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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 STUDIES IN 
 NORTH AFRICA
 
 \Lchnerl and Landroch. 
 
 CAPITOL, DOUCxGA.
 
 STUDIES IN 
 NORTH AFRICA 
 
 BY 
 
 CYRIL FLETCHER GRANT 
 
 LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL 
 HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD.
 
 
 First Published in 1912, under the title 
 
 " 'TwixT Sand and Sea." 
 New Edition, Revised, Published 1921. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain at 
 TheBotolph Printing Works, 8, Gate Street, Kingsway, W.C.2.
 
 Preface to First Edition 
 
 " A LAND of sand and ruin and gold." Thus Swinburne 
 describes North Africa. 
 
 Sand indeed there is — sand that seems to stretch 
 out into infinity ; ruins, too, the ruins of three great 
 civiKsations which have passed away ; gold also — 
 though of no material wealth ; rather it is the glory 
 of the golden haze over the desert, and the yellow sand 
 gleaming in the sunshine. . 
 
 The writer has described no place which he did not 
 visit during a protracted sojourn in North Africa. 
 
 For the facts which lie outside the range of such 
 first-hand evidence he has consulted, so far as possible, 
 the original authorities. In cases where the opinion 
 of a single author has been relied upon, on any special 
 point, a reference has been given in the text. 
 
 In addition to the standard books of reference, he 
 has consulted, especially, the following works, and 
 desires to express his indebtedness to them : — 
 
 The Religion of the Semites, Robertson Smith, Chap, i.-ii. 
 
 The Religion of Ancient Egypt, Wiedemann, Chap. ii. 
 
 Les Civilisations de I'Afrique du Nord, Victor Piquet, Cliap. 
 
 xiv.— xvi. 
 L'Afrique Romaine, Gaston Boissier, Chap, vi., vii., viii. 
 L'Algerie, Maurice Wahl, Chap, xiv., xvi. 
 Les Villes d'Art Celebres, Rene Cagnat et Henri Saladin, 
 
 Cliap. vi., xi., xiii. 
 Les Ruines de Carthage, le R. P. Delattre, Chap. xi. 
 Thugga, Dr. Carton, Chap. ix. 
 Carthage Chretienne, Abel Alcais, Chap. x. 
 The Scourge of Christendom, Sir Lambert Playfair, Chap. xvi. 
 The Barhary Corsairs, S. Lane-Poole, Cliap. xvi. 
 Alger an XVIII. Siecle, Venture de Paradis, Chap, xvi.-xvii. 
 Sketches of Algiers, W. Shaler, Chap, xvii.
 
 Preface to Second Edition 
 
 This book formed a first and distinct part of a two- 
 part volume published just before the war and entitled 
 " 'Twixt Sand and Sea." It was both large and ex- 
 pensive. In accordance with frequent suggestions the 
 two parts are now separated. The first part slightly 
 abridged, by one of the collaborators, is now brought 
 out in a small and cheaper edition, in the belief that 
 it will supply a want, and also come within the scope 
 of a larger public. It is hoped to bring out the 
 second part in the same form at a later date. 
 
 August, 1 92 1.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. The City of Elissar, 850-264 b.c 
 II. The Sword and the Trident, 264-201 b.c 
 
 III. The Mailed Fist, 201-146 b.c. 
 
 IV. The March of Empire, 146 b.c.-a.d. 40 
 V. A Frontier Town 
 
 VI. Country Life 
 VII. Life in the Town 
 VIII. A Country Town 
 IX. Lachrym^ Ecclesi^, a.d. 150-423 
 X. Cadaver Urbis . 
 XI. Res ULTiMiE, a.d. 423-550 . 
 XII. A Byzantine Fortress 
 
 XIII. Rassoul Allah, a.d. 622-1453 
 
 XIV. An African Mecca 
 XV. The Crescent and the Cross, a.d 
 
 1453-1830 
 
 XVI. The Lair of the Corsairs . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 13 
 26 
 
 45 
 61 
 
 79 
 88 
 
 104 
 131 
 137 
 151 
 160 
 181 
 191 
 214 
 
 226 
 244
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Capitol, DOUGGA .... Frontispiece 
 
 Old Ports of Carthage from Byrsa . 
 Pretorium at Lambessa 
 Temple of Ccelestis, Dougga 
 Arch of Trajan, Timgad . 
 
 Forum Timgad 
 
 Amphitheatre Remains, El Djem 
 
 Theatre, Dougga 
 
 Site of the Rose of the Winds, Dougga 
 Capitol of Sbeitla .... 
 Arch of Caracalla, Tebessa 
 Temple at Tebessa .... 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 28 
 
 74 
 
 78 
 
 82 
 
 86 
 
 120 
 
 130 
 
 136 
 
 182 
 
 186 
 
 190 
 
 II
 
 STUDIES 
 IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CITY OF ELISSAR, 850-264 B.C. 
 
 It was about* the year 850 B.C. that Elissar, Princess 
 of Sidon, fled from her imtive country, after the 
 murder of her husband Sychceus by her brother 
 Pygmahon. Descended from Ethbaal or Ithbaal, 
 King of Sidon, she was the niece of Jezebel and the 
 cousin of Athaliah. Thus, a Wake or Dido, she 
 landed on the shores of the Gulf of Tunis, not far 
 from the little Sidonian port of Comb6. Hospitably 
 received by the natives and their King, larbas, Son 
 of Hammon, who subsequently became a suitor for 
 her hand, she repaid their kindness by tricking them 
 out of a site for a city on the little hill of Byrsa. There 
 and thus Carthage was founded. At the foot of the 
 hUl she dug a Cothon or harbour, to which she wel- 
 comed the battered galleys of .^neas, like herself a 
 wanderer from the flames of Troy-town. 
 
 * RoUin i3 more precise. He makes Elissar the granddaughter of 
 Ethbaal, and places the foundation of Carthage in the reign of 
 Joash, King of Judah, ninety-eight years before Rome was founded, 
 
 ^46 B.C. 
 
 13
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 In the end, capta ac deserta, betrayed and forsaken 
 by her faithless guest, she built a great pyre outside 
 her palace, and cast herself despairingly upon it : so 
 she perished, either to bring upon the traitor the 
 doom he so richly deserved, or to escape the impor- 
 tunities of her unwelcom.e suitor, larbas, or to rejoin 
 in death her murdered husband. 
 
 In the light of other kindred myths of the Semites, 
 a very profound and interesting interpretation may 
 be given to the story. We are taught to see in the 
 Queen, the Dido who accompanies the Pilgrim 
 Fathers on their way, and helps them to build their 
 new city, no mere woman, however exalted, but a 
 divine being ; and in her willing death the noble 
 self-sacrifice of a goddess, who leaps into the flames 
 and dies to consecrate and win a blessing for the city 
 she has founded. Thenceforth she became the TychI, 
 or Luck, the patron saint of the place for which she 
 had died ; and, in the yearly offering of a maiden at 
 her shrine, her death was commemorated and mysti- 
 cally renewed. What awful act of sacrifice or self- 
 sacniice may lie behind the myth we cannot tell ; 
 similar rites were practised at Tarsus ; and, in the 
 stories of Hercules Melcarth and Sardanapalus, traces 
 of a kindred legend may be found. 
 
 Who, then, was Ehssar ? The answer, up to a 
 certain point, is tolerably plain. Both Elissar and 
 Pygmalion were apparently titles of Ashtart, the 
 biblical Ashtoreth,* goddess of the Sidonians. To 
 identify her with Tanith, the supreme divinity of 
 Carthage, attractive as it would be, is difficult ; for, 
 as will be shown later on, Tanith was, in all pro- 
 bability, a Libyan, not a Phoenician, goddess ; but 
 various hints, such as that of Justin, that her pyre 
 was built " at the end of the town " — that is, of Byrsa, 
 the city of Elissar — would suit an identification of 
 
 * That is, Ashtart, with the vowels of Bosheth, " Abomination " 
 14
 
 THE CITY OF ELISSAR 
 
 the Temple of Dido, and the scene of her death, with 
 the Sanctuary of Tanith, which stood somewhere 
 between Byrsa and the sea. Here it was that, in 
 later days, the human sacrifices of the Carthaginians 
 were offered to the goddess ; and even so late as the 
 fourth century of our era, the spot, enclosed in a 
 thicket of thorns, and inhabited, so it was said, by 
 asps and dragons, was surrounded with superstitious 
 terrors.* It was even found necessary to destroy a 
 Christian church erected on the spot, or into which 
 the temple itself had possibly been transformed, in 
 order to put an end to the polluted rites of which it 
 had been so long the abode. Perhaps it would be 
 safer to say that, as the Phoenician settlers, and their 
 worship, became Libyanised, the worship of Elissar 
 Ashtart paled before, and at last was supplanted by, 
 that of the Libyan goddess. 
 
 Such, at any rate, is the legend in its best-known 
 form, and the best interpretation which can, at pre- 
 sent, be placed upon it. The story of the bull's 
 hide which Elissar cut into strips to measure her 
 grant of land with, may be at once put aside. It 
 arose merely from an accidental similarity of sound 
 between the Greek word for an ox-hide and the 
 Phoenician word for a fortress, Byrsa, or Birtha, the 
 biblical Bozrah. Apart from its decorative details, the 
 fable is valuable merely as a testimony to Phoenician 
 trade methods and the inventive faculty of the Greeks ; 
 while, in order to bring Elissar and iEneas together, 
 Vergil was compelled to do that which, we are told, lies 
 beyond the power of the very gods themselves, and 
 
 " annihilate both time and space 
 To make two lovers " 
 
 unhappy. 
 That Carthage was Phoenician in origin, its name 
 
 *Sil. Hal., 1. 8i. 
 
 15
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Karthhadach,*, the New City, or Naples — the Greek 
 Karchedon and the Latin Karthago — tells us plainly 
 enough. It shows also that it was not the first of 
 these settlements ; it was new in comparison with 
 Utica, Outich, the Old City, which lay to the north- 
 west across the marshy plain and Sebka, which were 
 then the Gulf of Utica ; new in comparison with 
 Tunis (Tunes) at the head of its lake, or with Comb^, 
 which stood near, if not on the very site where Carthage 
 was built. The precise relation of the New to the 
 Old City is doubtful ; on the whole, it seems probable 
 that Carthage was not an offshoot or dependency of 
 the Tyrian Utica, but rather a Sidonian city founded 
 in rivalry with it. At any rate it was content, until 
 450 B.C., to pay a rent for the ground on which it 
 stood to the Berber tribe of the Maxyes. 
 
 We are so accustomed to speak of the inhabitants 
 as Carthaginians or Phoenicians or Pceni, that it is 
 difficult to realise that the name by which they called 
 themselves was none of these, but " Canaanite," a 
 man of the plains, a Lowlander. The Greeks gave 
 the country from which they came the name of 
 Phoenike, the Land of Purple, or of the Red Men ; the 
 Romans corrupted the name into Poeni or Punians ; 
 but even so late as in Christian times an African 
 farmer would call himself a Canaanite. 
 The site of the new city was well chosen, f 
 Low down on the Gulf of Tunis, sheltered from 
 every wind that blows except the north-east, from 
 which a little bay and a great breakwater protected 
 the entrance to the harbours, an isthmus, ending in 
 a triangular or fan-shaped peninsula, juts out some 
 
 * Karth, akin to the biblical kirjath. 
 
 t With his characteristic love of legend, or, as we should call it, 
 folk-lore, Vergil tells us {A en. i. 444), that Juno, or Ash tart, or 
 Tanith, commanded Elissar to build on the spot where she should 
 find a horse's head. The place was marked by a sacred grove. 
 
 16
 
 THE CITY OF ELISSAR 
 
 ten miles into the sea. On the south it is washed by 
 the shallow waters of the Lake of Tunis ; on the 
 north by what is now the Salt Lake or Lagoon, called 
 the Sebka er Riana, but which was then the open 
 Gulf of Utica, where the great river Medjerda, or 
 Bagradas, emptied its sullen waters into the sea. 
 The river has now changed its course, and vast 
 banks of sand have collected, changing the gulf into 
 a lake. 
 
 From the head of the Lake of Tunis to the Gulf of 
 Utica runs the protecting mountain range of the 
 Djebel Ahmor, a formidable barrier between the 
 isthmus and the mainland ; somewhere in these 
 mountains lay the cave into which, on the fatal 
 hunting day, Juno Pronuba led Elissar and the Dux 
 Trojanus to shelter from the storm, while the nymphs 
 shrieked upon the hill-tops. It was the day which 
 began the long enmity between Carthage and Rome, 
 which was to end only when Scipio wiped the great 
 city of Elissar off the face of the earth. 
 
 At its mountain base the isthmus has a width of 
 nearly ten miles, but it soon shrinks to little more 
 than two ; then it spreads out again in long even 
 curves into the fan-shaped peninsula already spoken 
 of, where it has a breadth of six miles. The northern 
 point of the open fan is occupied by the hills of 
 Kamart ; the southern by the narrow neck of land 
 called the Ligula or Tcenia,* which, like Chesil Beach 
 or the Palisades of Kingston Harbour, shuts in, save 
 for a narrow break in the middle, the Lake of Tunis. 
 From the Ligula the shore line runs due north-east 
 for a distance of about four miles, where it ends in 
 Cape Carthage, the central point of the fan. For the 
 first two and a half miles the shore is fiat, then it 
 rises rapidly into the hill now crowned with the New 
 Fort, Bordj-el-Djedid, and then, higher still, into the 
 
 * Now called La Goulette. 
 
 B 17
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 rocky headland of the cape where stood the old 
 Pharos, and now stands the lighthouse. 
 
 The trend of the northern shore is very similar, 
 only, of course, in opposite directions. A long curve 
 to the north-east ends in the heights of the Djebel 
 Khaoui or Kamart, corresponding to the Ligula to 
 the south. Then, turning to the south-east, the 
 coast runs to Cape Carthage. This section of the 
 coast is mountainous, save for a single dip at La 
 Marsa close under the cape.* On this great triangle 
 of land stood Carthage. 
 
 The beginnings of the city were, however, much 
 more modest. We can trace them, with some degree 
 of accuracy, by the position of the cemeteries, of 
 which the sides of the hills are full ; for by the Semites, 
 as by the Romans, the dead were considered unclean, 
 and could not be buried within the walls of the city. 
 
 In this way we learn that the earliest settlement 
 was not on Byrsa at all, but on the seashore just out- 
 side the Ligula, where, afterwards, the great harbours 
 were excavated. Here the coast, turning abruptly 
 to the east, forms a little sheltered bay, well fitted to 
 be the harbour of the first inhabitants, as it was to 
 be the entrance to the harbours in later days. About 
 a mile due north of this bay, nearly the same distance 
 from Bordj-el-Djedid, and about half a mile from the 
 sea, stands the hill of Byrsa ; on the land side it rises 
 up, by a steep ascent, to a height of about two hundred 
 feet ; on the other it drops precipitously towards 
 the sea. With the exception of the Acropolis of 
 Athens and the Capitol of Rome, it is perhaps the 
 most famous hill on the face of the earth. When 
 
 * The distances are, approximately, as follows : — 
 
 Cape Carthage to Kamart 4 miles 
 
 Cape Carthage to the Ligula 4 miles 
 
 Across the isthmus from Kamart to the Ligula 6 miles 
 Cape Carthage to a point on the centre of this 
 
 line across the isthmus i mile 
 
 18
 
 THE CITY OF ELISSAR 
 
 first included within the bounds of the city, it was, 
 as its name impKes, a fortress or kasbah ; in course 
 of time, when tyranny at home was more feared than 
 attack from abroad, it was consecrated to rehgious 
 uses, and became, hke the other two, the central 
 shrine of the national worship. 
 
 Two lines drawn from Byrsa — the one south, to 
 the Ligula, the other east, to the seashore, south of 
 Bordj-el-Djedid — would enclose the site of the city 
 proper, which was to greater Carthage what the City 
 is to greater London. Within its walls were contained 
 the great Temple of Eschmoun, the cathedral of 
 Carthage, which stood on the hill of Byrsa itself ; the 
 less officially important, but more popular, Temples of 
 Hammon and Tanith ; the naval harbour or Cothon, 
 opening into the commercial harbour, and, through it, 
 reaching the sea ; the long line of quays which reached 
 from the Ligula to Bordj-el-Djedid, and the Forum, 
 which was at once the market, the Royal Exchange, 
 the Law Courts and the Guild Hall of the city. 
 
 Punic in origin, Carthage remained, so far as the 
 government was concerned, Punic to the end. Its 
 constitution was a narrow and rigid oligarchy, from 
 which all but the old Punic families were jealously 
 excluded. There was no extension of the franchise 
 or citizenship, such as, from time to time, replenished 
 the ranks of the Republic of Rome, offered a reward 
 to capacity and service, and repaid or secured the 
 fidelity of the cities of the Empire. 
 
 The bulwark of this oligarchy was the council of 
 one hundred, actually one hundred and four, of which 
 the magistrates or " Suffetes " * were Httle more than 
 the officials. As these offices were for sale, it became 
 practically a government of capitalists, in which the 
 great families, Magon, Giscon, or Barcas, could obtain 
 from time to time a predominant influence. Decayed 
 
 * Shafetes, or Shophetim, the judges. 
 
 19
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 grandees were enabled to retrieve their fortunes from 
 the spoils of lucrative offices, such as those of tax- 
 collectors. 
 
 Thus the oligarchy degenerated into a plutocracy, 
 vulgar, ostentatious, self-indulgent, and heartless. The 
 story of the contemptuous amusement with which the 
 Carthaginians received the report of their ambassadors, 
 that the whole Senate of Rome possessed only one 
 service of silver plate, which reappeared at every 
 dinner-party they were invited to, sufiiciently describes 
 them. 
 
 As with the equally vulgar nobles of the Roman 
 Empire, it was the fashion to collect works of art, 
 and, as it was easy to employ Greek artists, or to 
 steal original statues, &c., ready made, from Greece or 
 Sicily, the Carthaginian millionaires filled their palaces 
 with works of Greek art ; thus setting an example 
 which, in due time, the Romans followed, when, in 
 their turn, they looted Carthage. Of their Archi- 
 tecture it is difficult to judge, save from the tombs ; 
 these are for the most part strongly influenced by 
 Greece and Egypt. 
 
 On the other hand, they possessed and developed 
 in a high degree the Semitic aptitude for banking 
 and business generally, which has made the Jews the 
 financiers of the world. It is said that they used 
 paper money, of no intrinsic value, in the sam.e way 
 that bank notes and cheques are used now. 
 
 They have left no traces of any natural science, or 
 art, or literature, save on the one subject of agriculture. 
 They possessed no growing or spreading aptitude for 
 political life, and they showed no desire for free forms 
 of government. 
 
 The Carthaginians had no lust for empire, save 
 that of the sea, and of the ports and markets which 
 were necessary to secure and develop their trade. 
 They never fought if they could help it. Though 
 
 30
 
 THE CITY OF ELISSAR 
 
 capable of spasmodic outbursts of desperate valour, 
 they allowed themselves to be supplanted in Egypt, 
 Greece, Italy, and East Sicily almost without a 
 struggle ; in the great trade war with Greece it was 
 their allies, the Etruscans, who did most of the 
 fighting at Cumae (280 B.C.) and Alatia (217 B.C.). 
 They lived in Africa " after the manner of the 
 Zidonians " in their old land, " quiet and secure " 
 in " a place where there is no want of anything that 
 is on the earth." * 
 
 As the city grew in power, wealth, and population, 
 the necessity for some territory was increasingly felt, 
 and they pressed forward gradually, submerging the 
 various cities which came in their way, destroying 
 their walls (except in the case of Utica), and imposing 
 on them a tribute of money or of men. Thus Leptis 
 Parva,t south of Sousse, was assessed at 365 talents 
 (£go,ooo) a year. 
 
 By degrees they advanced in this tentative way, 
 until they occupied, more or less completely, a territory 
 corresponding fairly with modern Tunisia and the 
 department of Constantine. The Libyan fortress of 
 Tebessa was not captured until the time of the First 
 Punic War. I Even within these limits it was fre- 
 quently a matter of alliance rather than of conquest. 
 The famous inscription from the mausoleum at Dougga§ 
 to Ataban, son of Ifmatel, son of Falao, is in Libyan 
 as well as Phoenician, and records an intermarriage 
 between the two peoples ; and the other similar monu- 
 ments at Kasserine, and Kroubs (near Cirta), and 
 elsewhere, show that it was by alliance with the native 
 princes, rather than by war, that they preferred to 
 spread their sphere of influence, and obtained per- 
 mission to establish settlements and markets. It was 
 in this way that they were able to recruit their armies 
 
 * Judges xviii. lo. 
 f Now Lam ta. { Polyb. i. 73. § Now in the British Museum. 
 
 21
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 from among a warlike but, on the whole, friendly 
 population. Such privileges as these were all that 
 the Poeni required, and for these they were ready, if 
 need were, to pay tribute. 
 
 This principle of alliance, rather than conquest, 
 was carried so far that when, at the time of the wars 
 with Rome, Cirta was taken from its rightful King, 
 Masinissa, it was not seized by Carthage, but left in 
 the hands of Syphax, King of Massesylia,* whose 
 alliance was purchased with the hand of Sophonisba. 
 The territory actually belonging to Carthage, or 
 Africa, consisted of little more than the corner of 
 land between Thabraka (Tabarca) to the west and 
 Taparura (Sfax) to the south ; and this was all that 
 the Romans annexed, under the name of " Provincia 
 Africa." The land thus occupied was, for the most 
 part, divided into vast estates and worked by slaves, 
 a single owner possessing sometimes as many as 
 twenty thousand ; the native farmers and peasantry, 
 when not altogether dispossessed, were reduced to 
 the position of serfs or felahin, and paid a rent of 
 one quarter of the produce of the land. Under these 
 conditions, agriculture became exceedingly scientific, 
 and the treatise on the subject by the Carthaginian 
 Magon remained long a text-book among the Romans. 
 
 Of this city of Elissar, the Romans did not leave one 
 stone upon another ; two little ponds mark the site of 
 the harbours, the immense systems of cisterns at La 
 Malga, near Bordj-el-Djedid and elsewhere, though re- 
 modelled by the Romans, were probably Punic in origin ; 
 a fragment or two of wall in Byrsa possibly belong 
 to the Punic fortifications ; a number of votive tablets 
 witness to the faith of the people ; beyond this there is 
 nothing save a grim layer of ashes mixedf with bones of 
 men, women, and children, and the graves of the dead. 
 
 * His capital was at Siga, west of Oran. 
 t This layer is about five feet thick. 
 
 22
 
 THE CITY OF ELISSAR 
 
 As it is from these cemeteries that we can trace 
 the position of the earHest settlement and the gradual 
 growth of the city, so it is from their contents and 
 from the manner in which the dead were laid in them 
 that we learn what little is known of the life of the 
 inhabitants of the city. 
 
 The sides of all the hills are full of tombs, some 
 reaching back to the seventh century before Christ, 
 while others date from the times of the Punic Wars. 
 
 In the earliest of the cemeteries, which lie nearest 
 the sea, the dead were laid in the ground without 
 coffin or covering of any kind ; but later on a different 
 and very elaborate system of burial was adopted. A 
 vertical shaft was sunk into the ground or rock to a 
 depth of about thirty feet, large enough to allow of 
 the body being lowered on a htter or bier. At the 
 bottom, lateral chambers were excavated ; the walls 
 were covered with stucco, so fine and white as to 
 glisten like snow in the lamplight, and so close in 
 texture as to ring like metal when struck. Above 
 the stucco ran a cornice of cedar supporting a ceiling 
 of the same wood. The whole was roofed in with 
 great slabs of stone, the weight of the earth above 
 being borne by other stones inclined one against the 
 other, and forming the curious triangles which are 
 so distinctive of these sepulchres. The entrance was 
 blocked with a great stone, and finally the shaft was 
 filled up with earth. In these chambers the dead, 
 decked out sumptuously, were laid on beds, facing 
 the entrance ; they were surrounded, not by any 
 dismal funeral trappings, but by lamps, vases of 
 perfumes, and other familiar household furniture, so 
 that, when they awoke from their sleep,* they might 
 
 * Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, in accordance with 
 Egyptian behefs, " when the spirit revisited the body." Pap. iii. 
 36, in the Louvre, shows the winged soul descending just such a 
 shaft to reach the mummy. 
 
 23
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 find themselves at home with all the gear and housing 
 of their earthly lives around them. 
 
 Later still a fresh modification was adopted ; the 
 body was laid in a stone sarcophagus and sealed up 
 with resin. On the lid was carved a recumbent image 
 of the dead, sometimes of great dignity and beauty. 
 Of these effigies the most noticeable is that of Tanith, 
 or the " priestess," hereafter to be described. Another 
 represents a Rab, or priest. In this the features are 
 grandly calm and dignified, the hair abundant and 
 curly, the beard and moustaches full. A long robe 
 descends to the sandalled feet ; over this a short 
 cloak falls from the left shoulder to the hip. The 
 right hand is uplifted in prayer ; the left, bent at the 
 elbow, holds a vase of offerings. 
 
 A third is of a woman. The hair stands high over the 
 forehead and is brought down on each side of the face 
 in two long plaits or curls. The whole body is clothed 
 in a soft robe, gathered in loosely at the waist and 
 falling in graceful folds to the sandalled feet. Over 
 the head is drawn a long veil ; it is held by the right 
 hand, which is thrown boldly forward, while the left 
 hand draws it easily across the body. The figure 
 is very Greek in conception ; except for the position 
 of the right hand, it follows closely the lines of the 
 Greek funeral monuments, a very lovely example of 
 which is in the Vatican Museum, under the name of 
 "Pudicitia." 
 
