner_, and loitering by the way we yet reach
Bougie in time to stroll round the town before dinner. So we have a day
in hand. But let us haste to do it before a revised edition comes out.
The plateau of which Sétif may be considered the centre lies at a high
altitude, and as the sea is no great distance off, we may perceive from
a glance at the map that there must be a more or less rapid landfall
towards it. Such conditions commonly produce a picturesque coast-line.
Here we have more than this. The plain is supported by a very abrupt
range of mountains rising to twice its height,—the peaks to 6000 and
7000 feet. Such a range must either be crossed by a high pass, or it may
be that we may find an outlet where a mountain stream, taking advantage
perhaps of a rift caused by a natural convulsion, has worn for itself a
passage. Such a passage is the gorge of Chabet-el-Akhira.
From Sétif, most hideous of modern French towns, the road leads
northward for some distance through an uninteresting corn-growing
country. After a few miles the surface becomes more broken, Khabyle
villages begin to appear on neighbouring hill-tops, and Khabyle gardens
are rich in apricot blossom. We cross a chain of hills running east and
west, from the summit of which we obtain a splendid view of the mountain
range which we are about to penetrate. We descend rapidly to the stream
which is to be our companion, and at a distance of fifty-three
kilometres from Sétif reach Kherrata, at the mouth of the pass. Here is
the half-way house where the carriage-folk of former days were wont to
pass the night. It lies in a cool upland valley at the foot of bare
stony hills which might be in Wales or Cumberland. It is market-day in
the village, and the street is crowded with Khabyles,—as ragged and
dirty a crowd as you may see in county Galway. Their Arab dress looks
curiously incongruous with such very northern surroundings.
Immediately beyond Kherrata the road enters the gorge with a dramatic
suddenness. It descends rapidly by the side of the stream which here
becomes a torrent. The valley contracts and soon grows so narrow that
the road has to be bored, as it were, through overhanging cliffs, or
borne on arches above the river. There are many kinds of gorges; the
least interesting perhaps are those which run directly between unbroken
cliffs. This is of the finest kind. Its turns are rapid. It has numerous
lateral valleys which break its almost perpendicular sides into seeming
pinnacles of rock. One looks almost directly upwards to peaks five and
six thousand feet high. Even where the road is carried several hundred
feet above the river you may toss a stone and strike the opposite cliff.
It is said that before the French road-makers came not even an Arab
could pass the gorge on foot. Great caves appear on the mountain sides,
the haunt of innumerable pigeons; monkeys are generally to be seen, but
on market-days the exceptional traffic scares them to seclusion. Here
and there waterfalls descend from the tributary gorges, and rapidly
swell the turbid stream.
Even the all-pervading Roman seems to have found this gorge too much for
him. Yet it is not easy to discover an _endroit_ which has not echoed to
the tramp of the legions. Mr. Belloc[12] tells a delightful story of a
French general who, filled with pride at having conducted his troops
through an almost impossible defile, sent a party to inscribe a record
of the achievement on the face of a cliff. The men came back to say that
there appeared to be lettering on the cliff already. On examination this
proved to be “Legio III Augusta.”
Footnote 12:
“Esto Perpetus.” London, 1906.
The actual gorge is about four miles long. The valley then gradually
widens, the hills become rather less abrupt, their sides are clothed
with ample vegetation, chiefly forests of cork and oak trees, and the
lateral valleys grow larger, in due proportion to the general scheme. We
pass from the thrilling sensations of the unique defile into a mountain
valley of great beauty, but less unusual in character.