 Besides these carvings, there have been found in 
 these tombs a series of terra-cotta masks, so skilfully 
 modelled and so characteristic as to require a word of 
 notice. Some of them are mere grotesques, admirably 
 conceived and executed ; these were placed near the 
 dead to frighten away evil spirits by their grimaces. 
 Others, equally skilful, are more interesting in that 
 they seem to be likenesses of real men and women. 
 These are distinguished by wearing a metal ring, the 
 
 24
 
 THE CITY OF ELISSAR 
 
 biblical " Nezem," piercing through the central carti- 
 lage of the nose. 
 
 The first is a man. The face is a long oval, the 
 forehead high, and the hair, short and curly, grows 
 low upon it ; the ears, large and projecting, are 
 pierced for earrings. The upper lip and chin are 
 clean-shaven, but the cheeks are covered with bushy 
 whiskers, descending to the jaw. The cheek-bones 
 are high, the nose long, straight and pointed. The 
 eyes and mouth are drawn up at the corners, giving 
 a shrewd, humorous expression to the countenance. 
 Altogether the whole face is pleasant and life-like. 
 
 The only other mask I need speak of is that of a 
 woman. It is curiously different from the first. A 
 snood, like an Egyptian Klaft, covers all the hair 
 except a little fringe of curls over the forehead, and is 
 drawn down behind the ears over the breast. The 
 ears are large and pierced for five rings, two in the 
 lobe and three in the upper fold. The nose is very 
 heavy and bulbous, the eyes large and drawn upwards 
 as in the other case ; the chin small and receding, 
 the mouth small and drawn up in a smile. The whole 
 expression is so kindly that the ugliness of the nose 
 and ears is forgotten. 
 
 Such, then, were the great lords, the Hasdrubals 
 and Hamilcars of Carthage ; such her mariners who 
 wandered over the seas as far as Britain ; and such 
 the home-staying folk, the mothers and wives who 
 welcomed the sailors when the voyage was over. 
 
 -J
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT, 264-2OI B.C. 
 
 When, in the year 264 B.C., Carthage first came into 
 armed collision with Rome, she had been for nearly 
 two hundred years the Queen of the Mediterranean, 
 dominant in the East, so supreme in the West that 
 her ambassadors told the Romans that they might 
 not even wash their hands in the sea without leave 
 from Carthage. A naval power only, she had never 
 sought for other empire than that of the sea, but 
 that had been hers so completely and so long, that 
 she had learnt to consider it hers almost by a law 
 of nature. Just as now, wherever the traveller round 
 the world finds a piece of land worth having, he finds 
 the English flag waving over it, so was it then in the 
 Mediterranean, the central sea of the ancient world. 
 The south of Spain owed allegiance to Carthage ; 
 North Africa was fringed with her factories or em- 
 poria ; the west of Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, the Balearic 
 Islands, accepted her rule. With Greece she had 
 settled her accounts, with Rome she had a treaty. 
 And so, sitting like a queen, Hke Tyrus before her, 
 in the midst of the seas, with the wealth of the world 
 pouring into her lap, it is little wonder that '' her 
 heart was lifted up because of her beauty, and she 
 set her heart as the heart of God." 
 
 But, for all this fair show, the foundations of her 
 supremacy were rotten, for it rested upon her sea 
 power only. When she needed troops, Carthage had 
 to trust to the chance friendship of the warlike and 
 
 26
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 barbarous tribes which surrounded her, and to the 
 very uncertain loyalty of a mercenary army. When 
 Hamilcar Barcas landed in Spain at the beginning of 
 the vSecond Punic War, it is said that, with the excep- 
 tion of a General Staff of officers, he had not a single 
 Carthaginian soldier in the ranks. It was by his dis- 
 graceful betrayal of his Libyan troops, in 358 B.C., 
 that Himilco gave occasion for the phrase " Punica 
 Fides," which clung to Carthage for ever after ; while 
 on their return from the First Punic War, the army 
 of Hamilcar mutinied and, for three years, engaged 
 Carthage in the Mercenary War of which Flaubert 
 has given so lurid an account in Salamho. 
 
 Meanwhile, across the narrow seas which divide 
 Africa from Europe, a hardy and strenuous race was 
 being built up into a nation, welded together by blood 
 and iron. Every man was by instinct and necessity 
 a soldier, and inspired by a spirit of patriotism which 
 made him cheerfully recognise and accept universal 
 service as a national duty. Conquered Etruria had 
 done much to civiUse her rough conquerors : she had 
 given them laws, religion, architecture — everything, 
 indeed, but language. The rich plains of Cisalpine 
 Gaul (Lombardy) had been occupied, and South Italy 
 annexed. And now Rome, looking across the narrow 
 strait from Scylla to Charybdis, claimed Sicily as a 
 natural and necessary portion of her inheritance. 
 
 So long as Carthage confined herself to the extreme 
 west of the island, to Drepanum (Trapani) and Panor- 
 mos (Palermo),* and Greece was content with her foot- 
 hold at Syracuse, there was no occasion for any actual 
 collision ; but there was not room in the little island 
 for the intrusion of a third power. In 265 B.C. Rome 
 made her first advance by receiving all Sicilian Italians 
 into the Italian Confederacy. In the following year 
 
 * It is strange, but the Phoenician name of Palermo is not known ; 
 " Panormos " is Greek, and means the " All-Harbour." 
 
 27
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Carthage replied by occupying Messana (Messina) ; 
 Caius Claudius then landed, surprised and took prisoner 
 the Carthaginian Admiral Hanno, and retook Messana. 
 At this the Carthaginians declared war, prefacing it, 
 according to their custom, by the execution of the 
 unfortunate admiral, " pour encourager les autres." 
 Thus began the momentous struggle between the 
 whale and the elephant, which was fated to last for 
 one hundred and twenty years and to end in the 
 annihilation of the city of Elissar. 
 
 It was inevitable that, in its first stages, the war 
 should be naval and its issues determined, not on the 
 land, but at sea ; and the Carthaginian fleet was over- 
 whelmingly the strongest. Hitherto it had consisted 
 of triremes, or galleys with three banks of oars, each 
 manned by ten soldiers and one hundred and thirty 
 rowers, slaves who never left the benches to which 
 they were chained. This horribly cruel discipline 
 secured for Carthage two advantages of vital import- 
 ance : she could mobilise at a moment's notice, and 
 her crews, kept in a state of constant and severe 
 exercise and training, could be relied upon to carry 
 out those tactics of manoeuvring, ramming, and sinking 
 the enemy's ships on which, and not on hand-to-hand 
 fighting, Carthage relied for victory. 
 
 But in addition to the trireme, she had recently 
 learnt to build a much larger class of vessels, Penteres, 
 or quinqueremes, with five banks of oars, which occu- 
 pied towards the trireme very much the same position 
 as that taken by the Dreadnought towards the old 
 line-of-battle ship. Each of these was manned by 
 about twenty soldiers and three hundred rowers. 
 
 This new departure was the salvation of Rome, for 
 it practically put the triremes, in which the great 
 superiority of Carthage lay, out of the lighting line. 
 Recognising that the smaller vessels were hopelessly 
 outclassed by the larger, the Romans made no effort 
 
 28
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 to make up their deficiency in triremes, but, taking a 
 stranded Carthaginian ship as a model, concentrated 
 all their energies on the building of a hundred quin- 
 queremes. In addition to this, realising that they 
 were soldiers attacking sailors, they determined to 
 make a naval battle as Hke a land battle as possible. 
 For this purpose they placed on the prow of each 
 vessel a flying bridge, and, to the crew of three hundred 
 sailors, they added a complement of one hundred and 
 twenty legionaries, or marines. So soon as a Punic 
 vessel approached and tried to ram, the heavy bridge, 
 armed with a sharp spike or hook, which gave its 
 name of Corvus to the whole engine, was dropped on 
 the deck, and the legionaries swarmed over and 
 boarded her.* 
 
 The first enterprise ended in failure. In 260 B.C. the 
 fleet was launched, and C. Cornelius Scipio, with a 
 squadron of seventeen ships, tried to take Lipara. 
 The Carthaginians overpowered him and captured the 
 entire fleet. 
 
 The command was then entrusted to C. Duilius, 
 and in a battle fought off Mylce, near Palermo, fifty 
 Carthaginian vessels, nearly half the fleet, were cap- 
 tured or sunk, largely by means of the terrible flying 
 bridges. Duilius was awarded a triumph, and the 
 strange honour of having a flute-player to escort him 
 home from dinner. A Columna Rostrata — the first 
 of its kind — was erected in the Forum and adorned 
 with the beaks of the Carthaginian vessels. 
 
 * The description of the Corvus given by Polybius is minute but 
 not clear. In the prow of the vessel was erected a mast, twenty- 
 four feet high, with a pulley at the top. To this mast was attached 
 by a ring, a gangway, thirty-six feet long and four wide, with a 
 railing on each side as high as a man's knee. At the end was an 
 iron spike. As the enemy drew near, the whole was hoisted to the 
 top of the mast, so as to clear the bulwarks, and dropped on to the 
 opponent's deck. If the ships lay side by side, the soldiers boarded 
 where they chose ; if they were prow to prow, the men passed, two 
 abreast, by the gangvsay. 
 
 29
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Four years later, 256 B.C., the Romans felt them- 
 selves strong enough, by sea as well as by land, boldly 
 to carry the war into the enemy's country. A fleet 
 of three hundred and thirty sail, carrying forty thou- 
 sand soldiers, in addition to their complement of one 
 hundred thousand rowers, was despatched for Car- 
 thage, under the command of the Consul, Marcus 
 Atilius Regulus. Off Mount Ecnomus (Licata), which 
 thnists its huge bulk out into the sea thirty miles 
 east of Agrigentum (Girgenti), they encountered the 
 yet stronger fleet of Carthage. In the battle which 
 ensued, not less than three hundred thousand men 
 were engaged. The result was disastrous to Carthage ; 
 she lost ninety-four ships, and the Romans, although 
 their losses were equally severe, achieved their pur- 
 pose, and were able to pass on unhindered and effect 
 a landing at Clypea (Kilibia), on the eastern shore 
 of the promontory of Cape Bon, while the Carthaginian 
 fleet, crippled but not put out of action, was awaiting 
 them in the home waters to the west. Their coming 
 was a signal for a general rising of the native tribes. 
 
 For a time the success of Regulus was brilliant 
 and complete. Driving the armies of Carthage before 
 him, he pushed his way victoriously round the gulf 
 of Tunis, took the city of Tunis, and menaced Carthage 
 herself. 
 
 Then came one of those sudden outbursts of 
 enthusiastic heroism of which, under the stress of 
 pressing danger, the Carthaginians, like all Oriental 
 nations, showed themselves from time to time 
 capable. 
 
 From Sparta they invoked the aid of the renowned 
 General Xanthippus, and, under his leadership, Regulus 
 was totally defeated, his army, with the exception 
 of some two thousand men, extenninated, and himself 
 taken prisoner, 255 B.C. Nor was this all, for a Roman 
 fleet sent to his assistance perished in a storm on the 
 
 30
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 coast of Sicily, off Pachynus (Cape Passaro) ; and 
 the Carthaginians, safe for the moment from foreign 
 attack, were at Hberty to settle matters at home. 
 The rebellious tribes were subdued, and their sheiks, 
 to the number of three thousand, crucified. It was 
 the ordinary Carthaginian method of keeping up dis- 
 cipline or restoring order. 
 
 The scene of war then shifted finally to Sicily. 
 Taking advantage of the defeat by land, and loss of 
 ships by sea, which the Romans had suffered, the 
 Carthaginians attacked and recaptured Agrigentum 
 (Girgenti), and, in the following year, Drepanum 
 (Trapani) also, of which the Rom^ans had made them- 
 selves masters. 
 
 The war centred round Panomios (Palemio), the 
 strongest city, with the finest harbour, on the north 
 coast of Sicily. The city lies at the head of a little 
 bay, from which the beautifully fertile valley of the 
 Concha d'Oro (the Golden Shell) stretches inland, 
 under the shelter of the hills now crowned with the 
 glorious church of Monreale. 
 
 To the west the town and harbour* are sheltered 
 and protected by the huge shoulder of Ercte (Monte 
 Pellegrino), which was then connected with the main- 
 land only by a narrow isthmus. Here the Cartha- 
 ginians entrenched themselves, and the Romans, 
 although they blockaded the city and soon starved 
 it into surrender, were unable to dislodge them. 
 
 The year 351 B.C. was the turning-point of the 
 war. After receiving strong reinforcements from 
 Africa, the Carthaginians made a determined effort 
 to recover the city. In this endeavour they were 
 foiled and utterly defeated, and the triumph accorded 
 to the Roman general, L. Coccilius Metellus, was 
 adorned with their elephants. The Carthaginian 
 commander, Hasdrubal, escaped to Carthage, only 
 
 * The original harbour is completely silted up. 
 
 31
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 to suffer there the death which was tlie ordinary fate 
 of the defeated. 
 
 The Carthaginians now feued for peace and an 
 exchange of prisoners. In hope of securing more 
 favourable terms from the Romans, they sent Regulus 
 to plead for them. But they had mistaken their 
 man. Refusing to enter the Senate, or even Rome, 
 he told the Senators who were sent to confer with him 
 that men who had allowed themselves to be taken 
 prisoners were worthless and did not deserve ransom, 
 and exhorted the Romans to grant no terms of peace, 
 but to press the war to the bitter end. Then, taking 
 leave of his friends and family, he returned calmly 
 to Carthage, in accordance with his promise, to face 
 the unspeakable torture prepared for him.* 
 
 This happened in the year 250 B.C. Three years 
 later, in 247 B.C., Hannibal was born. 
 
 For nine years longer the war in Sicily was con- 
 tinued by the genius of Hamilcar Barcas,t who now 
 appears on the scene for the first time as a young 
 man of about twenty years of age. In 247 B.C., with 
 a small force of raw, half-savage mercenaries, he seized 
 Ercte (Monte Pellegrino), and for three years baffled all 
 the efforts of the Romans to dislodge him. He then, 
 244 B.C., moved with troops which had now become a 
 formidable army, to the relief of Drepanum (Trapani), 
 which was closely blockaded by the Romans. Seizing 
 the town of Eryx, on the mountain of the same name, 
 he entrenched himself there, and by means of his 
 fleet established communications with the beleaguered 
 town. Had he been adequately supported by Carthage, 
 he might have made, by sea, that attack upon Rome 
 herself which his son was obliged to attempt by the 
 long and arduous overland march from Spain. For 
 
 * The scene inspired Horace {Carm. iii. 5) with some of the noblest 
 verses he ever •Wrote. The truth of the story is very doubtful. 
 
 •f Barcas = Baraks Lightning. 
 32
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 two years longer he maintained himself on his mountain 
 fastness. 
 
 Then came the end. In 242 B.C., the Romans 
 despatched an overwhelming fleet mider the Consul 
 Gaius Lutatius Catulus. He himself was wounded 
 in an engagement off Syracuse, but on March 10 
 of the following year his Praetor, PubHus Valerius 
 Catulus, forced the Carthaginian fleet which had 
 been sent to relieve Drepanum to accept battle off 
 the island of ^gusa (Favignano), and won a brifliant 
 and decisive victory which rendered the cause of 
 Carthage in Sicily desperate. After crucifying their 
 defeated admiral, the Carthaginians sent orders to 
 Hamilcar to make peace on the best teniis he could 
 get. By these conditions they were compelled to 
 evacuate Sicily, to surrender to Rome all the islands 
 between Sicily and Africa, and to pay a war indemnity 
 of three thousand two hundred talents (£800,000) in 
 ten years. 
 
 Another condition was that Hamilcar and his 
 army should pass under the yoke. This Hamilcar 
 flatly refused to do. The matter was not pressed, and 
 he marched out with all the honours of war.* 
 
 Three years later, taking advantage of the domestic 
 troubles of Carthage, the Romans seized Sardinia 
 also, at the invitation of the Sardinians. 
 
 Thus ended the First Punic War, in the year 241 B.C. 
 
 But peace with Rome did not bring tranquillity to 
 Carthage. 
 
 The peace party was now in the ascendant there, 
 and when Hamilcar landed with his twenty thousand 
 mercenaries, his command was taken from him and 
 given to his bitter enemy Hanno. While holding 
 Eryx, Hamilcar had been unable to pay his troops, 
 and long arrears were due to them. These arrears 
 
 * He had, however, to pay a ransom of eighteen denarii (twelve 
 shilHngs) per head for his men. 
 
 c 33
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Hanno refused to pay. A furious niutiny at once 
 broke out, headed by Spendius, a fugitive slave from 
 Campania, and Matlio, an African who had distin- 
 guished himself greatly in the war. As usual, the 
 mutineers were at once joined by the neighbouring 
 tribes, and a war broke out which lasted for three 
 years, and brought Carthage more than once to the 
 brink of destruction. Through the incapacity of 
 Hanno, defeat and disaster followed one another in 
 rapid succession. Tunis was taken, and Carthage 
 itself attacked. At last Hanno was superseded, and 
 the command restored to Hamilcar. The magic of 
 his genius and his well-known character for probity 
 brought many of the mutineers back to their duty, 
 and enabled him to secure the aid of the Numidian 
 sheiks, and so threaten the enemy in front and rear. 
 Tunis was retaken, Matho utterly defeated, and his 
 army, to the number, it is said, of forty thousand, 
 driven back into the mountains and hemmed in a 
 defde known by the name of the Hatchet, to the east 
 of Bou Kornein. Seeing that success or even escape 
 was hopeless, Spendius now tried to come to terms. 
 With nine others of the principal leaders of the mutiny, 
 he met Hamilcar. They were received with the utmost 
 courtesy ; the only condition Hamilcar made was that 
 ten men whom he should name should be surrendered 
 to him. Astonished at such clemency, they at once 
 consented. " Then I name you," was the reply, and 
 they were at once seized and sent to Carthage. 
 
 In despair the mutineers prepared for a desperate 
 resistance. When their supplies were exhausted, it 
 is said that they ate their prisoners. At last, worn 
 out with fatigue and starvation, they could hold out 
 no longer, and were trampled to death beneath the 
 feet of Hamilcar' s elephants. 
 
 Thus, in the year 238 B.C., ended the War of the 
 Mercenaries, known as the Truceless ^^'ar. 
 
 34
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 The First Punic War, or, as the Romans called 
 it, the Sicilian War, had ended inconclusively. For 
 twenty-three years it had dragged on, with varying 
 success, but, on the whole, greatly to the disadvantage 
 of Carthage. Sicily, Sardinia, and Malta were lost 
 to her, and the Mediterranean was no longer a Cartha- 
 ginian lake, a ^nare claiisiim, as she had striven to 
 make it. 
 
 This was much, but the moral results in the loss 
 of prestige were much more serious and far-reaching. 
 Rome had learnt two lessons — that it was not enough 
 for the one mailed fist to wield the Trident, unless the 
 other grasped the Sword ; and, further, that the hold 
 of Carthage on that Trident was not so firm but that 
 it might be wrung from her. She had pricked the 
 bubble of Punic supremacy at sea. She had done 
 what Blake did for England when he formed her lirst 
 navy, marched his soldiers on board, and swept Van 
 Tromp and the invincible Dutch from the sea. She 
 had learnt that she need not fear to meet even the 
 terrible sea-captains of Carthage on even terms. The 
 glamour of fear of Carthage, which rested on all who 
 haunted the sea, was gone for ever, 
 
 A peace made after so inconclusive a war could 
 be little more than a truce, and the breathing- 
 space was short. In 238 B.C., Hamilcar Barcas, 
 fresh from his tremendous vengeance on the Mer- 
 cenaries,* landed in Spain. His business was to thwart 
 Roman enterprise in the peninsula, and to build up 
 there an empire which should compensate Carthage 
 for what she had lost elsewhere. With him he took 
 his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, and his little son Hannibal, 
 a boy of nine years old, who had just taken, at the 
 altar of God, the oath of undying hatred of Rome 
 which he so faithfully kept. " When my father, 
 
 * Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say, " on the natives 
 who had joined the Mercenaries," 
 
 35
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Hamilcar," so he said to Aiitiochus long afterwards, 
 " was setting out for the war in Spain, he called me to 
 him and bade me lay my hand on the sacrifice and 
 swear before the altar that I would never make peace 
 with Rome {nunquam esse in amicitia cum Romanis). 
 I took that vow, and have kept it." * 
 
 In nine years Hamilcar has subdued all south of 
 the Tagus; then he fell in battle (229 B.C.). His 
 son-in-law, Hasdrubal, took his place, and continued 
 his course of conquest with little effectual opposition 
 from the Romans, who were hampered by the invasion 
 of the Gauls. Eight years after the death of Hamilcar, 
 after founding New Carthage (Carthagena) and sub- 
 duing all the country south of the Ebro, Hasdrubal 
 was murdered (321 B.C.) and the command passed 
 into the hands of Hannibal, now a young man of 
 twenty-six — one of the two or three men of supreme 
 military and administrative genius that the world 
 has seen. 
 
 Unable to deny his greatness as a soldier and 
 leader of men, the Roman historians have striven to 
 belittle him by accusing him of savage cruelty and a 
 more than Punic perfidy. To establish the latter 
 charge they have been able to produce no evidence 
 whatever. Of cruelty they adduce one instance : After 
 the battle of Cannse, some young Roman prisoners were 
 set — no unusual thing — to light against one another, 
 the survivors being promised their freedom ; on their 
 refusal to fight they were all put to death with torture. 
 But such barbarity seems to have been exceptional. 
 As a rule, Hannibal's treatment of his prisoners was 
 not marked by unnecessary rigour, while, in his respect 
 for the dead, his conduct contrasts very favourably 
 with that of the Romans themselves. The best witness 
 to his genius and to his personaUty is that he never 
 lost a battle in all his long Italian campaign, and that, 
 
 * Polyb. iii. ii. 
 36
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 although his army was a mixed multitude of barbarians 
 of all nations and languages, and had been fighting, 
 without rest, for sixteen years, they never failed him 
 or murmured, and he never had to quell a mutiny. 
 
 Recognising that, if Rome was to be conquered, 
 he must strike at the heart, Hannibal detemiined to 
 force on a new war. For this purpose he attacked 
 Sagimtum, 219 B.C., a city which, though south of the 
 Ebro, and therefore within the sphere of Punic occupa- 
 tion, was in close alliance with Rome. When am- 
 bassadors arrived from Rome to complain, he coldly 
 referred them to Carthage, and, continuing his opera- 
 tions, took and sacked the town. Arrived at Carthage, 
 the envoys found that, after nearly twenty years of 
 peace and of careful husbanding of their resources, 
 the temper of the Pceni was changed, and they were 
 now as eager for war as once they had been clamorous 
 for peace. Unable to obtain satisfaction, the Roman 
 envoy gathered his toga into a fold and said, " Here 
 we bring you peace or war — take which you please." 
 " Give us whichever you like," was the answer. " Then 
 take war." " We accept it gratefuhy." Thus in the 
 year 218 B.C., began the Second Punic War. 
 
 Hannibal's plan of campaign was as simple as it 
 was daring. To transfer the seat of war to Italy ; 
 to raise the country, only half subdued and wholly 
 unreconciled to the yoke of Rome ; to attack Rome 
 herself if possible ; if not, to push on to the south 
 and join hands with Carthage across the narrow seas 
 between South Italy and Africa. 
 
 So audacious a plan depended for its success upon 
 the rapidity with which it was carried out. The 
 command in Spain he entrusted to his brother, Has- 
 drubal Barcas, and left with him the entire fleet and 
 fifteen thousand soldiers. Late in May, 218 B.C., he 
 left Carthagena with an army of ninety thousand 
 men, and pressed forward to the north. Overleaping 
 
 37
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the Pyrenees, he evaded the Roman Consul, Cn. 
 Scipio, who was watchmg the mouth of the Rhone, 
 by crossing the river higher up, near its confluence 
 with the Isere. Having secured the friendship of 
 the Gauls, he pushed on unhindered to the foot of the 
 Alps. Late in the autumn, in spite of the frost and 
 snow and of the ceaseless attacks of the barbarians 
 who hung like wolves upon his flanks, he " forced," 
 to use Napoleon's* word, the pass of the Great St. 
 Bernard, cutting his way through the snow-drifts 
 and splitting, so we are told, the rocks with vinegar. 
 It was the greatest military achievement of his great 
 career, but it cost him dear. Two-thirds of the army, 
 and all his elephants save one,t were left behind in 
 the awful passes. 
 
 Descending into Italy, he found Scipio, who had 
 crossed from Spain by sea, waiting to intercept him. 
 Advancing along the left bank of the Po, he encountered 
 him on the Ticinus, and the war opened with a cavalry 
 skirmish, in which the Romans suffered heavily. 
 Scipio himself was wounded, and was only saved from 
 death by his young son Publius, the future Africanus. 
 A dramatic incident indeed, if it be true, for the two 
 men were not to meet again until they stood face to 
 face at Zama. 
 
 Giving the enemy no time to recover, Hannibal 
 pressed on, fell heavily upon the other Consul, 
 Sempronius, on the Trebia, and defeated him also 
 utterly. Then as the autumn was over, he went into 
 winter quarters among the Ligurian Gauls. It was 
 then, in the swamps of the Po, that he contracted 
 the ophthalmia which cost him an eye. 
 
 In the following spring, Hannibal left his quarters, 
 gave the Consul Fluminus the slip at Arretium (Arezzo), 
 
 * " Hannibal forced the Alps — I turned them." 
 t This, we are told, he kept for his own riding : 
 
 " Quum Getula ducem portaret bellua luscum." — Jiiv. x. 15S. 
 
 38
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 ambushed him on the Lake Thrasimene, annihilated 
 his army, and Rome lay, apparently, at his mercy. 
 
 Then, if ever, the gods f ought for Rome, and she 
 saw her terrible enemy pass without venturing to 
 attack, with much the same feeling as, on the great 
 day of England's deliverance from Spain,* Drake 
 and Hawkins watched the Invincible Armada pass 
 St. Helen's, and knew that Spain had lost her chance, 
 and England was saved. As he passed, the Dictator 
 Quintus Fabius Maximus, known as Cunctator.f with 
 a new army closed in on his rear ; for every Roman 
 was a soldier. At Cannae (August 2, 216 B.C.) the lion 
 turned furiously upon the wolves and rent them with 
 a carnage that was never forgotten or forgiven ; seventy 
 thousand out of an army of seventy-six thousand 
 perished in the awful slaughter. But the Senate, 
 never grander than on that day of deadly peril, merely 
 thanked the defeated Consul, Terentius Varro, a 
 plebeian and their political enemy, for not despairing 
 of the Republic, and prepared for fresh efforts. 
 Carthage would have crucified him,| 
 
 Again the road to Rome was open, and Maharbal, 
 the ablest of Hannibal's lieutenants, begged to be 
 allowed to advance at once with the cavalry, " They 
 shall know that I have come before they know that 
 I am coming ; within five days you shall be feasting 
 on the Capitol." But permission was refused. " Han- 
 nibal," said Maharbal, " you know how to win victories, 
 but not how to use them." § 
 
 The parallel of the Armada is curiously true in 
 
 * August 4, A.D. 1588. 
 
 t " Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem." — Ennius (quoted 
 by Vergil). 
 
 t The aristocratic Consul, yEmilius Paulus, refused battle, but the 
 Consuls commanded on alternate days, and Varro accepted. Paulus 
 was amongst the killed. 
 
 § " Ut prius venisse quam venturum sciant." 
 
 " Vincere scis, Hannibal, victoria uti nescis." — Livj^, xxii. 51.
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 another detail. Medina Sidonia did not dare attempt 
 to land without reinforcements, and so pressed on to 
 Calais, only to find that since the death of Mary Stuart 
 France had changed her mind, and no help was ready 
 for him ; so was it now with Hannibal, For thirteen 
 years (216-203 B.C.) he held his ground in South Italy, 
 never defeated, it is true, but winning useless victories, 
 with a dwindling army, and always looking in vain 
 for help from Carthage, which never came. Capua 
 was his Khartoum. 
 
 Once (212 B.C.) he marched on Rome, hoping to 
 draw off the Roman force which was besieging Capua. 
 In his camp on the Anio, three miles from the city, 
 Hannibal was told how the place where his feet stood 
 had been bought for its full value in open market, 
 just as Jeremiah purchased the field of Hananiah in 
 Anathoth when the Assyrians were encamped there. 
 But the tide had turned. " God once gave me the 
 chance of taking the city, but not the will ; now I 
 have the will, but not the chance." * He made a futile 
 demonstration against the Capuan Gate and retired. 
 
 Once, also, his brother Hasdrubal made an efiort to 
 relieve him (208-7 B.C.), and advanced from Spain 
 into Italy ; but the despatches telling of his approach 
 fell into the hands of the Consul Nero. Forsaking 
 his duty of watching Hannibal, and marching day 
 and night, he joined the other Consul Livius on the 
 Metaurus, gave instant battle to Hasdrubal, defeated 
 and killed him, hurried back and flung his head into 
 the camp of Hannibal as, to use Danton's tremendous 
 words, Rome's " gage of battle." Hannibal realised 
 that the last hope of Carthage had died with his 
 brother, t 
 
 * " Modo mentem non dad, modo fortunam." — Livy, xxvi. ii. 
 
 f " Occidit, occidil: 
 Spes omnis et Fortuna nostri 
 NominisHasdrubaleinterempto." — Hor., CarmAv. 4. 
 
 40
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 Meanwhile Rome was not content merely to keep 
 Hannibal at bay. What the Carthaginians could 
 attempt in Ital}^ that P. Scipio undertook to do in 
 Africa. 
 
 Elected as /Edile in 212 B.C., he was sent two years 
 later as general to Spain. There his masterly strategy 
 enabled him to take Carthagena and defeat the in- 
 competent generals who had succeeded Hasdrubal ; 
 while his firm and generous policy, and, above all, 
 his absolute good faith, gave him unbounded influence 
 over the native chiefs. By the year 207 B.C. little 
 remained in the hands of Carthage save Gades 
 (Cadiz). Passing over into Africa, Scipio visited 
 Syphax, King of the Massesylians, at Cirta, and 
 sought to win his alliance for Rome, It is said that 
 he there met Hasdrubal Giscon, whom he had defeated 
 in Spain, and that the two noble enemies parted with 
 mutual respect and hking. The hand of Sophonisba, 
 the beautiful daughter of Hasdrubal, kept Syphax 
 faithful to Carthage, but cost her the allegiance of 
 Masinissa, the great Numidian chieftain, to w^hom, it 
 is said, Sophonisba had been betrothed. Scipio 
 returned to Spain, in part thwarted, but with a new 
 ally, who was thenceforward to prove himself the 
 faithful and indomitable friend of Rome. During his 
 absence in Africa a serious insurrection and mutiny 
 had broken out in Spain, but Scipio speedily crushed 
 both, drove the Carthaginians out of their last strong- 
 hold at Gades, and returned to Rome, where, in 
 206 B.C., in spite of being under the legal age, he was 
 elected Consul by the unanimous voice of the people. 
 When his term of office was expired, he chose Sicily 
 as his province (206 B.C.), and at once prepared to 
 carry the war into Africa. 
 
 With the exception of Caesar, Scipio was the greatest 
 general and citizen that Rome ever gave birth to. In 
 military genius a worthy rival of Hannibal, he was 
 
 41
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 in personal character gentle and unassuming, loyal 
 to his friends, generous to his enemies, of unimpeachable 
 integrity, cultured and refined. It was well for Rome 
 that, at the great crisis of her history, she had such a 
 son to guide her counsels and command her armies. 
 
 And now the weakness of Carthage was revealed 
 indeed. Crossing over into Africa, Scipio wintered 
 at Utica, where he was joined by Masinissa. Syphax, 
 in the meantime, was playing a double game. In 
 reality the influence of Sophonisba kept him faithful 
 to Carthage, and his army was practically supporting 
 hers. Nominally, however, he was acting as inter- 
 mediary between the two enemies, and there was, at 
 least, a truce between him and Scipio. This truce 
 Scipio was persuaded by Masinissa to violate. Dividing 
 his army into two divisions, one under himself and 
 one under Masinissa, he made a simultaneous night 
 attack upon the camps of Syphax and Hasdrubal, 
 and burnt them both. Two decisive battles followed. 
 Syphax was utterly defeated and taken prisoner, 
 and the Carthaginians were driven back in confusion 
 on their base. The victory was complete, but the 
 whole transaction rests as a blot, the only one, on the 
 scutcheon of Scipio's honour.* 
 
 Cirta and the whole kingdom of Syphax were 
 given to Masinissa ; Carthage was invested and sued 
 for peace. Terms of almost incredible moderation 
 were imposed by Scipio. The status quo was to be 
 accepted ; Spain, already lost, and the Balearic 
 Islands were to be formally ceded to Rome, Masinissa 
 was to be recognised and left undisturbed at Cirta ; 
 all vessels of war, save ten, were to be surrendered, a 
 war indemnity of five thousand talents (£1,000,000), 
 was to be paid ; all prisoners and deserters were to 
 be delivered up. 
 
 * Syphax died in captivity before the triumph of Scipio. 
 42
 
 THE SWORD AND THE TRIDENT 
 
 These terms were foniially accepted by the Cartha- 
 ginian envoys and a truce declared, while the consent 
 of the respective governments was being obtained. 
 
 Too late, Carthage repented of her desertion of 
 the one man who might have saved her. Hannibal 
 and his brother Magon were recalled. For three years, 
 205-3 B.C., Magon had been fighting in North Italy, 
 striving in vain to effect a junction with his brother 
 in the south, or at least to create a diversion. He 
 had taken Genoa, but in a battle near Milan he had 
 been seriously wounded, and although he obe37ed the 
 summons of Carthage, he died on the voyage. 
 
 After killing such of his Italian soldiers as refused 
 to accompany him, Hannibal also obeyed ; the Romans 
 were too glad to see the last of their unconquerable 
 enemy, to do anything to hinder his departure. The 
 Senate celebrated the event by presenting a wreath 
 of grass, the highest honour they could accord to any 
 man, to Ouintus Fabius Cunctator, now an old man 
 of ninety years, the only man who has passed through 
 those awful years of peril with credit. Fabius died 
 in the same year. 
 
 And so, after thirty years of splendid service, 
 Hannibal returned to the ungrateful country which 
 had forsaken and ruined him. Weary and worn with 
 service, maimed — for, like Nelson, he had lost an eye 
 in the swamps of the Upper Po — ^his spirit crushed 
 by disappointed hopes, and the strain of the long 
 agony he had endured, he landed at Leptis with the 
 shattered remains of his invincible army. 
 
 For the moment the spirits and hopes of the 
 Carthaginians revived. They repudiated the terms 
 of peace which they had just accepted ; a Roman 
 transport fleet was treacherously attacked and plun- 
 dered, and a warship, with the Roman envoys on 
 board, was seized. But it was hoping against hope. 
 Hannibal's army consisted chiefly of raw levies, his 
 
 43
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 elephants were wild brutes untrained for war, and more 
 dangerous to friend than foe. With such materials 
 even his genius was unable to cope with the seasoned 
 soldiers of Rome, led by such a general as Scipio. 
 The issue could not be doubtful.* In the spring of 
 202 B.C., the two great commanders who had parted 
 on the Ticinus met again at Zama, near Sicca Veneria 
 (Kef), " five days' march west of Carthage." f The 
 defeat of Hannibal was utter and complete. With a 
 handful of followers he made his way to Hadrumetum, 
 and so to Carthage, and advised the citizens to make 
 the best terms they could with the exasperated 
 Romans. 
 
 These terms were naturally harder than the former. 
 In addition to these, the Carthaginians were to pay 
 an annual tribute of two hundred talents (£48,000) 
 for fifty years ; they were not to wage war outside 
 Africa, and, in Africa, they were not to advance 
 beyond their own territory, or make war without the 
 permission of Rome, or on the allies of Rome. 
 
 By Hannibal's advice these terms were accepted. 
 Scipio returned in triumph to Rome, and for a time 
 the land had rest. 
 
 Thus ended the Second Punic War. It had lasted 
 seventeen years, from 218-201 B.C. 
 
 * A dramatic story is told by Polybius of an interview between 
 the two generals at Naragara ; it was not, however, found possible 
 to come to terms (Polyb. xv. 5). 
 
 t Polyb. XV. 5. The site of Zama is unknown. 
 
 44
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MAILED FIST, 2OI-I46 B.C. 
 
 The position of Carthage was humiliating, almost in- 
 tolerable, but not desperate. Hannibal was still alive 
 and soon proved himself not less able as a reformer 
 and administrator than he had formerly shown himself 
 as a general. Under his stem and impartial rule 
 justice was once more dispensed, the revenue was 
 honestly collected, abuses repressed, the finances 
 reorganised, and the laws enforced. The heavy war 
 indemnity laid upon Carthage by the Senate was paid 
 off in less than half the time allowed, and generally 
 the recovery of Carthage was so rapid as to arouse 
 once more the jealous fears of Rome. Owing to her 
 matchless position and great traditions, her trade and 
 population, and with these her wealth and importance, 
 increased by leaps and bounds. To Rome, the very 
 existence of Carthage seemed a constant threat. 
 She had never considered the conditions of peace 
 sufficiently onerous ; now she became alarmed, and 
 although Hannibal had always honourably observed 
 the terms of peace, the Senate demanded that he should 
 be dismissed and surrendered to them. Carthage 
 was utterly unable to refuse, and so, to save himself, 
 Hannibal fled from the city he had served only too 
 well, and disappears from our sight. 
 
 Meanwhile Carthage had other troubles, even more 
 pressing and immediate, to deal with. Masinissa, 
 restored to his kingdom at Cirta (Constantine), found 
 in the weakness of his enemy, an excellent opportunity 
 
 45
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 for paying off old scores and enlarging his borders 
 at her expense. In i6o B.C. he seized the province 
 of Emporia, on the Lesser Syrtes, and when Carthage 
 appealed to Rome, the commissioners sent to deal 
 with the matter not only confirmed him in possession 
 of the territory he had seized, bat ordered Carthage 
 to pay him five hundred talents (;^i20,ooo) in addition. 
 
 Encouraged by this, Masinissa proceeded, 157 B.C., 
 to seize Tiisca and the fertile plains watered by the 
 Bagradas. Again Carthage appealed to Rome, and 
 a second commission was sent, not to arbitrate, but 
 to adjudicate. When Carthage demanded that, as 
 matter of simple justice, the question of her legal 
 right to the territory should be inquired into, the 
 commissioners at once returned to Rom.e and reported 
 the contumacy of the hated town. The chairman 
 of the commission was Marcus Cato, and so impressed 
 was he by what he saw of the wealth and pros- 
 perity of Carthage, that he made the destruction of 
 the city the single aim of his policy. We are told 
 that, from the time of his return, he ended every speech 
 he made with the words, Delenda est Carthago, " Car- 
 thage must be blotted out," and the cry was taken up 
 by Scipio Nasica, a near relative of Africanus. One 
 day Cato brought into the Senate a basket full of 
 ripe figs which had come from Carthage, to remind 
 the Senators how near, within three days' journey, the 
 dreaded rival was. 
 
 At last the continual and unprovoked aggressions 
 of Masinissa, and the refusal of Rome to interfere, 
 or even abide by the conditions of peace, compelled 
 Carthage to arm in self-defence. Masinissa reported 
 this to Rome, referred the whole matter to the Senate, 
 and continued his attacks. The battle which ensued, 
 151 B.C., was witnessed by a young military tribune 
 who had been sent from Spain to collect elephants 
 for the army. He was grandson of ^Emilius Paulus, 
 46
 
 THE MAILED FIST 
 
 but upon being adopted into the family of the Scipios 
 by his uncle, the eldest son of Africanus, he had taken 
 their name, by which he is always known. He saw 
 the shock of battle, he saw Masinissa, now an old 
 man of eighty-eight years, vault upon his barebacked 
 steed and charge at the head of the matchless Numidian 
 cavalry, and was dehghted with the sight. Nobody 
 but the gods in heaven, he wrote home, had ever 
 seen anything so beautiful. 
 
 In spite of his defeat, Hasdrubal continued the 
 war, but at last, his army wasted with disease and 
 famine, he was compelled to accept whatever terms 
 Masinissa chose to offer him. One of these was that 
 the army should pass through the enemy's camp 
 unarmed, and the men with but one garment apiece. 
 As they went, they were treacherously attacked and 
 massacred ; only a few, including Hasdrubal himself, 
 escaped to tell the tale in Carthage. 
 
 But Husdrubal's troubles were not yet over. In 
 the extremity of their terror and perplexity, the 
 Carthaginians condemned to death both him and 
 Corbulo, the governor of the city whose plea for justice 
 had ended so disastrously, and despatched an embassy 
 to Rome, imploring pardon and laying the whole 
 blame upon them. Hasdrubal saved himself by flight. 
 
 The end was now drawing near. Rome had accepted 
 the dictum of Cato, and made the destruction of 
 Carthage the keystone of her poHcy. It was true that 
 Carthage had been wilfully attacked by Masinissa, 
 and, like the hippopotamus, had shown herself tres 
 m^chante, only in that she had defended herself against 
 his unprovoked assaults ; it was true also that she 
 had been defeated. Still, she had ventured to resist 
 the ally of Rome, and, in her present temper, that 
 was enough to enable Rome to resort to arms. Indeed, 
 there was another reason. It was one thing to humble 
 Carthage ; it was quite another to allow a troublesome, 
 
 47
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 and possibly even dangerous, ally to increase his power 
 and empire at her expense. 
 
 When one power has determined to attack another, 
 it has never been found difficult to make or invent 
 a pretext ; and now Rome had found an excuse for 
 doing what her mind was set upon. Then came 
 another inducement. Utica, still smarting under the 
 supremacy of her younger sister, sent an embassy to 
 Rome, put herself unreservedly at her disposal, and, 
 in fact, became the basis of operations in the war 
 which soon followed. 
 
 Meanwhile, until Rome was ready to begin, dip- 
 lomatic negotiations were kept up with Carthage. 
 In 149 B.C. a last embassy was sent by the terrified 
 Poeni with unlimited powers to accept any terms that 
 might be imposed. " What do you want us to do ? " 
 they asked. " You must satisfy the Roman people." 
 " But how ? " " That you already know." And with 
 this answer they had to be content. The news that 
 the Roman fleet had sailed was the first intimation 
 vouchsafed to Carthage that war had been declared. 
 
 Still one more despairing effort was made. Three 
 hundred hostages, the children of the noblest famihes, 
 were demanded, and surrendered to the Consul at 
 Lilyboeum. In return a promise was given that the 
 Carthaginians should be left free and retain their 
 land ; of the city nothing was said. The details 
 were to be settled when the Consuls landed in Africa. 
 Thus began the third, and last Punic War. 
 
 Much had changed since Zama and all the great 
 protagonists had passed away. The fierce old fighter, 
 Masinissa, had died at last, at the age of ninety years, 
 leaving a child of four* — just too soon to see the down- 
 fall of Carthage. Scipio, the great Africanus, had 
 died dishonoured and almost in exile at his home 
 in Campania, refusing with his last breath to allow 
 
 * Or one year old. C/. Mommsen, III. vii. 
 48
 
 THE MAILED FIST 
 
 his bones to be laid in the sepulchre of his fathers on 
 the Appian Way, outside the gate of the ungrateful 
 city. " Ingrata Patria, ne ossa quidem habebis." Such 
 was the epitaph he desired to have engraved on his 
 tomb. The ring — 
 
 " Cannarum vindex, et tanti sanguinis ultor " — * 
 
 had done its work, and Hannibal had died by his 
 own hand, in exile, at the court of Prusias in Bithynia, 
 183 B.C., pursued to the last by the unrelenting hatred, 
 the daughter of fear, of Rome. 
 
 But the old names reappear. Another Hasdrubal 
 ruled in Carthage, and another Scipio was to lead the 
 legions of Rome to victory final and complete. 
 
 The two Consuls, Marcius Manilius and Lucius 
 Censorinus, one commanding the army, the other 
 the fleet, landed at Utica unopposed, 149 B.C., and 
 the Gerusia of Carthage attended in a body to know 
 their fate. 
 
 The first orders were to disarm the city, to sur- 
 render not only the tiny fleet left her, but all materials 
 for shipbuilding, all military stores, and all arms in 
 public or private hands. 
 
 This was agreed to ; all the ships, all the dockyard 
 stores, three thousand catapults, and two hundred 
 thousand suits of armour were delivered up. 
 
 Then, with a pcrfidia plusquam Punicd, Marcius 
 Manilius and Lucius Censorinus pronounced sentence. 
 The Senate, they said, ordered that the city should 
 be destroyed, but the inhabitants were left at liberty 
 to build another wherever they chose, but not within 
 ten miles of the sea. 
 
 When the Gerusia returned with the fatal news 
 they were greeted Vv'ith an outburst of furious resent- 
 ment and indignation, which recalls that aroused by 
 the approach of Regulus. The gates were closed, 
 
 * Juvenal, x. 165. 
 
 D 49
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 public and private buildings were destroyed, the 
 stones were carried to the walls, and with the timbers 
 new catapults were constructed, the ladies cutting 
 off their hair to be twisted into thongs ; and when, 
 after a few days' delay, the Romans advanced delibe- 
 rately to take possession of a defenceless city, they 
 found it armed and prepared for resistance to the 
 death. 
 
 By the surrender of her fleet, Carthage had lost 
 the command of the sea, and with it the control of 
 the isthmus which lay between the city walls and 
 the mountains of the Djebel-el-Ahmor, the first line 
 of defence with which nature had provided her. Still, 
 the natural strength of her position and her almost 
 impregnable fortifications made the task of the Romans 
 one of extreme difficulty. 
 
 The city, as already said, occupied a triangular 
 peninsula at the end of the isthmus. Its land frontage 
 from Kamart to the Ligula was about six miles in 
 length ; its two sea fronts, from Kamart to Cape 
 Carthage, and from Cape Carthage to the Ligula, 
 were about four miles each. 
 
 The side towards the isthmus was defended by 
 a line of fortifications so vast as to be described as 
 a camp in itself ; but about its exact nature there 
 is some difference of opinion. 
 
 Along the sea front from Kamart, round by Cape 
 Carthage to the height now crowned by Bordj-el- 
 Djedid, the coast is mountainous, and a single wall 
 of circumvallation was considered, and ultimately 
 proved to be, protection enough. From the Bordj 
 to the Ligula ran the quays of the city proper. 
 
 At a point now called El Kram, just above what 
 we have called the Ligula, where the isthmus narrows 
 down into the neck of land which shuts in the Lake 
 of Tunis, the shore, bending sharply to the east, forms 
 a little bay, from the farther point of which ran out 
 
 50
 
 THE MAILED FIST 
 
 a great breakwater. Here was the sheltered entrance 
 to the great harbours, which covered an area of about 
 seventy acres. The entrance was closed by huge 
 chains. The first harbour was a long quadrilateral — 
 this was for the mercantile shipping ; from this another 
 cutting led into the Cothon, or naval port and dock- 
 yard. Both were artificial, like those at Thapsus, 
 Hadrumetum, Utica, and Rusicade (Philippeville), 
 and lay parallel to the seashore, from which they 
 were separated by the quays. 
 
 The inner, and more interesting, Cothon was round 
 and surrounded by two hundred and twenty docks, 
 each large enough to hold a vessel of war. At the 
 entrance of these were Ionic columns, so that the 
 effect was that of one vast circular arcade. Behind 
 lay the necessary buildings of an arsenal or dockyard, 
 and the whole was enclosed by a wall, so lofty that 
 no one in the town, or even in the outer harbour, could 
 watch the work that was being done inside. 
 
 In the centre of this harbour was a round island 
 connected with the shore by a jetty to the north — 
 that is, opposite the entrance. On this stood the 
 admiral's house, from which rose a lofty tower com- 
 manding a full view of the city and of the sea.* 
 
 From the breakwater to the foot of the hill now 
 crowned by Bordj-el-Djedid, a distance of about two 
 and a half miles, stretched the quays. How they 
 were protected we are not told, but no landing was 
 ever effected there, or even attempted, except on one 
 occasion, when it failed. 
 
 From the end of the quays, under the Bordj-el- 
 Djedid,! started the two lines of wall which constituted 
 
 * After events, in the course of the siege, seem to show that the 
 great triple wall was carried down to the sea between the harbours, 
 thus leaving the mercantile harbour unprotected ; but this setms 
 so unlikely on other grounds, that it is better to leave the question 
 an open one. 
 
 t These details are uncertain, but this is the view taken by 
 Ti'^sot and Boissier. 
 
 51
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the fortifications of the city proper. The first, divid- 
 ing the city from the vast suburb of Megara, met 
 the triple wall about half-way between Kamart and 
 the Ligula. The second ran to Byrsa, and thence to 
 the Ligula. This enclosed what may be called the 
 fortress and arsenal ; the whole of this is sometimes 
 called Byrsa, just as both harbours are sometimes 
 included under the name of Cothon. 
 
 The population of the city was about seven hundred 
 thousand. 
 
 The army outside the walls was commanded by 
 the Hasdrubal whose defeat by Masinissa has been 
 related. Under him, as his lieutenant, was a brilliant 
 young officer, Hamilco Phameas, whose audacity 
 and enterprise made him the most dreaded of all 
 the Carthaginian officers * The command inside the 
 city was entrusted to another Hasdrubal, grandson 
 of Masinissa. Fortunately we are saved from any 
 danger of confusing the two by the fact that this 
 latter was soon murdered in the Senate House, at the 
 instigation of his namesake outside the city. 
 
 Against a city thus fortified, and defended by 
 desperate men, the Romans were for a long time 
 powerless. Manilius attacked the city from the land, 
 but in spite of the fact that two of his engines were so 
 huge that they required six thousand men apiece to work 
 them, he was unable to make a practicable breach, f 
 
 By sea the Carthaginians, although they had sur- 
 rendered their navy, more than once destroyed, or 
 seriously damaged, the Roman fleets by means of 
 fire-ships ; and, when the wind was favourable, their 
 allies succeeded continually in running the blockade, 
 and kept the city well supplied with provisions. 
 
 For the space of two years the siege dragged on. 
 
 * The headquarters were at Nepheris, on the other side of the lake. 
 
 t They were called the Army and the Navy, from the men who 
 worked them. 
 
 52
 
 THE MAILED FIST 
 
 Manilius and Censorinus were, in due course, super- 
 seded by Lucius Piso and Lucius Mancinus, 148 B.C., 
 but with no better eftect. The Roman army still 
 lay encamped helplessly before the city, but the end 
 seemed no nearer. Discipline became relaxed, and 
 such assaults as were delivered did more harm to the 
 attacking party than to the defenders. But it was 
 not the way of Rome to look back when she had on 
 hand a piece of work on which her heart was set. She 
 knew^ or believed, that Carthage stood between her 
 and the realisation of her dreams of free expansion 
 of trade, and of the naval supremacy which she con- 
 sidered necessary for this expansion ; and so Carthage 
 must go, at whatever cost to herself. 
 
 Still, though her determination never wavered, 
 her patience was becoming exhausted. The elections 
 were drawing near, and young Scipio — Publius 
 Cornelius Scipio ^^milianus Africanus Minor, to give 
 him for once the full name and title by which he was 
 afterwards known — who had been serving in the 
 African army as military tribune, returned to Rome 
 as a candidate for the post of iEdile. But the eyes 
 and hopes of Rome were fixed upon him as the man 
 who should bring the war with Carthage to a triumphant 
 conclusion. He had won his spurs in Africa as well 
 as in Spain. He had earned the good opinion of 
 Cato, who, in the Senate, had applied to him the words 
 which Homer used of Tiresias, " He only is a living 
 man — the rest are empty shadows." Above all, he 
 had shown that by his tact and probity he could win 
 the confidence of barbarians. In Spain, it was said 
 that a town which had refused to surrender to the 
 Consul, opened its gates willingly to him ; in Africa 
 he had gained the warm friendship and unbounded 
 confidence of the wary Masinissa, who had appointed 
 him executor of his will. Though under the legal 
 age, for he was only thirty-seven, he was unanimously 
 
 5J
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 elected Consul, 148 d.c, and, although by law the 
 provmces were given by lot, Africa was assigned to 
 him. This was in the year 147 B.C. 
 
 The first task of Scipio on his arrival in Africa 
 was to rescue Mancinus from a very serious difficulty. 
 Naturally anxious to win some signal success before 
 his term of command expired, the Consul delivered 
 a furious attack upon the city and succeeded in 
 penetrating within the walls. Once there he found 
 himself equally unable to advance or to retire. For 
 some unexplained reason his colleague, Piso, made 
 no effort to relieve him. Had it not been for the 
 opportune arrival of Scipio — who advanced at once 
 to his assistance, and extricated him from his perilous 
 position, the Roman arms would have sustained a 
 disastrous defeat. 
 
 The two outgoing Consuls then returned to Rome, 
 and Scipio assumed supreme command, and proceeded 
 to make mistakes on his own account. He knew 
 the impatience at Rome, and was at least as anxious 
 to celebrate his arrival by some great feat of arms 
 as Mancinus had been to dignify his departure. 
 
 There were two weak angles in the defences of 
 Carthage, the one on the Ligula, the other at the foot 
 of Kamart, where the triple wall ceased and gave 
 place to the single wall along the sea front. By an 
 act of almost incredible folly or self-confidence, the 
 Carthaginians had left standing, at this latter point, 
 the tower of a private house, higher than the wall 
 and commanding it. From the top of this tower 
 some Roman soldiers passed to the wall, descended 
 into Megara, and opened a neighbouring gate for the 
 Romans. Scipio entered unopposed, with four thou- 
 sand men, but found himself in the same position as 
 Mancinus. Between him and the city proper lay a 
 maze of narrow alleys winding between the lofty walls 
 of villas and gardens, and even if he had succeeded 
 
 54
 
 THE MAILED FIST 
 
 in fighting his way through these, he would have 
 found his advance barred by the great wall of the city. 
 Such a plan of attack would have involved enormous 
 risks of failure, and even if successful would have 
 been attended by a loss of life which he dared not 
 face. He gave up the attempt as hopeless, retired 
 from ]\Iegara, and sat down for a regular siege. 
 
 But, though it had failed in its immediate object, 
 this assault was not without any result. Alarmed 
 at such vigour and so near an approach to success, 
 the army encamped on the isthmus, outside the 
 walls, retreated into Byrsa, and left Scipio free for 
 the work which he next took in hand. Hasdrubal, 
 not unnaturally enraged at such cowardly insubordi- 
 nation, replied by the usual Carthaginian method of 
 bringing all his prisoners on to the walls and there 
 massacring them, with horrible tortures, in full sight of 
 the Romans. 
 
 After restoring discipline in the camp, Scipio 
 proceeded at once to make the siege an effective 
 blockade by land and sea. Advancing his headquarters 
 from Utica to the isthmus between Djebel-el-Ahmor 
 and the city, he constructed across it, at a distance 
 of a mile and a half from Carthage, a quadrilateral 
 fortification, consisting, on three sides, of a deep fosse 
 and bank strengthened by a stockade ; on the fourth 
 side, facing the city, he built a great wall with towers, 
 the central one being sufficiently lofty to command 
 Carthage ; this immense work was completed in twenty 
 days, and on the land side Carthage was effectually 
 isolated. 
 
 An even more important work, and one for which 
 he was specially fitted, was to win over her allies. 
 A dramatic story is told of an interview with Phameas. 
 They stood on either side of a river and discussed 
 the question. At first Phameas, who had no exalted 
 opinion of the honour or trustworthiness of Rome, 
 
 55
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 hesitated ; after consideration, however, the arguments 
 and promises of Scipio, coupled with that persuasive 
 confidence which he always inspired and deserved, 
 prevailed, and the most active of her enemies became 
 the firm ally of Rome, and was taken into the im- 
 mediate service of the Consul. 
 
 But only half his task, and that the easier, was 
 as yet accomplished, for Carthage was still receiving an 
 adequate supply of provisions by sea. These came 
 largely from Bithyas, a Numidian sheik who had 
 recently joined the Carthaginians with eight hundred 
 horse, and seems to have conducted much of the 
 blockade-running between the camp at Nepheris and 
 the city. 
 
 Scipio's next enterprise was to close the mouth of 
 the harbours. Fighting his way up to the Ligula, he 
 threw across the little bay, from the shore to the break- 
 water which protected the entrance to the ports, 
 a gigantic jetty of hewn stones ninety feet wide, 
 which effectually blocked the approach and rendered 
 relief from the sea as impossible as from land.* 
 
 But the Carthaginians were not content to see 
 themselves thus systematically hemmed in by sea 
 and land without an effort to break the meshes of 
 the deadly net which was being drawn around them. 
 Working night and day with the feverish energy of 
 despair, they built of such materials as they had, 
 a squadron of fifty new warships, and cut an outlet 
 through the quay, from the inner harbour or Cothon, 
 to the sea. 
 
 On the very day the jetty was completed, the new 
 fleet of the enemy broke with triumphant shouts 
 into the open sea, and Scipio saw his work undone. 
 Nor was this the worst. In the belief that the sea 
 was clear, the Roman ships had been half dismantled, 
 
 * This immense work was accomplished in thirty days. Traces 
 of the jetty are still visible. 
 
 56
 
 THE MAILED FIST 
 
 the weapons of war had been removed to the siege 
 works, and the crews had been landed to build the 
 jetty. If the Carthaginians had attacked at once, 
 they might have destroyed the fleet utterly, or at any 
 rate struck a blow from which it would have taken 
 the Romans long to recover. Instead of this, they 
 contented themselves with making a noisy and harm- 
 less demonstration, and returned into harbour. For 
 three days they remained inactive, and during that 
 time Scipio was able to re-man and re-arm the fleet. 
 At last they offered battle. The engagement lasted 
 the whole day, and ended in favour of the Carthaginians. 
 When returning to the harbour, however, the vessels 
 were entangled in a mass of shipping which was issuing 
 from the new outlet, and it was found necessary 
 to beach them off the quays. Here they were again 
 attacked by the Romans, and completely destroyed ; 
 Scipio at the same time furiously assaulted the en- 
 trance to the harbours, using his new jetty as a cause- 
 way for his troops. Once more Carthage owed her 
 deliverance to the desperate valour of her children. 
 Wading or swimming into the sea with burning torches, 
 they set fire to the Roman ships and siege works and 
 beat off the enemy, while the land attack by Scipio 
 was repulsed by a frantic sally against which even 
 the discipHned courage of the legionaries was of no 
 avail. The outer harbour, however, remained in 
 the hands of the Romans.* 
 
 Once more Scipio had to own himself foiled and 
 be content to wait ; but this time it was only for a 
 season. The quarry was penned in safely by both 
 land and sea, and the end was near and certain. Now 
 he had an ally who could be trusted, and against 
 whom all human valour was in vain. Of the three 
 terrible handmaidens who wait ever upon War — Fire, 
 Blood, and Famine — Scipio " chose the meekest maid 
 
 ♦ It had been burnt by Hasdrubal, and, probably, rendered useless. 
 
 57
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 of the three," and she served hhn well. Afterwards 
 came the turn of the other two. He had only to wait 
 a little, while Famine and her daughter Pestilence 
 did his work for him. The delay, however, was not 
 wasted in idleness ; his colleague La^lius, taking with 
 him Gulussa, son of Masinissa, whom Scipio had 
 attached closely to himself, cleared the country of the 
 native allies of the Carthaginians. Bithyas was taken 
 prisoner, the camp at Nepheris* was captured after 
 a siege of twenty-two days, and the defenders, to the 
 number of eighty thousand, put to the sword. 
 
 So passed the terrible winter of 147-6 B.C., the 
 Romans keeping watch like wolves outside, and seven 
 hundred thousand wretches starving inside the walls 
 of the doomed city. When, early in the spring, 
 " at the time when kings go forth to battle," Scipio 
 renewed the attack, it was against an enemy gaunt 
 with famine, decimated by disease, only the spectres 
 of their old vaHant selves, that he had to fight. 
 
 Once more he poured his legions over the jetty 
 which he had built, on to the breakwater, and so by 
 the harbour mouth into the city. Fighting his way 
 inch by inch, he drove the enemy back upon the Cothon 
 or inner harbour ; this also he stormed, and that night 
 he bivouacked in the Forum, within the innermost 
 wall of the city. Thence to the foot of the fortress 
 hill of Byrsa was a distance of about six hundred 
 yards. You can walk it now in a few minutes, down 
 a hillside blazing with tall yellow pyrethrum and 
 sweet with wild mignonette, and so on through pleasant 
 level fields of corn and barley. It took the Romans 
 six awful days and nights of carnage to force their 
 way to the foot of the citadel, burning and destroying 
 as they went, sparing neither man, woman, nor child, 
 trampling living and dead alike under their horses' 
 
 "■ Now Henchir-bou-Beker, between Bou Kornein and Djebel 
 Ressas, in the Plain of Mornag. 
 
 5«
 
 THE MAILED FIST 
 
 hoofs, or burying them in the blazing wreckage of 
 their ruined homes. Before them the glorious city, 
 behind them a desolate wilderness. 
 
 Then at last came a pause in the butchery. Has- 
 drubal surrendered on the sole condition that the 
 lives of the survivors should be spared, and fifty 
 thousand miserable creatures, starving and half naked, 
 came out of Byrsa to claim such mercy as an enemy 
 flushed with victory and glutted with slaughter might 
 show. They were sent over to Italy and sold as slaves. 
 
 There were, however, still in Byrsa nine hundred 
 deserters who had been expressly excluded by Scipio 
 from the promised amnesty. These shut themselves 
 up within the great Temple of Eschmoun, and Has- 
 drubal with his wife and children remained with them. 
 Next day the courage of Hasdrubal also failed him, 
 and he too surrendered himself to Scipio. 
 
 Scipio, so runs the story, dragged the unhappy 
 man, clad in royal apparel, to a place* whence he 
 could see and hear all that passed in Byrsa. He 
 watched the men whom he had deserted set fire to 
 the temple and perish in the flames. After enduring 
 the fierce reproaches of his wife, he saw her kill his 
 children one by one and cast them into the fire, before 
 leaping into it herself, like another Elissar. And so 
 he was led away to be seen no more until the day 
 when he graced the triumph of the conqueror in Rome, 
 Finally, he and Bithyas were confined, as State 
 prisoners, in the centre of Italy, and treated with 
 tolerable kindness. 
 
 The work of Scipio, the younger Africanus, was 
 done, and he returned to Rome to make his report 
 and celebrate his triumph. When consulted by the 
 Senate as to the future of Carthage, he declined to 
 give any advice, though it was understood that his 
 
 * Probably the hill opposite Byrsa, now called the Hill of Juno. 
 But the story is doubtful, and very unlike Scipio. 
 
 59
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 opinion was against the wanton destruction of what 
 remained of the cit3^ The Senate was, however, in 
 no mood to Usten to counsels of leniency even from 
 Scipio, and it was finally determined that the city 
 should be razed to the ground, the site ploughed over, 
 and a solemn curse pronounced on any man who 
 should build house or plant corn there for ever. Ten 
 commissioners were appointed to give effect to the 
 decree. But their task was an easy one. When the 
 inhabitants of Megara found that the city was lost, 
 they set fire to what remained. For seventeen days 
 the conflagration raged — the funeral pyre of a dead 
 city and civilisation. Delenda est Carthago, such had 
 been the resolve ; and now, Carthago dcleta est — 
 wiped out. 
 
 bo
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE, 146 B.C.-A.D. 40 
 
 " Troja fuit." " Troy has been." So the Dido had 
 said to /Eneas ; and now the same was true of her 
 own city also. 
 
 But the Romans were more embarrassed than 
 intoxicated by their success. Their rival was de- 
 stroyed, their commerce was safe, the trade routes 
 in the Mediterranean were theirs. This was what 
 they had fought for and won, and the Senate did 
 not desire, so Strabo tells us, more, or to take upon 
 its shoulders the burden of a new foreign possession. 
 That the fall of Carthage had given them an African 
 empire ; that it would be impossible for them to set 
 any bounds to their advance short of those which 
 nature had fixed in sand or sea — this they realised as 
 little as the ordinary Englishman saw that the prize 
 won by Nelson on the Nile, or at Trafalgar, was the over- 
 lordship of Egypt and India. But so it was. Vestigia 
 . . . nulla retrorsum* When a nation has put its hand 
 to the plough, it cannot look back, even if it would. 
 
 Meanwhile Rome fixed the seat of government at 
 Utica, the base of the operations against Carthage, 
 and waited. 
 
 But the site of Carthage was too famous and im- 
 portant to remain long unoccupied, or to be allowed 
 to fall into other, and perhaps hostile, hands. 
 Within twenty-four years of its destruction Caius 
 Gracchus, 122 B.C., was entrusted with the work of 
 
 * Hor. Ep. I. i. 75. 
 
 61
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 occupying the accursed* site and founding there, with 
 six thousand colonists, a new city of Junonia. Little, 
 however, came of it ; t indeed, the main object of the 
 Senate was to get rid of and discredit a dangerous 
 man. Coins, however, have been found bearing Punic 
 names and the Punic title of Suffete, which seem to 
 belong to this period, and to show that the place was 
 occupied by a population in which the remains of the 
 Carthaginian inhabitants lived, on at least equal terms 
 with the Romans. Caesar slept there after the battle 
 of Thapsus, 46 B.C., and in consequence of a dream, 
 entered in his diary next morning, " Rebuild Car- 
 thage." His murder prevented his plans from being 
 carried out, and the work was left for Augustus. 
 
 Meanwhile the Romans contented themselves with 
 annexing the territory of Carthage, consisting of little 
 more than the corner of Tunisia between the islands 
 of Thabraca (Tabarka) and Kerkennah ; this formed 
 Provincia Africa, and it was from this little angle of 
 land that the name spread until it embraced the whole 
 of the vast continent ; just as the whole native race of 
 North Africa received their name of " Berbers " from 
 the Brabra of the basin of the Nile — the first Africans 
 with whom the Arab invaders came into conflict. J 
 
 Beyond these narrow limits they troubled them- 
 selves with the affairs of their neighbours as httle as 
 might be. They were content that their little settle- 
 ment should be surrounded on three sides by the 
 
 * It seems strange that the solemn curse should have been so soon 
 forgotten or ignored. Probably it applied only to the city proper, 
 and it was proposed to build the new city on the site of Megara. 
 
 t The lines drawn for the streets of the new city are still visible. 
 "The Cardo and the Decumanus Maximus correspond with the 
 road which leads north to the village of Kamart, and that which 
 descends from Sidi-bou-Said towards the Lake of Tunis." — Ritines 
 de Carthage, p. 23. 
 
 { This accidental renaming of a country is curiously common. 
 Thus Canaan took its new name from the Philistines, Hellas from 
 the Graii, Etruria and Latium from the Itali, Gaul from the Franks, 
 Britain from the Angles, Caledonia from the lri.sli Scots. 
 
 62
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 kingdom of Numidia, which Masinissa had built up, 
 and Mauretania kept her kings. The country was 
 vast, difficult of access, and but little known, and the 
 Senate preferred to leave the task of governing it in 
 the hands of the native princes. The position was 
 like that of England in India, where the native princes 
 have been watched, advised, subsidised, and tolerated, 
 just so far as was politically advisable, and just so 
 long as they behaved themselves. The iron hand 
 wore the velvet glove, but it was iron still. 
 
 For a time this attitude of detachment answered 
 sufficiently well, but it could not last long. Masinissa 
 was dead, and both interest and gratitude attached 
 his successor, Mecipsa, firmly to Rome. He was a 
 faithful ally in the sense in which the Senate under- 
 stood the term : he welcomed the Itahan merchants 
 and bankers and allowed them to settle in his cities, 
 even in Cirta itself ; and his cavalry served in the 
 Roman armies. But on his death, in ii8 B.C., troubles 
 began at once. His two sons, Hiempsal and Adherbal, 
 were as tame as could be desired, but besides these 
 he left a nephew, a natural son of his brother Mas- 
 tanabal, who, after learning his business as a cavalry 
 officer in the army of Scipio, was destined to revolu- 
 tionise the Roman rule in Africa. 
 
 Jugurtha was a w^orthy descendant of Masinissa. 
 A born fighter and hunter, brave, handsome, gene- 
 rous, he was the idol of his soldiers, and won a popu- 
 larity which was enhanced by his barbaric virtues of 
 crafty, unscrupulous ambition and a savage indiffer- 
 ence to life. Unfortunately for Rome, he had learnt 
 much in the camp of Scipio besides the art of war ; 
 he had fathomed the depravity of the masters of the 
 world, and had been taught that, in dealing with such 
 men, everything was possible to him who possessed 
 sufficient audacity and money. 
 
 Events moved rapidl3\ In 117 E.c. Hiempsal
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 was murdered, probably by Jugurtha, and Adhcrbal, 
 worsted in the war which ensued, fled to Italy to avoid 
 a like fate, and to lay his grievances before the tribunal 
 at Rome. After preparing the ground with liberal 
 bribes, Jugurtha followed him, and also placed himself 
 unreservedly in the hands of the Senate. Such tact 
 and submission succeeded as they deserved, and he 
 was acquitted. Commissioners were sent to Numidia 
 to divide the country between the rivals. Jugurtha 
 bribed them also and obtained the lion's share. On 
 their departure he began the war again, took Cirta 
 and murdered Adherbal, and with him the Italian 
 soldiers and merchants who had taken his part. This 
 was a fatal mistake, for the popular indignation at 
 Rome compelled the Senate to declare war. The 
 command was given to the Consul, Calpurnius. Him 
 also Jugurtha bribed and obtained terms of peace 
 so favourable that the Senate hesitated to ratify 
 them. Once again Jugurtha had to visit Rome and 
 explain matters by his one unfailing argument of 
 gold. At Rome he found Massiva, son of the Gulussa 
 who had done such yeoman service for Scipio in the 
 siege of Carthage. There was some talk of shar- 
 ing the kingdom between the cousins, so him, too, 
 Jugurtha was compelled to murder. This was too 
 much. Hitherto Jugurtha had worked on the assump- 
 tion that everything was to be bought at Rome ; 
 " Urbem venalem," he is reported to have often 
 said, " et mature perituram si emptorem invenerit."* 
 Now the rule broke down, and although his safe con- 
 duct was respected, he was ordered to leave the city. 
 
 The favourite officer of Scipio knew the strength 
 and the weakness of the army in which he had served, 
 and against which he was now to fight. He knew 
 also the character and resources of the country in 
 
 * Jug. 3,5. Again : " Certum esse ratus omnia Romae venalia 
 esse " (Jug. 20). 
 
 64
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 which the war was to be carried on. Avoiding pitched 
 battles, he waged a guerilla war of perpetual skirmishes, 
 ambuscades, surprises. South Africa has taught us how 
 long and difficult a task it is for trained troops, in the 
 enemy's country, to meet such tactics as these, especially 
 if carried out by a commander of real military genius. 
 In no B.C. he even succeeded in defeating the Consul 
 Aulus, and made the army pass under the yoke. 
 
 However, in the end, against such men as Metellus, 
 Marius, and Sylla, this strategy was in vain. Metellus 
 forced him to make a stand on the Multhul and defeated 
 him, much as Kitchener did the Mahdi at Omdurman, 
 and besieged and took his cities one after the other. 
 Marius drove him back into the extreme south, and 
 again defeated him and his ally and father-in-law, 
 Bocchus, King of Mauretania. The diplomacy of 
 Sylla won over Bocchus. Jugurtha was betrayed 
 into the hands of the Romans, and after figuring, 
 like Hasdrubal, in the triumph of his conqueror, was 
 lowered into the " cold bath " of the TulHanum* 
 and starved to death. 
 
 Again Rome disdained to fly upon the spoil. 
 Bocchus was rewarded for his treachery with the 
 country west of Numidia, and the rest was left in the 
 hands of Gunda, the grandson of Masinissa, who 
 reigned in peaceful obscurity at Cirta. 
 
 Tribal jealousies and ambitions have always ren- 
 dered the Berbers incapable of united or sustained 
 patriotic action. After the fall of Jugurtha, the 
 petty kings and princes were far more anxious to 
 obtain the help of Rome against their rivals than to 
 unite with those rivals and secure liberty for Africa. 
 And thus it happened that the feuds at Rome between 
 
 * The Tullianum is now known, wrongly, as the Mamertine 
 Prison, of which it was at first the well, and then, when drained into 
 the Cloaca Maxima, the place of execution for important political 
 prisoners such as Catiline. The prison, important fragments of 
 which still remain, stood above it. 
 
 E 65
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Mariiis and Sylla, or Pompey and Caesar, were taken up 
 eagerly in Africa and often fought out on African soil. 
 , Hiempsal II., the .son of Gunda, who had succeeded 
 to the throne of Numidia, espoused the cause of Sylla. 
 He was deposed by the lieutenant of Marius and 
 reinstated by Pompey, who thus secured the adher- 
 ence of himself and his son Juba I. for the Senatorial 
 party in the war with Caesar. When, after the battle 
 of Pharsalia, Caesar's lieutenant was killed, and Africa 
 occupied by Attius Varus on behalf of the Senate, 
 Juba at once joined him. While Caesar was busy 
 in Egypt and Pontus, the Pompeians massed their 
 scattered forces in Africa. At the head were Q. 
 Metellus Scipio, Afranius, and Cato, who crossed 
 over from Italy with what troops he could collect, 
 and joined them from the south, marching from Cyrene 
 along the shores of the Syrtes. The adhesion of Juba 
 to the Pompeians secured the alliance of Bocchus and 
 Bogad, kings of Mauretania, for Caesar ; and on the 
 west the forces of the Senate were kept in check by 
 their troops, under the command of a Roman adven- 
 turer, P. Sittius, until such time as Caesar himself 
 might come. This was not until the autumn of the 
 year 47 B.C. In April 46 B.C., Caesar won his com- 
 plete and final victory at Thapsus (Ras Dinas), on the 
 coast between Monastir and Metidia, a hundred miles 
 south of Carthage. Juba and Cato committed suicide, 
 the one on the field of battle and the other at Utica, 
 and Caesar returned in triumph to Rome, taking with 
 him the little son of Juba, who was to reappear later on 
 as Juba II. The boy was treated with no ordinary 
 distinction, kindness, and wisdom. He was entrusted 
 to the care of Octavia, Caesar's own sister, and widow 
 of both Pompey and Anthony, one of the very noblest 
 of the ladies of Rome in rank and character, and in 
 time was given in marriage Cleopatra Selene, the 
 daughter of Anthony and Cleopatra. 
 66
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 Thus fell the kingdom of Numidia, and for a time even 
 the name was blotted out. The country was divided 
 into two provinces : all west of the Great River, the 
 Ampsaga, was given to the kings of Mauretania, while all 
 to the east, though formally annexed under the name of 
 New Africa, and placed, fortunately for us, under the 
 governorship of Sallust,* was formed into a quasi-king- 
 dom with its capital at Cirta, and given to P. Sittius, 
 who was thus rewarded for his timely loyalty to Caesar. 
 
 The indecision and hesitation of Roman policy in 
 Africa were only the reflex and outcome of the un- 
 certainty which reigned in Rome itself as to its own 
 future. The death-struggle of the dying Republic 
 with the coming Empire gave her but little time or 
 taste for foreign adventure. When this was over, and 
 the Empire was firmly established in the hands of 
 Augustus, the prudence and caution remained, but 
 the hesitation vanished. In the division of territory 
 between the members of the Second Triumvirate, in 
 43 B.C., all Africa was assigned to Octavius. True to 
 the old principle of using native rulers so far as possible. 
 he restored for the moment the old kingdom of 
 Numidia, giving it the name of Numidia Provincia, 
 and setting over it (30 B.C.) the young King Juba II. 
 This arrangement, however, did not last for long. Five 
 years later the throne of Mauretania became vacant, 
 and was given to Juba, with lol, an old Carthaginian 
 town on the coast, thirty miles west of Algiers, as his 
 capital. Here he built Caesarea (Cherchel), the only 
 great Roman city west of Citra, and reigned for nearly 
 fifty years over a kingdom which included the whole 
 of Morocco and the greater part of Algeria. A 
 thorough Roman by education and training, a man 
 
 * Sir Lambert Playfair speaks of an inscription, found in the 
 gorge of the Rummel, which contains the words, " Finis Fundi 
 Sallustiani," " The Boundary of the Estate of Sallust." His 
 house on the Quirinal was enriched with the spoils of Cirta and 
 neighbouring cities such as Calania, Thagaste, and Hippo. 
 
 67
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 of culture and intellect, the husband of one of the 
 most notable women in the world, Juba made his new 
 capital the most splendid city in Africa, if second to 
 any, second only to Carthage itself, termrum decus* 
 and the rival in glory of Imperial Rome. Some 
 scattered ruins on a little plain between the hills and 
 the sea are all that now remains of this magnificence ; 
 but the beauty of the statues found there, the delicate 
 carving of the capitals, and the lovely pillars which 
 adorned the Arab mosque, f bear witness to the cul- 
 tured taste of its founder, while the enormous Thermae 
 and the vast amphitheatre and circus testify to the 
 less intellectual side of Roman civiHsation, 
 
 On his death in a.d. ig he was succeeded by his 
 son Ptolemy ; but the splendour of his Court in the 
 west of Africa and the growing importance and power 
 of the Roman Proconsul in the east, aroused the 
 jealous fears of Caligula. The power of the latter 
 he effectually curbed by placing the army under 
 the command of a Legatus Proprsetore, appointed 
 by and responsible to himself alone. Ptolemy he 
 summoned to Rome, and there, rendered doubly 
 jealous by his youthful beauty, his popularity, and, 
 as we are expressly told, the magnificence of his dress, 
 he murdered him and finally annexed his kingdom. | 
 
 * Aur. Victor Caes. 19. f Since the Military Hospital. 
 
 I Three portrait busts have been found at Cherchel, and are now 
 in the Museum at Algiers, which are supposed to represent the 
 three Jubas. If this identification be correct, a comparison between 
 them is interesting. 
 
 Juba I. has a long, lean, wild face, with strongly-marked, aquiline 
 features, and a long beard. 
 
 Juba II. is essentially Roman in appearance. He is clean-shaven, 
 with a round head, broad forehead, square chin, bull neck, and 
 blunt Berber features, so far as we can judge, for the nose is missing. 
 
 Juba III. (Ptolemy) is utterly decadent and sensual. He has 
 returned to the beard, which, however, is carefully trimmed ; the 
 cheeks are prominent, and the nose, pinched and hooked, is sunk 
 between them ; the mouth is small and the lips are full. There is 
 little to justify the alleged jealousy of Caligula, yet this is, I believe, 
 the best authenticated of the three busts. 
 
 68
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 Thus ended the march of the Roman Empire, 
 stopped only, hke the marauding foray of Sidi Okba, 
 by the Atlantic waves. It had spread over two hun- 
 dred years. After the fall of Carthage, 146 B.C., Pro- 
 vincia Africa had been annexed ; after the battle of 
 Thapsus, 46 B.C., Numidia ; and now, on the death 
 of Ptolemy, a.d. 40, Mauretania also. From the 
 Syrtes to the Pillars of Hercules, all owned the sway 
 of Rome. 
 
 This gradual, inevitable extension of the Roman 
 Empire, by the very force of circumstances, presents 
 an interesting parallel to the building up of our own. 
 Judging from the wide extent of their conquests, 
 we are apt to think of the Romans as insatiable in 
 their ambition, and determined to make themselves 
 the masters of the world. This was a kind of flattery 
 which tickled the ears of Emperors, and so it was 
 offered them in abundance by Court poets and other 
 sycophants — 
 
 " Romanos, Rerum dominos, Gentemque togatam " ;* 
 
 and again — 
 
 " Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento. "f 
 
 So wrote Vergil, while the flattery offered by Horace 
 was more fulsome because more personal. 
 
 In fact, they were a prudent, stolid, rather stupid 
 people, like ourselves, with little imagination, no wild 
 dreams of empire, and small liking for unprofitable 
 adventure. But the necessities of trade carried them 
 far and wide, one war led to another, a new province 
 had to be conquered to insure the safety of an old 
 one ; and so the empire was built, almost against the 
 will of the empire-builders. 
 
 Then, as now, public opinion was divided. There 
 were wild Imperialists and timid Little Romans. When 
 
 * Aeii. i. 282. t Aen. vi. 851. 
 
 69
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Hannibal was defeated at Zama, questions were asked 
 in the Senate as to the value of Carthage if they 
 annexed it. On the fall of Carthage, there were not 
 wanting politicians who were for withdrawing the 
 troops and leaving Africa to itself. This was no 
 mere passing phase of opinion. So late as the reign 
 of Trajan, serious historians discussed the question 
 whether it would have been better for Rome to have 
 abstained from occupying Africa, or even Sicily, and 
 to have contented herself with Italy only. But, for 
 good or evil, perhaps for both, world history is not 
 made like this, and nations, like men, sometimes have 
 greatness thrust upon them. The advance of the 
 Roman arms was embarrassed, delayed, thwarted by 
 such counsels as these, but not stopped ; hopeless 
 struggles for liberty were encouraged, much blood was 
 shed, and bitter ill-will engendered and kept alive, 
 but the end was inevitable, and it came, bringing 
 with it to Africa two centuries of such prosperity as 
 she has never known, before or since, safe under the 
 aegis of the Immensa Romance Pads Majestas. 
 
 But it was not enough to annex North Africa ; it 
 had to be garrisoned also. 
 
 The nucleus or unit of the Roman army of occupa- 
 tion was the Legion, which corresponded more closely 
 with our division, or even army corps, than with the 
 regiment. The legion was territorial in the sense that 
 it was raised and recruited in some one part of the 
 Empire, but the duties assigned to it were usually in 
 some far distant province, and from this it was never 
 moved. The saying of Seneca, Ubicunque Romanits 
 vicit habitat* " Wherever the Roman has conquered 
 he settles," was in a special sense true of the soldier. 
 Veterans, when their time of service with the standards 
 was over, did not return home. The Senate planted 
 them somewhere as a colony, for every legionary was, 
 
 * Cons, ad Helv. 7. 
 70
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 ipso facto, a Roman citizen ; it provided them with 
 land, slaves, and oxen ; it exempted them from taxa- 
 tion, and, in return, retained some claim upon their 
 services for purposes of defence or police. There they 
 married and settled. The wisdom of this poHcy is 
 obvious. The men were provided for, and every 
 settlement became a semi-military centre of loyalty 
 to Rome. Traces of these colonies are to be found 
 in all parts of North Africa. Thamugadi (Timgad) 
 was built, at the command of Trajan, for the veterans 
 of the XXX. Legio Ulpia Victrix, as a reward for 
 their services on his Parthian campaign ; the soldiers 
 of Marius found a home at Uci IMajus (ed-Douemis) 
 on the Medjerba ; others were established by Augustus 
 at Saldae (Bougie), others at Amma^dara (Haidra), and 
 yet others, by Xerva, at Sitifis (Setif). 
 
 The task of holding North Africa, and especially 
 of guarding the passes which led through the Aures 
 Mountains from the Tell to the Sahara, was entrusted 
 by Augustus to the III. Legio Angusta. It had been 
 raised in the eastern provinces of the Empire, and 
 strengthened with some cohorts of Commagenians from 
 the army of Antiochus. It was now stationed in the 
 west in accordance with the policy already noticed. 
 It took up its work in North Africa at the very be- 
 ginning of our era, and remained there long enough 
 to play its part in the rebellion of the Gordians, 
 A.D. 238, and to carry out the execution of Cyprian 
 twenty years later. 
 
 But a single legion of six thousand men was mani- 
 festly inadequate to a task which, difficult at first 
 when the Roman territory was but small, became 
 overwhelming as by degrees Rome extended her 
 dominions farther and farther to the west ; and so 
 round the legion there was collected a native army 
 of auxiliary forces. The natives all round formed 
 splendid material for soldiers ; the Romans had 
 
 71
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 learned to respect their prowess as enemies, now 
 they enrolled them as comrades. Some were formed 
 into alcB of cavalry, some into cohorts, officered by 
 Romans ; some took their names from the weapons 
 they used, Sagittarii, or Archers ; Funditores, or 
 Slingers ; some from their nationality ; thus the 
 important pass Calceus Herculis (El Kantara) was 
 manned by a force from Palmyra, coming, that is, 
 from the same part of the Empire as the legionaries 
 themselves. 
 
 Even when thus strengthened by these native 
 troops, the standing army of Rome was never very 
 large, considering the work it had to do. At the 
 death of Augustus there were only twenty-five 
 legions ; under Vespasian, thirty ; under Septimius 
 Severus, thirty-three — that is, about two hundred 
 thousand men of all branches. It was clearly im- 
 possible to spare more than one legion for North 
 Africa, though at times of pressure others might be 
 sent for some particular piece of work.* The legion 
 was, under ordinary circumstances, held in reserve, 
 the ordinary work being done by the native forces ; 
 these were in this way kept busy and loyal, and, as 
 they had the pick of the fighting, they were happy. 
 
 To the south of the Roman provinces of Africa 
 and Numidia runs the great range of Mons Aurasius 
 — the Aures Mountains. Here the legion began its 
 work by closing the easy passes which led down from 
 the high plateaus to the level plains of South Tunisia. 
 For this purpose they built at the eastern extremity 
 of the range the strong fortress town of Theveste 
 (Tebessa) on the site of an old Libyan stronghold 
 which had been captured by Carthage just before 
 the outbreak of the First Punic War. It was rebuilt 
 
 * Thus, on the pass of Kunga, an inscription has been found 
 relating how the road was made by the Sixth Legion, in the reign of 
 Antoninus Pius. 
 
 72
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 and fortified by the Byzantine general, Solomon, in 
 A.D. 535, and is now strongly held by the French. 
 Here the legion was stationed for nearly a century. 
 Then their headquarters were moved by Trajan from 
 the eastern end of the Aures to the western, from 
 Theveste to Lambaesis, to block the way of the Nomad 
 marauders from the Oases of the Ziban into the fertile 
 Roman territory. Between the two they built and 
 fortified Mascula (Khenchela). 
 
 The great western gate of the desert, the " Foum 
 es Sahara," the Mouth of the Desert, as the Arabs 
 still call it, was the gorge " Calceus Herculis," cloven 
 through the mountains by the heel of Hercules, accord- 
 ing to the Romans, or by the sword of Sidi Abdullah, 
 according to the later Moslem fable. It takes the 
 modern name of El Kantara from the Roman bridge 
 which spanned the Oued Ksour, or Kantara. The 
 beauties of this wonderful gorge have often been 
 described. So narrow that the Roman bridge had 
 but one arch, it leads us down in less than half a mile 
 from the cold, grey, rocky plain to the hot sands of the 
 Sahara. In a few minutes we pass through a chaos of 
 crags and precipices, from winter to summer, from 
 grey to gold, from a treeless waste to the waving 
 palms of the oases of the Ziban.* 
 
 The first work of the legion at its new station 
 was to form a temporary camp, the remains of which 
 can still be traced. It then proceeded to erect the 
 great permanent camp of Lambaesis (Lambessa), which 
 is to-day the most perfect example of a Roman camp 
 of the first class that remains to us. Between the 
 construction of these two camps — that is, about the 
 
 * Later on, the outlet into El Outaya, the Great Plain, was closed 
 by a fort, Burgum Commodianum, built by Marcus Antonius 
 Gordianus ; farther still to the south-east lay Vescera, or Bescera 
 (Biskra), with a suburb, Ad Piscinum, at the hot springs, now known 
 as Hammam-es-Salahin, the Holy Baths.
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 years a.d. ioo-iio, the legion was employed in the 
 building of the town of Thamugadi (Timgad).* 
 
 A drive of about eight miles across a level windy 
 plain, along a straight military road, planted on each 
 side with trees, brings us from the French garrison 
 town of Batna to the Penitentiary, built by Napoleon 
 in. for political prisoners, which now, with its garden, 
 covers all the south-east quarter of the great camp. 
 The plain lies at a level of three thousand six hundred 
 feet above the sea ; to the south, the Aures range 
 shelters it from the parching winds of the Sahara, 
 and it is sufficiently watered by snow and rain, as 
 well as by the streams which run among the hills. 
 Doubtless it was once a district of extreme fertility, 
 and bids fair to be so once again under the skilful 
 husbandry of the French. 
 
 To our right, as we approach the Penitentiary, 
 He the meagre vestiges of the first camp ; to our left, 
 the very important ruins of the second. 
 
 A tower stood at each of the four angles of the 
 camp ; each of the longer curtain walls was further 
 strengthened with five similar towers, each of the 
 shorter with four. These all projected inwards, f so 
 that the external face of the walls was unbroken, 
 save by the flanking towers which protected the gates. 
 Inside the walls ran the Pomoerium or broad Boulevard. 
 The gates were four in number, one in each of the 
 walls. Those facing north and south occupied the 
 centre of the walls. Those to the east and west lay 
 much to the north of the central point, so that the 
 road which connected them ran along the northern 
 side of the Pretorium, the great parade ground which 
 occupied the centre of the camp. This road, called 
 the Decumanus Maximus, was a broad, finely paved 
 
 * This seems the most probable order. Possibly, however, 
 Lambaesis was built before Thamugadi. 
 
 t This distinguishes Roman from Byzantine work. In the latter 
 the towers project outwards. 
 
 74
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 street, lined on each side with porticoes, and was the 
 only thoroughfare through the camp. 
 
 The principal entrance was by the north gate. 
 From this gate to the Decumanus Maximus, a distance 
 of about one hundred and forty yards, ran the Cardo, 
 another paved and porticoed street. Over the inter- 
 section of these roads stood a magnificent triumphal 
 arch, usually, but wrongly, called the Pretorium, of 
 which it was, in fact, only the gateway. This won- 
 derful arch stands almost uninjured. To the north 
 and south it had three openings, to the east and west 
 four. Each face was adorned with Corinthian columns 
 carrying a pediment, but these have been destroyed. 
 Externally it gives the impression of having been two 
 storeys in height, for over the central arch in each 
 face is a large opening like a window ; but internally 
 there is no trace of a floor ; neither, although there 
 are vaulting shafts, is there any trace of a vault. 
 Probably it had a wooden roof which has perished ; 
 possibly it was open to the sky. 
 
 Through this arch we pass into the Pretorium 
 proper, the most important and interesting part of 
 the camp. This was an enormous court or parade 
 ground, paved, and surrounded on three sides by a 
 colonnade. On to this colonnade opened a series of 
 chambers which are shown by inscriptions, stones 
 for projectiles, and other remains found in them, to 
 have been magazines and offices of the headquarter 
 staff. 
 
 Beyond this court3^ard, on the side opposite the 
 triumphal arch, two lateral stairs led to a second 
 court on a higher level, of the same length as the 
 first, but so narrow as to be little more than a terrace 
 or vaulted antechamber to the buildings which opened 
 on to it. 
 
 In the centre, larger, higher, and more ornate than 
 the others, stood an apsidal chamber, or chapel, 
 
 75
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 resting upon a crypt divided into five vaults ; in the 
 middle stood an altar. This was the garrison church, 
 in which were guarded the consecrated colours, the 
 eagles, and other insignia of the legion.* The under- 
 croft, which in some degree shared its sanctity, was 
 probably the military treasury. To the right lay 
 the cornicnbiiim, to the left the orderly room of the 
 equites ; another chamber was the tahiilariitm where 
 the records and archives were stored. Others were 
 meeting-places for the clubs formed by the optiones 
 and other inferior officers of the legion. 
 
 To the south-east lay the Thermae. The south-west 
 quarter is covered with the buildings and garden of 
 the House of Correction ; this part has not been 
 thoroughly examined, but the beauty of the mosaic 
 floors which have been found proves that it was 
 covered with buildings of importance, possibly the 
 quarters of the commanding officer. The rest of 
 the camp was occupied with the ordinary buildings 
 necessary in a great barrack : quarters for the men, 
 stables for the horses, guard-rooms, sheds for the 
 chariots and military engines, stores for ammunition 
 for the catapults, and other buildings the purpose 
 of which cannot now be determined. 
 
 Such was a permanent Roman camp in the first 
 century of our era. 
 
 But such a camp could not long stand alone. 
 Soon, naturally and inevitably, it became the centre 
 of a considerable population. First there gathered, 
 as near as military considerations permitted, mer- 
 chants, contractors, camp followers, and so on, who 
 supplied the needs of the troops. Then the soldiers 
 were permitted to marry, and houses were required 
 for their wives and families. Then, when peace was 
 more assured, Septimus Severus gave the married 
 
 * There was no other temple within the camp, just as, at Timgad, 
 there was only one, in the Forum. 
 
 76
 
 THE MARCH OF EMPIRE 
 
 men permission to live with their families outside 
 the camp ; at last it would seem that the camp was 
 used for military purposes only, and was left un- 
 tenanted, save by the necessary guards. 
 
 And so, by the side of the camp, there grew up 
 by degrees a great Roman town, with all that such 
 a town needed to make it beautiful and happy. A 
 triumphal arch to Commodus spanned the road to 
 Timgad, and another, of three bays, to Septimus 
 Severus, testified to the loyalty of the legionaries 
 to the Berber Emperor. An aqueduct brought the 
 waters of the Ain Drinn to the spacious Thermae ; 
 a theatre and amphitheatre supplied amusements ; a 
 Forum for business and pleasure, temples for worship 
 and the town was complete. 
 
 Of the temples, the most important, here as else- 
 where, was the Capitol, dedicated to the three supreme 
 gods of Rome — Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva — whose vast 
 temple looked down from the Capitoline Hill at Rome 
 on to the busy Forum and stately Palatine. It bore 
 testimony to all the world that here, on the extreme 
 frontier of the Empire, Lambaesis was heart and soul 
 Roman still ; for with Rome then, as with England 
 now, devotion to the Mother Country increased with 
 distance from it, and the flame of patriotism, which 
 burnt very dimly at home, blazed up in the distant 
 colonies. 
 
 The Capitol of Lambaesis stood in the midst of a 
 porticoed enclosure. In front, as at Rome, there were 
 eight pillars. The Cella, which was seventy feet wide 
 by thirty-four feet deep, was divided by a partition 
 wall with two arches, into two chambers ; at the 
 end of each was a square niche for a statue — a most 
 unusual arrangement, which makes it hard to under- 
 stand how the images of the three divinities were 
 distributed. 
 
 Another temple, to iEsculapius, requires notice for
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the strangeness of its plan. The actual sanctuary, 
 which held the statue of the god and of his com- 
 panion Hygieia, stood, like the Temples of Coelestis 
 at Dougga and elsewhere, in the middle of a semi- 
 circular portico flanked by chapels dedicated to Jupiter 
 Valens and Silvanus, while a series of little shrines of 
 different deities lined the north side of the avenue 
 which led to the great temple. The mosaic floor of 
 the second from the Temple bore the legend : 
 
 " BONUS INTRA MELIOR EXI." 
 
 The general arrangements seem to connect the temple 
 with Libyan worship rather than with Roman, but 
 Eschmoun, with whom ^sculapius was identified, was 
 a Phoenician, not a Libyan, god, and the presence of 
 the other gods mentioned above, and the fact that 
 the temple was built over some hot springs, seem to 
 point to a Roman worship of the god of heahng. 
 
 There were another temple and two more triumphal 
 arches, one over the road to Verecunda (Marcouna), 
 but their dedication is uncertain. At Verecunda, 
 which was a sort of suburb of Lambaesis, there was 
 another arch to Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 Such, with its dependencies, was Lambaesis, the 
 bridle of the marauding tribes of the Saharas, as 
 StirHng was of the turbulent Highlanders. 
 
 78
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A FRONTIER TOWN 
 
 A COLD, for the road lies nearly four thousand feet 
 above the sea, and somewhat dreary drive of nearly 
 twenty miles brings us, through the folding hills of 
 the treeless and half-desert plateau, to the Roman 
 colony of Thamugadi (Timgad). 
 
 The town did not grow by degrees and at hap- 
 hazard, as most towns do. It sprang into being all 
 at once, like Minerva, equipped and armed, and bears 
 upon the surface evident traces of its origin. In the 
 year a.d. ioo, Trajan, wishing to reward the Legio 
 Ulpia Victrix for its services in his Parthian cam- 
 paign, determined to establish a settlement of veterans 
 here, and entrusted the work of preparing a home 
 for them to the Third Legion at Lambaesis, and its 
 commander, the Imperial Legate and Propraetor, 
 L. Mutatius Gallus. How well the work was done 
 the noble remains still testify. 
 
 It is usual to describe Timgad as an African 
 Pompeii. Both are ruined towns, partly excavated, 
 but beyond that the comparison does not take us 
 far. Fortunate in its misfortune, Pompeii has the 
 romance of the awful catastrophe which destroyed 
 it, and the beauty of its matchless position between 
 the purple sea and the vine-clad slopes of its terrible 
 neighbour Vesuvius ; Timgad stands lonely and deso- 
 late in its austere surroundings of treeless mountain 
 and desert plain. Pompeii was a watering-place for 
 wealthy idlers, Timgad, one of the outpost fortresses 
 of the Empire ; and so, in place of the large, luxurious 
 
 79
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 houses of Pompeii, with their gardens and peristyles, 
 the houses of Timgad, or, at any rate, those within 
 the walls of the city proper, are small, compact, and 
 cramped. In the one place all speaks of pleasure, in 
 the other of stern defence. 
 
 Fortunately the town has never been used as a 
 quarry by later builders. It survived the Vandal 
 invasion almost uninjured, for its walls had been 
 removed long before, and the conquerors did not, as a 
 rule, injure the towns themselves. On the approach 
 of the Byzantines, in a.d. 535, the natives from the 
 mountains hastily burnt and wrecked it, to deter the 
 enemy from settling there. Solomon, however, built a 
 great fortress on the south slope of the hill on which the 
 city is built, and the inhabitants seem to have crept back. 
 The Arab invaders never settled near the spot, and so 
 the town remains pretty much as Solomon found it — 
 the roofs burnt, pillars and walls thrown down, but 
 the stones left lying where they fell, covered and 
 preserved rather than injured by the drifting sand, and 
 waiting only to be unearthed and raised into their 
 places again.* 
 
 The site chosen by Callus for the new colony was 
 on the north slope of a rather steep hill, intersected 
 by a little stream, and commanding the entrance to 
 the gorges by the Oued Abdi and the Cued el Abiod. 
 Built by soldiers for soldiers and for a semi-military 
 purpose, it is natural that in general plan it should 
 resemble a camp, and much that has been said of 
 Lambaesis applies to Thamugadi, except that the 
 place of the Pretorium, in the centre of the camp, 
 is here occupied by the Forum and theatre. 
 
 As originally designed, the town was an almost 
 perfect square ; its sides measured three hundred and 
 seventy yards by three hundred and forty, and faced 
 the four points of the compass. No traces of the 
 
 * This is being done by the French rapidly and with rare skill. 
 80
 
 A FRONTIER TOWN 
 
 original walls remain ; only the gates and the broad 
 boulevard or Pomoerium which surrounded the town 
 on both sides of the walls, mark where they 
 stood. 
 
 The gates were four in number. The principal, 
 to the north, opened upon the Cardo, which led direct 
 to the Forum, where it stopped short, or, more pre- 
 cisely, was deflected much to the right. From the 
 east gate to the west ran the only thoroughfare, along 
 which passed the great military high road from 
 Lambaesis to Maxula (Khenchela) and Theveste 
 (Tebessa) ; this was the Decumanus Maximus. It was 
 a broad paved road, lined on each side with porticoed 
 footpaths ; its great paving-stones were, as usual, 
 laid aslant, not at right angles to the paths, to pre- 
 vent the chariot-wheels from cutting into the crevices 
 between the stones ; in spite of this precaution, it is 
 deeply rutted, like the streets at Pompeii, the gauge 
 of the vehicles being the same in each case. 
 
 In addition to these main roads, the town, except 
 where the arrangement was interrupted by the Forura 
 and theatre, was divided into identical squares, or 
 insulae, by eighteen other parallel streets, nine running 
 in each direction.' 
 
 The entire town, including the suburbs outside the 
 walls, covered an area of about 150 acres ; of these 
 about 30 have been excavated. 
 
 Outside the north gate, which is still the principal 
 entrance, lie the most important baths or thermae, 
 large, handsome, and complete, built with the same 
 precise symmetry, and almost on the same plan as 
 those of Caracalla at Rome. Just inside the gate 
 stands, to the right, a fountain which has been com- 
 pletely restored, and, to the left a little Berber Church. 
 Higher up, to the right, a larger Basilica with atrium 
 and Baptistery. Higher still, on the left hand, we 
 come to one of the most beautiful and interesting 
 
 F 81
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 buildings in the town. A graceful pillared portico 
 opens into a semicircular shrine with niches for statues. 
 The purpose is uncertain ; perhaps it was a Schola, 
 perhaps a library ; more probably it was the Lararium 
 Publicum, the Temple of the Lares, or household 
 gods, of the city. If this is correct, the central niche 
 held a shrine of the Genius Augustus, the Emperor 
 being represented with his toga drawn over his head, 
 offering an oblation ; to his right and left stood the 
 Lares of the city, in other niches, probably Ceres and 
 Venus. This building was not a part of the original 
 plan, for it cuts into the adjoining roads. 
 
 Where the Cardo meets the Decumanus Maximus, 
 a flight of marble steps and a portico lead into the 
 Forum. This is a paved court, fifty yards long by 
 forty-four wide, surrounded on three sides by a colon- 
 nade lined with shops. Standing between the columns 
 and encroaching on the space of the court, stood a 
 vast assemblage of statues of gods, including, of 
 course, Marsyas with his wine-skin, emperors, local 
 celebrities and benefactors. At the east end lay the 
 basilica, a fine hall of the ordinary shape — that is, 
 square at one end, with an apse at the other. An 
 unusual feature is that the tribunal, with seats for 
 the judges, was at the square end. In the niche 
 opposite stood a statue, undoubtedly of Trajan. 
 
 The west end is the most varied and interesting. 
 In the middle, interrupting the line of the cloister, 
 stood a little ^dicula or shrine, like that at the 
 entrance of the Atrium Vestse at Rome. The inscrip- 
 tion tells us that it was erected to Fortuna Augusta 
 by two sisters in accordance with the will of their 
 father. To the south stood the Rostra, and, behind 
 them, a little tetrastyle temple, probably to Victory ; 
 in front of it stood two statues erected by a soldier 
 of the Third Legion to commemorate the Parthian 
 Victory of Trajan, Victor ice ParthiccB August cb Sacrum. 
 
 82
 
 A FRONTIER TOWN 
 
 By the side of the temple was a little waiting-room 
 for the use of the orators. 
 
 In the south of the temple lay the Curia, a beautiful 
 hall adorned with marbles and mosaics ; attached to 
 this were a guard-room and prison cells. 
 
 The south side of the Forum was occupied with 
 shops, and a flight of steps leading up to the theatre. 
 
 On the pavement of the Forum, amongst a number 
 of tahulcB lusoricB, or little gaming-tables, which re- 
 mind us of the Basilica Juha at Rome, is a curious 
 inscription : VENARI LAVARI 
 
 LUDERE RIDERE 
 
 OCCE EST VITA 
 
 " Hunting, bathing, gambling, laughing — this is Hfe." 
 A variation of the old epitaph — 
 
 CORPORA CORRUMPUNT 
 BALNEUM VINUM VENUS 
 SED VITAM FACIUNT 
 
 " The bath, vvine, love, destroy the body, but make 
 life worth living." 
 
 Above the Forum lies the theatre, the Auditorium, 
 as usual, when practicable, being hollowed out of the 
 crest of the hill. The seats had been displaced and 
 the pillars had fallen, but these have been restored, 
 and it is now, with the exception of that at Dougga, 
 the handsomest and most complete theatre in North 
 Africa. Enough will be said on this subject elsewhere. 
 
 To the east of the Forum, in the Decumanus, lies 
 a graceful little market. From the street-portico an 
 apse opens into a court, the far side of which is formed 
 by two semicircular arcades, each divided into five 
 stalls or shops. The front of each of these is closed 
 by a stone slab or table, under or over which the 
 merchant had to climb. The point where the two 
 arcades meet, opposite the entrance, was occupied by 
 an altar ; in the court itself were two semicircular 
 basins, either fountains or flower-beds. 
 
 83
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Adjoining the market are some small Thermre 
 and a tiny basilica. Other Thermae stand lower 
 down the street near the east gate. 
 
 Over the Decumanus, where it enters the city on 
 the west, rises the magnificent arch called the Arch of 
 Trajan. It received its name from some inscriptions 
 which have been found near it ; judging, however, 
 from the architecture, it was probably not erected 
 until about a.d. 200. It has three openings, like 
 that of Constantine at Rome. The small lateral 
 arches are surmounted by square-headed niches for 
 statues. In front stood four Corinthian columns 
 resting upon lofty bases. They rose to the height 
 of the central arch and carried a bold cornice, which, 
 running in a straight line over the main entrance, 
 bent into graceful curves over the lateral niches. The 
 attic has vanished. 
 
 With the exception of that at Tebessa, it is the 
 most perfect and beautiful of all the countless triumphal 
 arches of North Africa. 
 
 Outside the arch, to the right, lay the temple of the 
 genius of the colony. " Genio Coloniae Thamug," 
 so runs the inscription on an altar. 
 
 Three flights of steps led from the street into the 
 very irregularly shaped court of the temple. Round 
 it was a colonnade containing a number of statues of 
 gods : Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Bacchus, Mars, Liber 
 Pater, Silvanus, Deus Patrius, and others. In the 
 centre stood the altar ; behind this, raised upon a 
 lofty podium, was the Cella, which has perished ; four 
 of the columns of its porch have, however, been re- 
 erected. 
 
 On the other side of the road lay the great market. 
 This, as numerous inscriptions tell us, was the gift of 
 Marcus Plotius Faustus, suniamed Sertius — a Roman 
 knight, an officer of the auxiliary troops, a Priest of 
 Rome, and Flamen of the Emperor — and of his wife, 
 84
 
 A FRONTIER TOWN 
 
 Cornelia Valentina Tucciana. It was a large, hand- 
 some court, surrounded as usual by a colonnade. 
 In the centre was a fountain ; at the north end stood 
 six shops. At the opposite end two steps led up 
 into a great apse like the tribunal of a basilica ; round 
 this, spreading out like a fan, were seven shops, each 
 closed by a big stone counter like those of the eastern 
 market. Close by was another, the cloth market, 
 Forum Vcstiarmm, and some more Thermse. 
 
 Higher up still, and dominating the city from the 
 brow of the hill, rose the huge mass of the magnificent 
 Capitol. We enter it by a vast porch, erected, after 
 the destruction of the old one, by PubHlius Ceironius 
 Cascina Julianus, a man of senatorial rank and 
 governor of the province of Numidia. The other 
 three porticoes which surrounded the court of the 
 temple and were erected at the same time, have 
 fallen. The work is late and bad. The court itself 
 measures nearly one hundred yards by seventy, and 
 is barbarously paved with carved and inscribed pieces 
 of friezes and architraves and other fragments. In 
 the centre stood an immense altar ; beyond it, at the 
 top of a flight of thirty steps, rose the temple itself. 
 Its proportions, though not to be compared with those 
 of the temple at Girgenti, where a man can stand in 
 one of the flutings of the columns, are considerable. 
 Technically, the temple is what is called hexastyle 
 peripteral stylobate — that is, there were six columns 
 in front, and a complete colonnade of similar detached 
 columns ran round the building, which stood upon a 
 platform or podium. Each column was forty feet 
 high, the capital adding another six feet ; they are 
 therefore about the same size as those of the Templum 
 Castorum in the Forum at Rome. The Cella of the 
 temple had three niches for the great Roman triad, or 
 else was divided into three chambers. The central 
 statue of Jupiter was twenty-three feet high. This 
 
 85
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 statue, which is now ia the Louvre, was seated ; the 
 other two — that of Juno to his right, and Minerva 
 to his left — were standing. 
 
 One of the smallest, and certainly the loveHest, of 
 these temples is at Thugga (Dougga). The inevitable 
 inscription infomis us that it was built in honour of 
 Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Juno Regina, and Minerva 
 Augusta, by two brothers, Lucius Marcius Simplex 
 and Lucius Marcius Simplex Regillanus, in the reign 
 of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. In the centre 
 of the pediment, which rests on four columns, is a 
 curious carving of an eagle carrying a man up to 
 heaven, probably an imperial apotheosis. Standing 
 at the top of the almost precipitous hill on which the 
 city is built, and silhouetted against the sky, this 
 little temple is perhaps the most beautiful ruin in 
 Africa. 
 
 " Miner vae Augustae." This epithet of " Augustus " 
 is very commonly applied not only to emperors, but 
 also to deities and to those personified virtues to 
 which, or to whom, the Romans were fond of dedi- 
 cating temples ever since the day when, in 354 B.C., 
 Atilius Calatinus dedicated the Temple of Hope, the 
 ruins of which now lie under the Church of S. Nicole 
 in Carcere at Rome. 
 
 At Dougga the neighbouring temple is dedicated 
 to " Ccelesti Aug.," another is to " Pietati Augustae," 
 another to " Fortunae Augustae." At Tebessa we read 
 " Apollini Aug. Thevestin," and again " Virtuti Aug. 
 Thevest." " Saturno Augusto " is the usual phrase 
 on the votive tablets which are found, literally, in 
 hundreds. At Lambassis we find " Genio Virtutum 
 Marti Augusto " ; another, " Genio Augusto." This 
 introduces another interesting word " Genius," and this 
 also is common. We have noticed one at Timgad, 
 " Genio Colonise Thamugadensium " ; the Capitol at 
 Lambessa is dedicated " Genio Lambaesis," as well as 
 86
 
 
 :''raif;,^i5 

 
 A FRONTIER TOWN 
 
 to the great triad. This cult of Genii, a sort of pre- 
 Christian guardian angel or patron saint, became 
 universal in the Roman Empire, as it still is in the 
 Roman Church ; every community or association of 
 men, for whatever purpose, political or professional, 
 had one.* At Rome a special shield to the Genius 
 of the city hung in the Capitol, bearing the com- 
 prehensive inscription with which many are familiar 
 on the altar at the foot of the Palatine Hill — " Sei Deo 
 Sei DeiV/E sacrum." It is little wonder that from 
 the Imperial city it spread even to the little towns 
 of distant Africa. 
 
 Timgad was never a large or important city. To us 
 it is interesting because the cnxumstances of its founda- 
 tion left its builders free to carry out their plans un- 
 embarrassed by conditions of space, or consideration 
 for existing buildings ; and more especially because 
 the remoteness of its site and the circumstances of its 
 decay have saved its niins from later destruction, 
 and from being dra\vn upon for the erection of more 
 modern towns. 
 
 * In the Forum at Rome is a slab inscribed " Genio aquarum." 
 
 87
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 Marc scBvum, littus importuosum, ager frugum fertilis, 
 bonus pecori, arhori infecundiis ccelo tcrraque penuria 
 aquarum* " A dangerous sea, a coast with few har- 
 bours, good arable and pasture land, but badly wooded 
 owing to shortage of water, insufficient rainfall, and a 
 scarcity of springs or rivers." Such was Sallust's 
 description of North Africa, when he saw it before 
 the Roman occupation had become effective ; and it 
 is true and exact now that the Golden Age has passed 
 away. Now, as it was then and always will be, the 
 difficulty is the water supply. The land, even the 
 sand of the Sahara, is fertile ; all it needs is water — 
 as in the vision of Ezekiel, " Everything shall live 
 whither the river cometh." This difficulty the Romans 
 faced and overcame with astonishing energy, per- 
 severance and success. 
 
 To-day, after thirteen hundred years of Arab de- 
 vastation and neglect, recovery seems to be, and 
 largely is, hopeless. It is difficult, even in imagina- 
 tion, to recall the days when, to Horace,! an African 
 farm was a synonym for boundless fertility, prosperity, 
 and wealth. Hour after hour, sometimes day after 
 day, the traveller passes through desert and treeless, 
 because waterless, wastes. From the hills which 
 skirt the horizon, stripped of their forest clothing by 
 fire and wanton destruction, the rains have washed 
 
 * Jug. xvii. 
 
 t e.g. " Si proprio condidit horreo. 
 
 Quicquid de Libycis verritur areis." — Carni. ii. ii.
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 down all the soil into the plains below ; and now 
 they rise against the sky grim and barren, mere 
 splintered skeletons of what they once were, but can 
 never be again. Here and there some relics of their 
 fomier glories remain. Splendid cedars still tassel the 
 heights of Teniet-el-Had in the Ouarsenis, of Tourgour 
 and above Khenchela in the Aures, and of the Atlas 
 above Blidah. Vast forests of cork-trees still clothe 
 the Djebel Edough near Bone, and the beautifully 
 wooded gorge of the Medjerba, between Souk Ahras 
 and Mdaourouch, gives an idea of what North Africa 
 was in the days of its prosperity. 
 
 Originally, what is now an exception must have 
 been, in many parts, the rule. Large tracts of moun- 
 tain and plain, now barren and treeless, must have 
 been well wooded with forest or jungle. Elephants* 
 were common and formed the strength of the Cartha- 
 ginian armies ; Juba lost the battle of Thapsus be- 
 cause his elephants had only recently been brought 
 in, wild, from the forests and were untrained for war — 
 bellomm rudes et nuperi a silvd /f wild animals, especi- 
 ally deer, abounded ; the mosaics in the houses show 
 us pictures of hunting scenes in which the game are 
 not only hares and deer, but lions, tigers, leopards, 
 and wild boar. At Kef (Sicca Veneria) Flaubert 
 places his historically true episode of the multitude 
 of crucified Uons ; not only the amphitheatres of 
 Africa, but even the Colosseum of Rome, were supplied 
 from these sources. 
 
 Still, in spite of the amount of forest which this 
 
 * The word " elephant " is Libyan, " Fil," adopted by the 
 Greeks, first as " Ephelas " then as " Elephas." I have found no 
 representation of elephants in mosaic. 
 
 The first notice that I can find of camels is that Cassar's booty 
 after the battle of Thapsus included twenty-two camels. Later on, 
 in the third and fourth centuries, the Roman generals in Tripoli 
 requisitioned them by thousands for the carriage of water. 
 
 t Flor. vi. 2, 67. 
 
 89
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 implies, and the fact that, so far as Punic occupation 
 extended, the cultivation of the country had been 
 thorough and scientific, the difficulties which the 
 Romans had to face were serious, and they met them 
 in the only possible way — by the systematic storage 
 and distribution of the water. 
 
 Not less wonderful than the countless ruins of 
 cities and private houses are the ruined waterworks — 
 ruins which strew not only the fertile plains, but also 
 the high desolate plateaux, where to-day the half- 
 nomad Berbers find it hard to eke out an existence. 
 Every stream or river which now pours its wasted 
 waters into chott or sand or sea, shows signs of having 
 been carefully barraged at frequent intervals and the 
 water distributed far and wide by subsidiary canals. 
 Every country-house had its wells and tanks, every 
 city and town its vast system of cisterns and aque- 
 ducts.* Carthage drew its supply from the hills of 
 Zaghouan, sixty miles away ; the arches of its aque- 
 duct can still be seen striding across the plain near 
 Oudna, and the tunnels bored through the inter- 
 vening hills are still in use for their old purpose ; the 
 enormous cisterns where the water was stored still 
 exist at La Malga and near Bordj-el-Djedid ; the 
 latter are still in use, the former house a colony of 
 natives and their cattle. 
 
 At El Djem (Thysdrus), where now the lonely 
 amphitheatre rises forlorn in the midst of a desert, 
 an inscription tells us that a certain magistrate brought 
 water in such abundance that, after providing for the 
 wants of a city with a population of about a hundred 
 thousand, enough remained to supply private houses 
 on payment of a water-rate. 
 
 On agricultural questions, the Romans, profiting 
 
 ♦ Aqueducts have been found at Constantine, Timgad, Lambessa, 
 Sbeitla, Dougga, Khamissa, Tebessa, Chemtou, Souk-el-Aiba, Mactar, 
 Simittu, Oued Maliz, Cherchel, and Tipasa. 
 
 90
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 by the experience of their predecessors, took as their 
 guide the writings of the Carthaginian, Magon. In the 
 broken land and clearings they bred sheep and goats, 
 saddle-horses and huge oxen, strong to labour. Olives, 
 date-palms, and figs yielded their fruit ; the vine was 
 cultivated for raisins as well as for wine ; in the 
 deep soil of the plains they grew corn, so luxuriant 
 that Pliny* tells us of a procurator who sent to 
 Augustus a single ear containing four hundred grains, 
 and in such quantities that Africa became the granary 
 of Rome. Thence came the annona, the daily bread 
 of the vast capital, which was so dependent upon it 
 that the man who held Africa could starve Rome. 
 So precious was this supply that it was deified and 
 became a goddess ; the vast granaries which we 
 still see at Ostia were built to contain it ; it set the 
 worthless, unemploj^able rabble of Rome free to 
 amuse themselves in circus or amphitheatre. f What 
 Canada and America are to England, that, and more, 
 Africa was to Rome. 
 
 As the country had been conquered, the land was 
 treated as the property of the victors. Large tracts, 
 especially in the neighbourhood of the towns, were 
 divided into farms, and either sold to great Roman 
 capitalists or assigned to the veteran legionaries who 
 were planted there to colonise the country. The 
 natives were in such cases either deported to other 
 parts of the province or driven up into the mountains, 
 to be for ever a standing menace to the plains. If 
 they were allowed to remain, they had to be content 
 to cultivate the waste, because poorer, lands, living 
 in their little 7napalia, or huts, like Peggotty's boat 
 at Yarmouth, quasi navium carincB.% 
 
 * H.N. xviii. 21. Another, containing 360 grains, was sent to 
 Nero. 
 
 f " Parce et messoribus illis 
 Qui saturant urbem circo scenaeque vacantem." — Juv. viii. 115. 
 { Jug. xviii. 
 
 91
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 But this did not last long. Even in those days 
 when " competition," as we know it, could hardly 
 be said to exist, a man did not become a skilful farmer 
 simply by being put in possession of a small holding. 
 In Italy one agrarian law had soon to be followed 
 by another ; and in Africa the small farmers were 
 soon swallowed up by the great landowners, such as 
 Pompeianus at Oued Atmenia ; the Pullseni, who dis- 
 possessed the Marian veterans at Uci Majus ; the Arrii 
 Antonini at Mileve ; or the LoUii at Oued Smendu 
 near Constantine. It was in Africa that Caelius 
 gathered the fortune which his son wasted. Cornelius 
 Nepos* tells us of a certain Julius Calidus who was 
 prosecuted in order that his immense possessions in 
 Africa might be confiscated. An inscription informs us 
 that Julius Martianus, who had commanded the Third 
 Legion as Legate of Numidia, had great possessions, 
 on which he held a market, at Mascula (Khenchela). 
 Meanwhile the old independent yeomen either deserted 
 the land or became conductorcs or tenant farmers ; 
 and by the same process the free colo7ii or peasants 
 sank gradually into the position of serfs [vernulcB), 
 tied to the soil and bought and sold with it, or gave 
 up the struggle in despair and flocked into the towns 
 to swell the ranks of the unemployed, and to be fed 
 and amused at the town's expense. 
 
 Writing in the first century of our era, the elder 
 Pliny* deplores the change as the ruin of the Empire. 
 
 Fortunately, although the great country-houses 
 have perished, we are not left without guidance in 
 forming an idea of their appearance, and of the 
 occupations of their inhabitants. Africa is, above all 
 others, a land of mosaics, and what the inscriptions 
 are to the towns, the mosaics are to the country. 
 And so, taking these for our guides, let us try to picture 
 the daily life and surroundings of one of these country 
 
 * Vit. Att. xii. t H.N. xviii. 75. 
 
 92
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 magnates, of the men who laid them down, and trod 
 them day by day. The best are, for the most part, 
 preserved in museums — in the Bardo at Tunis, at 
 Sousse, Timgad, Tebessa, and elsewhere. This is 
 fortunate and necessary, for most of them rested 
 upon little pillars over hypocausts — that is, hot-air 
 chambers — and so were liable to be broken, even 
 without the assistance of the omnipresent Arab treasure- 
 hunter. 
 
 For the most part, and this is significant, they 
 deal with outdoor, not with indoor life. In the Bardo 
 at Tunis is one of the few which belong to the latter 
 class. It represents a dinner-party : nine tables have 
 been laid, at each of which sit three guests, all men. 
 In the centre, men are dancing to an accompaniment 
 of drums, pipes, and large metal cymbals and cas- 
 tanets. We can still hear the same music, played 
 on the same instruments, by the negro clowns from 
 the Soudan. 
 
 In another way these mosaics help us to picture 
 the homes of the wealthy Romans, by giving us an 
 idea of the size of the rooms they were designed for. 
 Many of them must have been large, some very large. 
 One mosaic, representing the Triumph of Neptune, 
 comes from Sousse ; it measures seventy feet by 
 fifty-four. For the most part these houses were like 
 mediaeval palaces — spacious reception-rooms, and small 
 rooms to live in. 
 
 As already said, the majority of the mosaics deal 
 with outdoor life and sports. A large example, found 
 at El Djem, and remarkable for the freedom and 
 excellence of the drawing, gives a series of hunting 
 scenes. The first shows us two men on horseback 
 with a beater between them. The horses are bridled, 
 but have no saddles. The riders are bare-headed, 
 and hold whips in their hands, but they are unarmed, 
 as they are hunting nothing more formidable than a 
 
 93
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 hare. The second contains two scenes ; first we see 
 a keeper scarcely able, with all his strength, to hold 
 in two large hounds who are straining at the leash ; 
 then the hounds are split, and are baying at a hare 
 which is lying in its form. The last represents the 
 kill. The two hunters are in full cry, and the hounds 
 are close upon the hare, which — a curiously natural 
 touch — has doubled back to the form. 
 
 Bathing and fishing were favourite subjects. In 
 one mosaic a number of boys are bathing. One stands 
 hesitating on the bank ; another has taken a header, 
 and is just striking the water ; another is swimming 
 with a long, easy side-stroke ; while another is being 
 swallowed by a huge fish. Yet another is fishing 
 from the bank and has just hooked a big octopus. 
 
 Mosaics which represent fishing are common, but, 
 as a rule, they treat it as a bit of work and business, 
 not of amusement or pleasure. It is done with long 
 heavy nets which are being dragged in, usually by 
 men, but in one case by oxen. 
 
 From Tabarka comes a series of three semicircular 
 mosaics, which originally filled the recesses of a tre- 
 foiled room. They represent a farm, and all the 
 varied work connected with it. In the centre of one 
 is a large building with two towers and great open 
 gateways ; it stands in a rose-garden, planted with 
 olive-trees, under which pigeons, pheasants, and par- 
 tridges* are feeding ; below is a lake with swans, 
 geese, and ducks, swimming, drinking, or flapping 
 their wings. A second shows us the farm with olives, 
 vines, and pigeons. The third gives the stables ; 
 horses are tied up ready to be groomed ; in the corner 
 a woman is sitting spinning ; all round are olives and 
 vines, with sheep and partridges. 
 
 Another, still more elaborate, shows men plough- 
 ing ; a shepherd is folding his flock of sheep and goats ; 
 
 * Or, it may be, guinea-fowl. 
 
 94
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 a horse is being groomed ; another is being watered, 
 at just such a well as we still see in the fields ; a 
 man, on his hands and knees, disguised, apparently, 
 in a skin, is driving partridges into a great snare net ; 
 men and dogs are chasing a wild boar which has 
 turned at bay ; other men, on horseback, are hunting 
 a tiger ; while more gentle swains are sitting under 
 the trees piping to their flocks. 
 
 By far the most complete and interesting series 
 of such mosaics was discovered in 1878 at Oued 
 Atmenia, about twenty miles from Constantine on 
 the road to Setif. Unfortunately they have been 
 entirely destroyed by the Arabs in their search for 
 treasure ; but before this they were carefully examined 
 and copied by the Archabological Society of Constantine. 
 Some have been reproduced in colour by the Society. 
 Two are shown by Tissot in his Gdographie compared 
 de la Province Romaine d'Afrique. 
 
 The building first discovered was the Thermae ; 
 this was so vast and splendid that it was thought 
 that it must belong to some large town ; but further 
 excavations proved that this was not the case, and 
 that it was simply part of a private house belonging 
 to a man called Pompeianus. 
 
 In the Laconicum, or hot chamber, the mosaic is 
 divided into four compartments, one above another. 
 The upper two show the house and garden, the other 
 two the favourite horses from the stud of the owner. 
 
 In front is the house with the owner's name over 
 it, Pompeianus. It is a timbered structure, very 
 Elizabethan in appearance. The main building is 
 two storeys high, with a lofty roof ; in the centre 
 is a parapeted tower rising to the height of four 
 storeys — that is, one storey clear above the roof of 
 the house itself. At the two extremities are projecting 
 wings, also with high roofs. Beyond these are two 
 pavilions or porches, opening into the garden which 
 
 95
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 lies behind ; over these are pahn-trees. The garden 
 itself is a hortus inclusus walled in, and laid out in 
 beds of a stiff, formal geometrical pattern ; in the 
 middle of the back wall is a sort of Casino or summer- 
 house. 
 
 Below, in the other two rows, are six horses tied 
 to mangers ; in each row two horses share a manger, 
 while the third has one to himself ; as usual, over 
 each horse is its name, sometimes with a few words 
 of praise or affection. In the first row are Delicatus, 
 with a manger to himself ; then Pullentianus and 
 Altus. The last is thus apostrophised : " Altus unus 
 ES UT MONS EXULTAS " — " Altus, there is none like you ; 
 you skip like a mountain." In the bottom row are 
 ScHOLASTicus, by himself, Titas and Polydoxus. 
 While Altus was the favourite hunter, Polydoxus was 
 evidently the favourite race-horse. Over him we read : 
 " Vincas non vincas te amamus Polydoxe " — 
 " Whether you win, or not, we love you, Polydoxus." 
 
 From the Laconicum a door leads into the Suda- 
 rium, or sweating-room. On the floor near the door 
 are the cryptic words, " Incredula venila bene- 
 
 FICA." 
 
 In the Sudarium itself are two mosaics. Over 
 the first are the words, " Filoso Filolocus." The 
 simplest explanation is that they stand for PMlosophi 
 Locus, " The Place of the Philosopher," but it is hard 
 to believe that in such elaborate work as this, two 
 mistakes should have been made, and allowed to stand, 
 in two words. Still, the obvious is not always wrong, 
 and it is hard to suggest any other interpretation. 
 If this be the case, the incomprehensible words above 
 may be mistakes also. 
 
 The mosaic represents a garden or Viridantiin ; 
 on each side are trees ; the background is green. To 
 the left are three pavilions brightly coloured ; to the 
 right, under a palm-tree, laden with ripe fruit, a lady 
 96
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 is sitting in an arm-chair [cathedra), holding a fan 
 {flahellum) in her right hand. By her side stands an 
 attendant ; with his left hand he holds a parasol 
 {umbella) over the lady's head ; in his right, the leash 
 of a little pet dog ; behind are other trees, with vines 
 and bnnches of grapes. Can this scene of idle ease 
 represent the School of Philosophy, as understood in 
 the country-house of Pompeianus, and can the atten- 
 dant be the philosopher himself ? It is quite possible. 
 We know that every big house kept its private philo- 
 sopher, just as a nobleman used to keep his private 
 chaplain or jester ; and the poor philosopher was put 
 to very base uses and treated with as scant respect or 
 consideration as a Court chaplain received from the 
 wife of one of the Georges. 
 
 The other mosaic in the Laconicum, separated from 
 the first by the wall of the garden, represents the 
 park. 
 
 At the top are two circular basins with fish and 
 aquatic plants in flower ; above are the words 
 " Septum Venationis," the " Park or Enclosure for 
 Hunting." It is ringed in with a high deer-fence 
 or net supported by strong stakes. Inside are three 
 gazelles chased by a couple of hounds. The small- 
 ness of the space enclosed, and the absence of any 
 hunters, give the impression that it is a snare for 
 catching deer rather than a place for hunting them. 
 
 By the side of this enclosure for deer is another 
 for cattle — " Pecuari Locus,"* the " Place of the 
 Herdsman." This part of the mosaic is injured, almost 
 destroyed. 
 
 Adjoining is the Atrium, Here the mosaic shows 
 a hunting-lodge, or possibly the great house itself, 
 and hunting scenes. 
 
 The house at the top of the mosaic is two or three 
 storeys high, and is flanked on one side by a rich 
 
 * Another misprint for Pecuarii. 
 
 G 97
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 pavilion, on the other by a lofty tower and balcony ; 
 above this is written, " Saltuarii Janus," " The 
 Ranger's Gate." 
 
 The roof, above which are trees, is of red tiles 
 {tegulcB) ; in the roof of the central building are four 
 openings in red and black. What they are is not 
 clear ; if we could be sure they were chimneys, the 
 question whether Roman houses had chimneys or not 
 would be settled, and, with it, the meaning of the 
 word caminus. 
 
 Below, in three rows, we see a party hunting 
 gazelles. It consists of horsemen with spears in 
 their hands : Cresconius, Vernacil, Cessonius, 
 Neantus. In front are the hounds Fidelis and 
 Castus, while close up to the hounds, in his proper 
 place, lides Pompeianus himself, the only one who 
 is unarmed. Others, beaters, are on foot— Liber, 
 Diaz, and an Iberian boy who, like Liber, has thrown 
 his short mantle, sagum, loose over his left shoulder. 
 The horses are saddled, bridled, and fully caparisoned. 
 The riders are lightly clad ; they wear fiat bonnets 
 [galeri), entirely covering the head, short mantles 
 thrown back over the shoulder like hussars' jackets, 
 and trousers tied in at the knees. At the close of 
 the hunt, the hunters are invited to rest under the 
 pleasant shade of trees. 
 
 Also in the Atrium are two other strange mosaics. 
 In each are three women, naked, save that long 
 mantles hang from their shoulders down their backs ; 
 round their necks are strings of pearls, and they wear 
 bangles on their arms, wrists, and ankles. The woman 
 in the middle of one of these mosaics holds a sunshade 
 in her right hand. They sit on carved couches, two 
 of the legs of which represent the head and legs of 
 a stag or some fantastic animal ; the others are a 
 series of balls, increasing in size as they approach 
 the ground. 
 98
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 Apart from these last two mosaics, and making 
 some necessary allowance for the inevitable con- 
 ventionality of treatment, we cannot but be struck, 
 not only by the very pleasant, but also by the 
 singularly modern picture which all this gives us 
 of the daily life of the Roman gentry. We should 
 only have to take the lady away from her walled 
 garden and her philosopher, and put her on horse- 
 back by the side of her husband. 
 
 All this, pleasant and attractive as it is, gives, 
 unhappily, only one side of the picture — the life of 
 the rich ; that is, of the few. There was another 
 side very different and very cruel, of which we know 
 little — the deep sighing of the poor, the death in life 
 of the slaves. Of these latter a few, the most favoured, 
 were attached to the personal service of their masters. 
 The vast majority worked and died in the fields 
 under the lash of their taskmasters. We must imagine 
 for ourselves the hopeless horror of their lives ; per- 
 haps the most awful comment upon it is that no 
 record remains. Their misery must be measured by 
 the luxury of their masters, their poverty by the 
 wealth of Africa, their hopelessness by their silence. 
 
 Besides these private estates, there were the 
 Imperial domains or saltus, a word which is inter- 
 preted by iElius Callus as meaning wood and pasture 
 land [saltus est ubi silvcB et pastiones sunt). Pliny has 
 told us how the Emperor Nero became possessed of 
 some of these ; others passed into the Imperial hands 
 in a more normal way. In every colony a part of 
 the land was reserved as public or common land 
 ipiiblicus ager), and it was, perhaps, natural that, 
 especially in Crown colonies, this should in time come 
 to be considered and treated as the property of the 
 Emperor himself. 
 
 On the hills which surround the valleys of the 
 Oueds Arkou, Memcha, and Ermouchia, between 
 
 99
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Dougga and Kef, lay a cluster of these saltus — the 
 Blandiensis, Udensis, Lamianus, Domitianus, and 
 Sustritaniis. Each of these was managed by an 
 Imperial agent or procurator, under a procurator- 
 general who had his office at Carthage. Under the 
 procurator were the conductor es, or tenant fanners, 
 to whom the farms were let on a five years' lease, 
 with the right of sub-letting. The relations of these 
 were governed by the standing law of Hadrian — the 
 Forma Perpetua or Model Lease ; copies of this, 
 accompanied sometimes by a sort of commentary, 
 giving the details of the local usage, have been found 
 in various places, engraved on slabs or pillars or altars. 
 
 Here is one of the commentaries,* discovered by 
 Dr. Carton, near a spring called the Ain Ouarsel, 
 not far from Uci Majus : 
 
 " See how our Caesar, with untiring solicitude, 
 watches over the interests of mankind. 
 
 " I. Concerning all the lands planted with olives 
 or other fruit-trees in the centuries of the Saltus 
 Blandianus and Udensis, and in the parts of the 
 Saltus Lamianus and Domitianus, which adjoin the 
 Saltus Sustritanus : 
 
 " Neither the fact that they cultivate these centuries, 
 nor the fact that they hold them from the conductores, 
 gives to the occupants the right of possession, to enjoy 
 their revenues or to leave then by will to their heirs, 
 a right which the Law of Hadrian gives to virgin 
 soil and to land which has lain waste for ten consecutive 
 years., 
 
 "2. On the other hand, the crops on the lands in 
 the Saltus Blandianus and Udensis, let by the con- 
 ductores to the occupants, shall not be more heavily 
 rented than in the past. The rent shall be one-third 
 of the produce of the land. 
 
 * Le Pays de Dougga, G. Balut, p. 62. A copy of the Law of 
 Hadrian is inscribed on an altar. 
 
 100
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 " So also the parts of the Saltus Lamianus and 
 Domitianiis adjoming the Saltus Sustritanus shall 
 pay the same rent as in time past. 
 
 " 3. If one of the possessores shall plant or graft 
 olives, the produce shall be free from all impost for 
 the first ten years. 
 
 " In the same way, fruit-trees shall not be taxed for the 
 first seven years after they have been planted or grafted. 
 
 " In any case, the fruit of trees which are not thus 
 exempt shall not be taxed unless the said fruits are 
 sold by the possessores. 
 
 " The rents arising from the dry products of the 
 soil shall be paid by the occupatorius for the five years 
 following the cropping of the land, into the hands of 
 the conductor who occupies the land, 
 
 " After that time, they pass into the hands of the 
 State." 
 
 Besides these tenants and sub-tenants there were 
 the coloni, the peasantry, for the most part natives, 
 who occupied such land as no one else wanted. These 
 men were drifting fast from the position of peasants 
 into that of serfs, attached to and almost belonging 
 to the soil. Since the soil belonged to the Emperor, 
 they claimed that they also, in a sense, were his, and 
 had therefore a claim upon him and a right of appeal 
 to him. It is curiously like the Clameur de Haro, 
 with which a suppliant Norman cried to the first 
 pirate duke that wrong was being done : " Haro ! 
 Haro ! A I'aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort."'^ 
 
 In addition to some rent, which of course varied 
 with the circumstances, they were obliged to give six 
 days a year free labour, or corvee, to the farmers, at 
 the busiest times of the year — two for ploughing, two 
 for sowing, and two for harvesting. It is easy to 
 understand that this opened the door to much unjust 
 
 * Rotten, by T. A. Cook, p. 146. 
 
 lOI 
 
 DIVERSITY Cf CALlFCRfilA 
 
 i-\-i .Tropin'-
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 exaction and oppression. A curious memorial of this 
 has been discovered on the Saltus Bururitanus (Henchir 
 Dacla, near Souk-el-Kemis) in the valley of the Med- 
 jerba, inscribed on slabs of marble which are now in 
 the Bardo at Tunis.* 
 
 Resenting the unjust exactions of the farmers, aad 
 despairing of obtaining justice of the procurators, the 
 peasants determined to appeal direct to the Emperor 
 himself. Their first letter fell into the hands of the Pro- 
 curator-General at Carthage, who, furious at finding his 
 administration thus impugned, sent soldiers to the spot, 
 who im-prisoned or flogged the audacious complainants. 
 
 Nothing daunted, the coloni sent another appeal 
 which reached the Emperor. In this they describe 
 themselves as his people, vernulcB, born upon his 
 land, alumni saltuum tuorum, and give an account of 
 their wrongs. An autograph reply came from the 
 Emperor himself, righting their wrongs, and insisting 
 that the Law of Hadrian should be respected, and 
 no more free labour exacted from them than was due. 
 And this Emperor was Commodus the Gladiator. 
 
 If in 1864 the negroes of Jamaica had had equally 
 easy access to the throne, a very ugly page would 
 have been blotted out from our history. 
 
 Overjoyed, the peasants had their letter and the Em- 
 peror's answer, the new Magna Carta of their liberties, 
 engraved on slabs of marble, and set up on the estate. 
 
 The Emperor's reply deserves to be given at length : — 
 
 (imp ca)es m aurelius commodus an 
 
 (toNI)nUS AUG SARMAT GERMANICUS 
 MAXIMUS LURIO LUCULLO ET NOMIN A 
 LIORUM PROCC CONTEMPLATIONE DIS 
 CIPLIN.^ ET INSTITUTI MEI NE PLUS 
 QUAM TER BINAS OPERAS CURABUNT 
 NE QUIT PER INJURIAM CONTRA PERPE 
 TUAM FORMAN A VOBIS EXIGATUR 
 ET ALIA MANU SCRIPSI RECOGNOVI. 
 
 * C.I.L. 10570. 
 
 102
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 " The Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus 
 Antoninus, Augustus, Sarmaticus, Germanicus Maxi- 
 mus, to Lurius Lucullas and the other procurators : 
 In conformance with my direction and ordinance, you 
 shall not exact more than two days' free labour, thrice 
 in the year, or inflict any injury contrary to the stand- 
 ing orders. This and the rest I have written with 
 my own hand and verified." 
 
 :(: ^ :|< 9): ^ 
 
 It will be easily understood that the management 
 of these vast estates required the services of an im- 
 mense staff of officials. Two cemeteries have been 
 discovered at Carthage, near the cisterns of Malga, 
 set apart, one for the free men, the other for the slaves 
 attached to the Administration. Two hundred and 
 eighty-nine epitaphs have been discovered in the 
 one cemetery, two hundred and ninety-five in the 
 other. 
 
 The strange construction of som.e of these tombs, 
 with funnels for libations, and the still stranger use 
 to which these funnels were put, will be noticed 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The epitaphs are interesting as supplying us with 
 the titles of the various members of this Imperial 
 Familia, 
 
 First come the Procuratores, or Imperial agents ; 
 then there come the Pedisequi or runners, and Medici, 
 doctors who were attached to the persons of the great 
 officials. Others were office clerks, Notarii, or Lihrarii, 
 or Tahularii ; others surveyors, Mensores or Agrimen- 
 sores and Agrarii : many are soldiers, others Pcpda- 
 gogi, one a philosopher, another a nurse, another a 
 dancer. These were all free, and probably Roman 
 citizens, even if they did not come from Rome. The 
 messengers and couriers. Collegium Cursorum et Numi- 
 darum, were natives and, probably, slaves. 
 
 103
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 The traveller in Eastern Algeria and Tunisia cannot 
 fail to be impressed by the enormous number of ruined 
 Roman towns which he passes, and the density of the 
 population to which they bear witness. Sometimes 
 the very name of the ruins is forgotten ; sometimes 
 an inscription reveals the nam.e, but everything else 
 is lost ; sometimes a ruined arch or huge monument 
 such as the amphitheatre of Thysdrus (El Djem) 
 rises in the midst of a desert, like the temples of 
 Egypt, A single day's drive from Medjez-el-Bab 
 (Membressa) to Kef (Sicca Vineria) carries us through 
 no less than twenty towns, and even this takes no 
 account of the private and Imperial estates, the 
 prcBdia, fundi, and saltits which lay between them. 
 The thickness of the population was, of course, un- 
 even ; it depended upon the supply of water and the 
 distance from the sea. This latter point may be 
 stated almost in terms of the law of gravitation, the 
 number and importance of the towns varying inversely 
 with the square of the distance from Carthage or 
 some other seaport. It is difficult, almost impossible, 
 to realise now, as we pass through leagues of treeless 
 waste, by ranges of bare rocky hills, that those hills 
 were once clothed with forests, that those plains once 
 supported a teeming population, and were the granary 
 of Rome. 
 
 And not less rem.arkable than the number must 
 have been the splendour of these cities. A single 
 104
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 illustration of this must suffice — the Triumphal 
 Arches which are so m^arked a feature of the Roman 
 ruins. Other buildings, theatres, amphitheatres, fora, 
 temples, aqueducts, were more or less necessary, and 
 ministered to the pleasures, if not to the absolute 
 requirements, of the people ; these arches were purely 
 ornamental, and so bear a clearer witness simply to 
 the wealth and taste and liberality of those who 
 erected them. Often only a foundation is left ; some- 
 times, as with the great four-fronted arch at Con- 
 stantine, only a tradition remains ; sometimes, as at 
 Medjez-el-Bab (the Ford of the Gate), only the name 
 now tells us of the gateway outside which Belisarius 
 defeated the rebel Stotzas. 
 
 Often these arches are only ornamental gateways in 
 an existing city or temple wall, or carry an aqueduct, 
 recalling the Porta Maggiore or the so-called Arch 
 of Drusus at Rome ; such are found at Lambessa, 
 at Tebessa, and in the Capitol of Sbeitla. But more 
 frequently they stand in solitary grandeur entirely 
 detached from any other building. 
 
 Commonly they have only one opening, like the Arch 
 of Titus at Rome, but even these are often of great 
 dignity and beauty; such are the Arches of Diocletian at 
 Sufetula (Sbeitla), of Commodus at Lambsesis (Lam- 
 bessa), of ]\I. Aurelius at Verecunda, one of the Arches 
 at Thibilis (Announa), and especially the very splendid 
 Arch of Septimius Severus at Ammoedara (Haidra). 
 
 And here it may be remembered that Severus 
 was himself an African, born at Leptis, and had 
 therefore a double claim on the loyalty of Africans, 
 Roman and Berber. 
 
 Very rarely these arches had two openings, but it 
 was found difficult to treat this form successfully, and 
 it was hardly ever adopted ; a solitary instance is 
 to be found at Thibilis (Announa) — the only one, at 
 any rate, that the present writer has found. 
 
 105
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 A more elaborate form has three openings ; to 
 this class belong the Arch of Septimius Severus at 
 Lambaesis, the entrance Arch of the Capital of Sufe- 
 tula (Sbeitla), dedicated to Antoninus Pius, and the 
 great Arch of Trajan which bestrides the Decumanus 
 Maximus at Thamugadi (Timgad). 
 
 The most perfect, the most beautiful, the most 
 intricate, the most costly, and therefore the rarest 
 form, is the four-sided arch, like the so-called Temple 
 or Arch of Janus in the Forum Boarium of Rome. 
 Such an arch still stands in Tripoli, and once stood in 
 Cirta (Constantine). The only remaining instance in 
 Africa is the Arch of Septimius Severus at Theveste 
 (Tebessa) . 
 
 The arch is a perfect square of thirty-six feet. 
 On the keystones of the arches which crown the 
 openings on the four sides are carved medallions : 
 that on the west, a divinity, with an Egyptian head- 
 dress ; that on the east, Minerva. On the frieze are 
 four inscriptions — one to Caracalla ; one to Septimius 
 Severus, who was dead when the arch was erected, 
 and the third to Julia Domna, Matri Castrorum et 
 Sen. et Patrice, " Mother of the Camp, of the Senate, 
 and of the Fatherland." The fourth face was left 
 blank. This is common, almost universal in inscrip- 
 tions to Septimius Severus — either a blank, or, as in 
 the case of his arch in the Forum of Rome, an erasure. 
 In every case the cause was the same. It reminds us 
 that in the year a.d. 212, the year after the death of 
 Severus, Caracalla murdered his brother Geta, pre- 
 ferring, as he said, to worship him as a god than to 
 have him as a living rival — " Sit divus dum non sit 
 vivus."* The blank where the inscription to Geta 
 
 * The Roman Emperors did not take their apotheoses very 
 seriously. Vcs, puto Deus fio — " Alas ! I am going to be made a god " 
 — were the words of Vespasian when he lay a-dying. It is to the 
 homely wit of the same Emperor that we owe the maxim which 
 is the Great Charter of modern society, " Money does not smell." 
 
 106
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 should have been fixes the date of the arch. It was 
 erected, or at least dedicated, between the years 
 A.D. 212 and 217. WTien Solomon came in a.d. 535, 
 he made the arch the principal gateway of his great 
 fortress, and erected an inscription for himself, " the 
 most glorious and most excellent Commander-in-Chief 
 Solomon, Prefect of Libya and Patrician," in the 
 vacant place. 
 
 The most remarkable and beautiful feature of the 
 arch is that it was vaulted, and that on each of the 
 four faces of the arch stood, resting against the central 
 dome, a graceful little shrine, like the ^dicula at the 
 entrance of the Atrium Vestae at Rome, doubtless to 
 shelter a statue. The whole is so sumptuous and 
 rich, that it is curious that it has never been copied. 
 
 How are we to account for this marvellous pro- 
 fusion of splendid buildings and monuments ? How 
 came it that not only great cities, but even small and 
 unimportant towns, were so richly adorned ? The 
 answer to these questions is simple and interesting. 
 They were not built out of the rates, or by public 
 subscription ; they were, almost without exception, 
 the gifts of private individuals — expressions, that is, 
 of loyalty to the Emperor, and of love and pride 
 in the city itself. Sometimes it was a governor or 
 some great landowner, more frequently it was some 
 wealthy officer in the army, who, either while he was 
 alive, or by will, devoted part of his substance to the 
 expression of his patriotism and to the beautifying 
 of his home. 
 
 To these men Civis Romanus sum was no nn- 
 meaning phrase or boast — it was a patent of nobility ; 
 it bound these distant members to the great city 
 which was the heart of the Empire and of the world — • 
 sometimes we hear it still, and from strange lips, lo 
 sono Romano di Roma. And each colony or town, 
 with its capital and forum, was a little Rome to its 
 
 107
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 inhabitants. From the splendour of the very ruins 
 we learn to realise what Roman patriotism was, and 
 to understand the contempt and hatred with which 
 the Roman officers and citizens regarded the disloyalty, 
 as they deemed it, of those who refused to take the 
 oath of allegiance by burning incense to Cassar. 
 
 But there was more than this. Municipal offices, 
 especially that of perpetual Flamen, or Priest at the 
 Imperial sacrifices, were, in their degree, as much 
 objects of ambition as it was to be consul or tribune 
 then, or M.P. or J. P. now. In England " The County " 
 has yet to learn not to despise " The Town." To 
 serve on a town council has until recently been 
 considered almost a degradation : a wealthy merchant, 
 when asked why he declined to serve, replied that 
 " he wanted to keep himself respectable." Things 
 are, happily, improving in this respect, but we are 
 still very far from sharing the intense pride which the 
 Roman citizen felt in his town or municipality. Each 
 office had its fixed price, the siimma honoraria ; the 
 city did not pay its magistrates — they paid the city 
 for the honour of serving. The result was natural, 
 and the list became a long one. A single fragment 
 of an inscription found in the Curia at Thamugadi 
 (Timgad) gives the names of no less than seventy 
 citizens whom the Respuhlica Thamugadensium had 
 admitted to the splendidissimns ordo of Decuriones, 
 or town councillors. Rich men were eagerly sought 
 after for this purpose ; sometimes a man could boast 
 that he was Flamen Perpetuus at both Thamugadi 
 and Lambsesis.* A freedman, who could not, on 
 that account, be made a Decurion, was elected an 
 honorary member of that august body, and was allowed 
 to wear the robes and regalia and to occupy the reserved 
 seats in the theatres. There was a regular tariff. 
 The price of the Duumvirate — the highest dignity — 
 
 * C.I.L. 2407. 
 
 108
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 at Thamugadi was £'^2, of an ^Edileship £24. In 
 certain cases this price was increased ampliatd tax- 
 atione. It was only after this had been paid that 
 bribery began. This usually took the form of a 
 promise to erect some building " to adoni the Father- 
 land " {exomare Patriam). 
 
 These benefactions were not always confined to 
 buildings : philanthropy had its place also. A citizen 
 of Sicca Veneria (Kef) left a sum of one million three 
 hundred thousand sesterces (£150,000), for the support 
 and education of five hundred poor children, three 
 hundred boys and two hundred girls, between the 
 ages of three and fifteen years. 
 
 But civic duties, however honourable and onerous, 
 could not fill the time of the busy and enthusiastic 
 citizens. Something lighter was needed also. 
 
 Happiness comes from God, but men have to make 
 their pleasures for themselves, and apparently it is 
 these unnecessary things which, in the opinion of 
 most, make life worth living. 
 
 \^'e have seen the Roman citizen in his home in 
 the country, hunting, boating, fishing, swimming — 
 living, in fact, very much the life of an English country 
 gentleman ; it remains for us now, in dealing with 
 town Ufe, to speak of the public games, which occupied 
 in the life of the people a place even more important 
 than that which they fill nowadays. Thus, in an- 
 nouncing the victory over Firmus, the Emperor 
 Aurelian writes : " Attend the public games, spend 
 your time at the Circus, and leave politics to us. We 
 will undertake all the trouble for you ; you shall have 
 all the pleasure." 
 
 Some of these amusements were hiherited from 
 the Greeks ; these were the Circus and the Theatre ; 
 the one which the Romans invented for themselves 
 was the Amphitheatre. 
 
 109
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 The Circus 
 
 The Circus was merely the Latin form of the Greek 
 hippodrome, and, as its Greek name imphes, was 
 originally intended chiefly, if not solely, for chariot 
 racing. In the Homeric poems, Agamemnon, Achilles, 
 and Ulysses were charioteers, not horsemen. It was 
 as a charioteer that Hector won the name by which 
 Homer loves to describe him, " The Chivalrous 
 Hector," and it was to its first great builder, the 
 Etruscan King Tarquinius Superbus, that Rome be- 
 lieved that she owed her first circus, the Circus 
 Maximus. The great difference between the hippo- 
 drome and the circus was that, among the Greeks, 
 the drivers in the races were the great men who owned 
 the horses, whereas amongst the Romans, at any 
 rate in the days of the Empire, of which we are now 
 speaking, the charioteers were paid professionals. 
 
 From the first days of Roman history, when the 
 legendary Romulus was fabled to have held equally 
 legendary races in the Field of Mars, to the days when 
 riderless horses were raced, in the same place, down 
 the Corso, permission to race Jews having been with- 
 drawn, Panem et Circenses, " Free food and races," 
 have been the chief demands of the Romans. And 
 if it was so in Italy, much more was it the case in 
 Africa, where the love of horses was indigenous ;* 
 it was from the African grooms that St. Jerome heard 
 the saying which was passed into an English proverb : 
 Equi denies inspicere donati — " Don't look a gift 
 horse in the mouth." This was an interest in which 
 conquerors and conquered, Roman and Berber, were 
 united, WQierever the Romans settled in any numbers 
 they constructed first a theatre, then, if possible, an 
 anphitheatre and a circus. They did so in the east 
 at Carthage, Dougga, El Djem, Leptis Magna, and 
 
 * According to Herodotus, " The Greeks learnt from the Libyans 
 to yoke four horses to a chariot " (iv. 189). 
 
 110
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 Sousse ; at Constantine, and in the far west at Cherchel. 
 In a mosaic from Gafsa, now in the Bardo at Tunis, 
 we see the spina and mdcd, romid which the chariots 
 are racing ; by their sides are horsemen, the jiibi- 
 latores, cheering on the teams, while above, in long 
 rows, are the eager faces of the spectators — men and 
 women — for to the circus both were admitted on 
 equal terms, a fact which doubtless added much to 
 the popularity of those games. Ovid has told us 
 how he took a girl to the races, how he shielded her 
 face from the sun with his card of the races, how he 
 admired her ankle and wished he could see more. 
 
 Another even more interesting mosaic from Dougga, 
 also in the Bardo, represents a victorious charioteer 
 Eros. In his left hand he grasps the reins, in his 
 right the whip and olive crown ; over the heads of 
 two of the horses are inscribed, as usual, their names, 
 Amandus and Prunitus ; to the right are the Career es, 
 which took the place of the starting-post ; over the 
 charioteer's head runs the pretty, punning compliment : 
 Eros omnia per te — " O love {Eros), all things are 
 won by thee." 
 
 Another beautiful mosaic, preserved in the Kasbah 
 at Sousse, represents the racing stables of a certain 
 Sorothus. The hopes which Pompeianus centred in 
 his horse Polydoxus have been already recorded. 
 
 The importance and wealth of a successful chario- 
 teer are shown in many ways. Martial compares the 
 beggarly handful of coppers which was all he could 
 earn in a day, with the fifteen bags of gold won by 
 the charioteer Scorpus in a single hour.* The largest 
 and costliest house yet excavated at Carthage belonged 
 to another, Scorpianus, while a very curious inscrip- 
 tion, discovered at Rome and described by the Con- 
 tessa Lovatelli, tells us how Crescens, an African 
 by birth, belonging to the faction of the Blues, won 
 * X. 74. 
 
 Ill
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 his first race in the consulate of Vipstanius Messala, 
 on the anniversary festival of the divine Nerva 
 (a.d. 115), with the horses Circius, Acceptor, Dehcatus, 
 and Cotynus, and his last, ten years later, in the 
 consulate of Glabrion, at the festival of the divine 
 Claudius (a.d. 124) ; and that between these two he 
 won forty-seven first prizes, one hundred and thirty 
 second, and one hundred and eleven third. The 
 prize-money amounted to 1,558,346 sesterces, or 
 
 £14.340. 
 
 The racing world was divided into four parties or 
 Factiones — the Green [Prasini), the Red {Russati), the 
 Blue [Veneti), and the White {Albati). Four chariots, 
 one of each colour, raced in each heat {missus). We 
 find them all in a mosaic in the Thermae of Diocletian 
 at Rome. The men wear round caps, close-fitting 
 jerkins of their proper colour, tight breeches, and 
 high boots. Round their bodies are laced the thongs 
 which represented the ends of the reins, and added 
 greatly to the interest of the races by insuring the 
 death of any one who was thrown. 
 
 To one or other of these factions every Roman 
 belonged, Nero belonged to the Green, and himself 
 raced in their colours, and lodged the charioteers 
 and grooms in the Domus Gelotiana on the Palatine, 
 that he might be able the more easily to enjoy their 
 society. To which of them any one belonged was, 
 for the most part, as much an accident of birth, or 
 station, or surroundings as the politics of an ordinary 
 Englishman, but when once chosen there was no 
 changing ; in this, as in other matters, men atoned 
 for the accidental character of their original choice 
 by the obstinacy with which they clung to it. Such 
 a change on the part of a charioteer was so rare that, 
 when it occurred, it was thought worthy of a pubUc 
 monument. In the court of the Church of St. Irene 
 at Constantinople stands a four-sided monument 
 112
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 adorned with reliefs and inscriptions. It is dedicated 
 to a certain Porphyrins, a famous charioteer of the 
 beginning of the sixth century. In one of the in- 
 scriptions his secession from the Bhie faction to the 
 Green is recorded ; while in one of the reliefs we are 
 shown Porphyrins himself, in his chariot, with, as 
 usual, the names of the horses over the head of each. 
 A few years later the change, if made at all, would 
 hardly have been made in this direction. Justinian, 
 who loved horse-racing, with an even more passionate 
 devotion than even law or theology, belonged to the 
 Blues (there were then only two factions), while the 
 Empress Theodora was suspected of a sneaking attach- 
 ment to the Greens and heresy. At any rate the 
 Blues constituted themselves champions of Church 
 and King and assailed the Greens with a relentless 
 ferocity which became a matter of political importance. 
 Secure in the protection of the Emperor, masters of 
 the city, almost of the world, they instituted a veri- 
 table reign of terror.* Clad in cloaks of rat-skins, 
 with long tangled hair and moustaches, recalling by 
 their appearance the ferocious Attila whose savagery 
 they strove to emulate, they wandered in armed 
 bands through the streets plundering, ravishing, or 
 slaughtering whomsoever they would ; their proudest 
 boast was that they could kill a man with a single 
 stroke of the dagger. If a judge were so ill-advised 
 as to attempt to do justice and condemn an offender, 
 the guilty wretch was sure of a free pardon from the 
 Emperor, while the judge was reprimanded, and, if 
 he repeated his offence, his contumacy was punished 
 by removal from his post and banishment to some 
 distant province of the Empire. Meanwhile the un- 
 happy Greens, massacred by their rivals and deserted 
 by the judges, fled from the city and became banditti, 
 
 * It is said that, on one occasion, thirty thousand were killed in 
 the Circus. 
 
 H 113
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 pre3dng without mercy on those from whom they 
 had received none.* 
 
 The interest taken in the races at Carthage is illus- 
 trated in a curious way. Elsewhere I shall speak of the 
 funnel tombs in the cemetery of the Roman officials, 
 near the cisterns of La Malga, and of the love and 
 other charms which were dropped into them. With 
 these have been found a number of thin sheets of 
 lead, called tahulce execrationis, on which were scratched 
 in Greek or Latin, sometimes in both, imprecations 
 upon the horses and drivers of various factions. For 
 comprehensiveness and minuteness of detail they are 
 worthy of a place by the side of the famous Rochester 
 Curse, printed by Sterne in Tristram Shandy, and 
 parodied by Barham in The Ingoldsby Legends. This 
 was the curse which aroused the pity of tender- 
 hearted Uncle Toby : — 
 
 " ' I declare,' quoth my Uncle Toby, ' my heart 
 would not let me curse the devil himself with so much 
 bitterness.' ' He is the father of curses,' replied 
 Dr. Slop. ' So am not I,' replied my uncle. ' But 
 he is cursed and damned already, to all eternity,' 
 replied Dr. Slop. ' I am sorry for it,' quoth my Uncle 
 Toby." 
 
 Sometimes these imprecations were attached to 
 a cippus, or gravestone, by a strip of leather ; some- 
 times they were dropped into the tomb itself. One 
 has been found between two skulls, apparently of mien 
 who had been beheaded, as no skeletons were found 
 with them, and they had no relation to the ashes 
 on which they lay. The sheets are naturally 
 small and thin ; on one, which measures only 
 three inches by two and a half, the writing is so 
 minute that it can be read only through a magnifying- 
 glass. 
 
 The writing runs on a square round the four sides 
 
 * Proc. vii. 
 114
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 of the sheet and so round and round until it reaches 
 the centre. 
 
 On one, not the most venomous, we fmd a drawing 
 of the spina of the circus ; at the top is a rough 
 drawing of a cock's head ; below are the car ceres. 
 On each side is a list of horses — Sidereus, Igncus, 
 Rapidus, Impidsator, and so on — nineteen on one side 
 and eight on the other, which is injured. The impre- 
 cation below begins as follows — I give it in the original 
 to show the ignorance of the writer : — 
 
 " Ixcito demon qui ic conversans trado tibi os equos 
 ut deteneas illos et inplicentur ec se movere possint."* 
 
 The invocations are varied and interesting ; one 
 begins as follows : — 
 
 " I invoke Thee, whosoever thou art, Spirit of the 
 dead, dead before thy time, by the seven enthroned 
 with the King of the under world, &c."t 
 
 Another : — 
 
 " I adjure Thee, Demon, by the Holy Names, 
 Salbal, Bathbal, Authierotabal, Basuthateo, Aleo, 
 Samabethor, bind fast the horses of the Greens, whose 
 names I give Thee," &c.J 
 
 Sometimes they descend to personalities ; on one 
 the charioteer Dionysius is called, wherever the name 
 occurs, " the gorging glutton." § 
 
 The following may be given at length, not because 
 it is the most detailed or the most savage, but for its 
 curious ending. || 
 
 The text, which is surrounded with cabalistic figures, 
 runs as follows : — 
 
 " I invoke Thee, by the Great Names, to bind fast 
 every limb and every nerve of Biktorikos (Victoricus), 
 whom Earth, the Mother of every living soul, brought 
 forth, the Charioteer of the Blues, and his horses which 
 
 * C.I.L. 12504. 
 t C.I.L. 12510. X Ibid., 12508. 
 § Ibid., 12508. [I Ibid., 1 251 1. 
 
 115
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 he is about to drive, belonging to Secondinas, loubenis 
 (Jiivenis) and Atbokatos (Advocatus), and Boubalos 
 and Lauriatos, and those of Biktorikos, Pompeianos 
 and Baianos and Biktor (Victor) and Eximios, and 
 those of the Messahans, Dominator, and as many as 
 shall be yoked with them. Bind fast their legs that 
 they may not be able to start or to bound or to run. 
 Blind their eyes that they may not see. Rack their 
 hearts and their souls that they may not breathe. 
 As this cock is bound by its feet and hands and head, 
 so bind fast the legs and hands and head and heart 
 of Biktorikos, Charioteer of the Blues, to-morrow, 
 and his horses which he is about to drive, belonging 
 to Secondinas, loubenis and Atbokatos and Boubalos 
 and Lauriatos, and those of Biktorikos, Pompeianos 
 and Baianos and Biktor and Eximios, and those of 
 the Messalians, Dominator, and as many as may be 
 yoked with them. 
 
 " Again I adjure Thee by the God of Heaven above 
 Who sitteth upon the Cherubim, Who divided the 
 Earth and severed the Sea, lao, Abrico, Arbathiao, 
 Sabao, Adonai,* to bind fast Biktorikos, Charioteer 
 of the Blues, and the horses which he is about to 
 drive .... to-morrow in the Circus. Now, Now, 
 Quickly, Quickly." 
 
 In size these enormous structures differed greatly ; 
 the Circus Maximus at Rome, after its final enlarge- 
 ment by Trajan, would hold nearly half a million 
 spectators ; that at Carthage would accommodate 
 about half that number ; that of Maxentius, on the 
 Appian Way,f about seventeen or eighteen thousand. 
 In plan, however, they were all alike. That at 
 Carthage, which concerns us most, may be taken as 
 a type of them all. 
 
 It was a vast enclosure, seven hundred and forty 
 
 * These names are in Greek ; the rest is in Latin, 
 t The most perfect existing example. 
 
 ii6
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 yards long, and three hundred and thirty broad — 
 about the same length, that is, as the Circus Maximus, 
 but only half the breadth. One end was semicircular, 
 the other straight. Round three sides ran the tiers 
 of seats, rising from the ground, like those of an 
 amphitheatre, to a height of three storeys. In the 
 middle of the semicircle was a gate, known as 
 Libitina, an euphemism for Death, for it was a sort 
 of " emergency exit " by which those who were killed 
 or injured in turning the goal* could be carried out ; 
 for no amusement pleased the Romans which did 
 not at least contemplate such accidents as these. 
 
 The other end was the starting-point. It was 
 straight, but, instead of being set at right angles to 
 the sides, inclined to the right, so that all the chariots, 
 whatever their position, might reach the spina, round 
 which the course ran, at the same moment. In the 
 middle of this side was the grand entrance, flanked 
 on each side by six stalls, or carceres, from which 
 the chariots started. At either end was a tall tower 
 called the Oppidnm. Down the middle of the course, 
 not parallel with the sides, but at right angles with 
 the carceres, ran the spina, a barrier three hundred and 
 thirty yards long, splendidly decorated with piUars, 
 statues, altars, and, at Rome, obelisks. At the two 
 ends of the spina stood the goals or metcB, the turning- 
 points for the chariots ; on these were placed marble 
 dolphins and eggs, seven of each, corresponding in 
 number with the laps of the race, one being removed 
 as each lap was completed ; the dolphins probably 
 represented the sea-horses of Neptune, f who was 
 commonly represented in a chariot, while the eggs 
 recalled the legend of Leda and the Swan — Leda, 
 the mother of the great twin-brethren, " Castor, 
 
 * In the imprecation on Dionysius (C.I.L. 12508), there is a 
 special prayer that he may be thrown out " at the turnings." 
 
 t Or, more exactly, Consus, the Neptunus equesiris (Livy, i. 9), 
 whose altar stood on the spina. 
 
 117
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 swift with the car," and Pollux, who watered their 
 horses at the Lake of Jutuma in the Forum, after 
 the battle of Lake Regillus, and who now stand by 
 the side of their fiery steeds in the Piazza del Quiri- 
 nale on the Monte Cavallo at Rome. 
 
 Of all this splendour nothing remains now save 
 a few heaps of earth and some broken stones. At 
 Dougga the line of the spina can still be traced ; else- 
 where there is little but a name, and perhaps an 
 inscription, to tell of what once has been. 
 
 The Amphitheatre 
 
 More dear to the Greeks even than the hippodrome 
 was the stadium for foot-races and other contests, 
 in which the choicest of the Hellenic youth competed. 
 From the games held at Olympia the years were dated, 
 as from the consuls at Rome ; to win the parsley 
 crown of victory was a deed worthy to be immor- 
 talised in an ode by Pindar or to be used as a metaphor 
 by St. Paul. But for such harmless sport, save for 
 their own private exercise and amusement, the Romans 
 had little liking. The so-called stadium on the Pala- 
 tine was probably a garden ; at any rate, it was private, 
 and there is no trace of a stadium, public or private, 
 in North Africa. In place of such we find the purely 
 Roman amphitheatre, more popular even than the 
 circus, if we may judge from the number, size, and 
 magnificence of the buildings. In Africa all that 
 was necessary for the shows was easy to obtain ; 
 elephants, lions, and other wild beasts abounded in 
 the forests and on the mountains, gladiators were not 
 dear, and slaves and Christians were always at hand. 
 Happily the nature of these sports and of the places 
 dedicated to them is so familiar that no detailed 
 description of either is necessary ; especially as, in 
 North Africa, there have as yet been found no im- 
 
 ii8
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 portant mosaics representing them, like that of the 
 gladiators in the Lateran Museum ; or statues such 
 as that of the Boxer in the Thermae of Diocletian. 
 
 In the absence of mosaics, the following may be 
 quoted as interesting. The comic element at the 
 games was supplied by a buffoon, who, dressed as 
 Mercury, went round with a red-hot iron to make 
 sure that the gladiator, or martyr, as the case might 
 be, was really dead. Tertullian, in his Apology* 
 refers to this custom, " Risimus et inter litdicras nieri- 
 dionarum crudelitates Mercurium morluos canterio ex- 
 aminantem." A representation of this has been found 
 on one of the tabula execrationis discovered in the 
 Amphitheatre at Carthage. It portrays a monstrous 
 beast, and a man disguised as Mercury ; his knee is 
 on a gladiator lying prostrate on the ground, whom 
 he is piercing with a weapon like a chisel or dagger — 
 no doubt the hot iron used to certify the death. 
 
 Amongst the largest and by far the most perfect 
 amphitheatre in North Africa is that at El Djem, the 
 ancient Thysdrus, approaching the Colosseum itself 
 in both size and completeness. The first sight of 
 it is strangely impressive. The road from Sousse 
 (Hadrumetum) to Sfax (Taparura) climbs slowly up 
 a long hill ; as it reaches the summit, a vast, desolate 
 tract of treeless desert comes in sight. The land is 
 either bare or covered with scrub, save where, here 
 and there, a patch of green tells that it is yielding a 
 scanty return for the ineffectual scratching of an 
 Arab plough. In the distance are a few olives, lately 
 planted by the French, and in the centre of this 
 desolation, closing, at a distance of some six miles, 
 the dreary vista of a long straight stretch of road, 
 there rises out of the wilderness the enormous bulk 
 of the amphitheatre. It is like the lonely Church 
 of ApolHnaris, which marks, like a huge gravestone, 
 
 119
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the place where rests the vanished city of Classis. 
 What has become of the mighty city, of the teeming 
 population, which required so prodigious a play- 
 ground ? In the third century of our era, to 
 which the building belongs, Thysdrus, with a popu- 
 lation of one hundred thousand, was one of the 
 most important cities of Roman North Africa. It 
 was here that in ad. 238 the pro-consul Gordian 
 was proclaimed Emperor ; according to tradition, 
 the Berber heroine, the Kahenah, made this her 
 fortress in her long fight for liberty against the Arab 
 invaders. Now all is gone. As we passed through 
 the squalid Arab village which nestles under the wing 
 of the rugged walls of the amphitheatre, some navvies 
 who were making a new railroad had just discovered 
 the beautiful mosaic floor of an old Roman house ; 
 they offered it to our party if we could remove it. This 
 was, of course, impossible, and it was destroyed. 
 So late as the close of the seventeenth century the 
 amphitheatre was almost intact. Then the natives 
 rebelled, refused to pay taxes, and shutting them- 
 selves up, like the Frangipani at Rome, in their for- 
 tress, stood a regular siege from the troops of the Bey 
 of Tunis. Victorious in the end, the Bey destroyed a 
 large section of the building to prevent such another 
 happening. 
 
 But though now by far the most perfect, the 
 amphitheatre at El Djem was not the only one worthy 
 to be compared with the Colosseum. That at Carthage 
 approached it in size, and was, moreover, five storeys 
 in height instead of three. Fifteen miles south of 
 Tunis, at Oudna (Uthina), was another, hollowed out 
 of the hill. Utica possessed another, larger still, 
 but, like that at Oudna, hollowed out of a hill. 
 Others are found at Henchir Fradiz (Aphrodisium), 
 Ras Dinas (Thapsus), Oued Maliz (Simithu), Bulla 
 Regia, Sbeitla (Sufetula), Lambessa (Lambaesis), 
 120
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 Lamta (Leptis Parva), Thyna (Thoena), Constantine 
 (Cirta), and, in the far west, Cherchel (Caesarea). 
 Doubtless there were others, but even this number 
 is remarkable when we consider the vast bulk of such 
 buildings, and bears witness to the terrible fascination 
 of the games. 
 
 What this fascination was, Augustine tells us in 
 his Confessions. A pupil and friend of his, Alypius, 
 had gone to Rome to study law. One day some friends 
 coming home from dinner met him and dragged him, 
 against his will, to the Colosseum. At first he kept 
 his eyes shut. "Would God," says the writer, "he 
 had stopped his ears also ! For in the fight, when 
 one fell, a mighty cry of the people striking him 
 strongly, overcome by curiosity, he opened his eyes 
 . . . and fell more miserably than he upon whose 
 fall that mighty noise was raised . . . For so soon 
 as he saw the blood he therewith drunk down savage- 
 ness, nor turned away, but fixed his eye, drinking in 
 frenzy unawares, and was delighted with that guilty 
 fight, and intoxicated with the bloody pastime. Nor 
 was he now the man he came ; but one of the throng 
 he came with . . . \^'hy say more ? He beheld, 
 kindled, shouted, carried with him thence the madness 
 which should goad him to return not only with them 
 who first drew him thither, but also before them, 
 and to draw on others." 
 
 In A.D. 177 Marcus Aurelius promulgated two 
 rescripts against the Christians. On July 17th, A.D. 
 180, some poor peasants who had been arrested 
 as Christians in the village of Scillium, were brought 
 before the Proconsul, Vigellius Saturninus, at Car- 
 thage. They were twelve in number — seven men 
 and five women ; but the names of only six are re- 
 corded. The whole story shows that the task was 
 distasteful to the judge, and that he tried to get such 
 a retractation from the prisoners as might enable 
 
 121
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 him to dismiss the case. " We," he says to one of 
 them, " are rehgious men, hke you, and our rehgion 
 is very simple ; we swear by the genius of our Lord 
 the Emperor, and pray for his safety, and you ought 
 to do the same." Unable to win the submission he 
 required, he offered them thirty days' grace in which 
 to consider the matter. This they at once refused. 
 At last he was compelled to pass sentence : " Speratus 
 Nartzalus, Cittinus, Vestia, Donata, Secunda, and 
 the others have confessed that they are Christians. 
 They have been invited to return to the religion 
 of Rome, and they have obstinately refused. Our 
 sentence is that they die by the sword." " Thanks 
 be to God," they all exclaimed. " And so," runs 
 the record, " they together received the crown of 
 martyrdom ; and now they reign with the Father 
 and the Son and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever, 
 Amen." 
 
 It is supposed that the basilica which was raised 
 over their place of burial stood on the little knoll 
 now called Koudiat TsalH (The Hill of Prayer) near 
 the amphitheatre, l^heir bones, according to Pere 
 Delattre,* have recently been discovered in the Church 
 of SS. Giovanni e Paolo on the Coehan, in Rome. 
 
 In A.D. 202 an edict of the new Emperor, Septimius 
 Severus, gave a fresh impulse to the persecution. We 
 hear of Jucundus, Artaxius, Saturninus being " burnt 
 alive," of Quintus who died in prison, of Emilius and 
 Castus, a girl Guddena, and Mavilus of Hadrumetum 
 (Sousse). To this time belongs the martyrdom of 
 Felicitas and Perpetua, who are to day honoured 
 as the patron saints of Carthage. 
 
 Towards the end of the year A.D. 202 five persons 
 were arrested at Thuburbo Minus (Tebourba) and 
 brought to Carthage, on a charge, not of being Chris- 
 tians, but of proselytising. Three were men — Satur- 
 
 ♦ Ritines de Carthage, p. 10. 
 122
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 ninus, Secundulus, and a slave Rebocatus (Revocatus). 
 Two were women — a lady of rank, Vibia (Fabia) 
 Perpetua, and a slave girl Felicitas. It is probable, 
 if not certain, that Perpetua, and perhaps the others, 
 were Montanists. Another, Saturus, followed them 
 to Carthage and gave himself up. The Proconsul, 
 Minucius Timinianus, had just died, and the case came 
 before the interim governor, Hilarianus. The career 
 castrcnsis where Perpetua was confined is still shown 
 near the modern buildings of St. Monnica. The 
 prisoners were tried and condemned in the Pro- 
 consular Palace in Byrsa, and on the day before 
 their martyrdom they were taken to the amphi- 
 theatre. There they together shared their last meal, 
 the CcBna Libera, to which spectators were admitted. 
 " Look at us well," cried Saturus, turning fiercely on 
 the gaping crowd, " look at us well, that you may 
 be able to recognise us at the Day of Judgment." 
 
 The account of their martyrdom is so simple and 
 natural that it may be accepted as true, possibly 
 even as the report of an actual eye-witness. 
 
 Before the games they were stripped of their clothes, 
 sacrificial fillets were bound on their heads, and they 
 were given the robes of priests of Hammon, or priest- 
 esses of Tanith. These they refused, so they 
 remained naked. The men were exposed first to 
 the attack of a leopard, then of a bear. For the 
 women, as an insult to their sex, a wild cow was pro- 
 vided. They had both recently had children, and 
 the sight of the milk running down from the breasts 
 of Felicitas touched, for a moment, the hearts of 
 the multitudes. In obedience to the shouts which 
 arose, they were led back and their own clothes were 
 restored to them. Perpetua returned first ; she was 
 tossed by the cow and fell upon her back. Her dress 
 was torn, and, as she lay on the ground, she drew it 
 over her limbs again and tried to fasten up her hair, 
 
 123
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 which had come down. She then raised herself, and 
 seeing FeUcitas lying, stunned and bruised, she dragged 
 herself towards her and tried to lift her up. The people 
 were again touched with pity, and cried out that their 
 lives should be spared, and they were led out by the gate 
 called Sanavivaria. It s a curious touch, as showing 
 the spiritual exaltation of the martyr, that the first 
 words of Perpetua were a question, when the martyrdom 
 would begin. Later in the day the mob changed 
 their minds, and demanded that they should be 
 brought back to suffer. After giving one another 
 the kiss of peace, they awaited the sword in silence. 
 Saturus suffered first : Perpetua last. The executioner 
 was a novice ; the first blow failed, and she uttered a 
 cry. Then, seeing that the man was overcome and 
 trembling, she took the dagger in her hand and herself 
 placed it at her throat. 
 
 In the arena, a cross has been raised to their honour, 
 and a large vault, possibly the one in which they were 
 placed before the martyrdom, dressed as a chapel. Be- 
 tween St. Monnica and La Marsa, a very ancient 
 memoria martynun has been discovered ; it runs as 
 follows : — 
 
 NT MARTY 
 
 SATURUS SATUR . . 
 
 REBOCATUS 
 
 FELICIT . . . PER . 
 
 In the Museum at Carthage is a sepulchral slab, 
 said to be that of Perpetua. The inscription runs : — 
 
 PERPETUE FILIE 
 DULCISSIM^. 
 
 If this be true, it would show that she was recon- 
 ciled to her family, who remained pagan ; but the 
 name was not uncommon, and the attribution is more 
 than doubtful. 
 
 124
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 At Dougga a very interesting memorial has been 
 found of certain martyrs of whom we know neither 
 the names nor the date. Near the roadside on the 
 slope of the hill which is crowned with the Temple 
 of Saturn are the ruins of a Christian church, built 
 of stones from the temple. Close by, and certainly 
 connected with the church, fragments of an inscrip- 
 tion have been discovered, imperfect, indeed, but the 
 meaning of Vvhich is clear. It is addressed to " The 
 Holy and most Blessed Martyrs," and speaks of four 
 cubiciila or crypts which Mammarius, Granius, and 
 Epideforus had built at their own expense for funeral 
 feasts, symposia or convivia. In Etruscan times these 
 chambers and feasts were common ; a very remarkable 
 example of such a chamber is found in the tomb of 
 the Velimni at Perugia. But, in the Christian ChuTch, 
 this seems to be a solitary example.* 
 
 The inscription is as follows :-- 
 
 SANCTI ET BEATISSIMI MARTURES PETIJVIUS IN MENTE 
 HABEATIS UT DONENTUR VOBIS .... SIMPOSIUM MAMMARIUM 
 CRANIUM EPIDEFORUM QUI H^C CUBICULA QUATTUOR AD 
 
 CONVIVIA PRO MARTURIBUS SUIS SUMPTIBUS ET SUIS OPERIBUS 
 
 FECERUNT. 
 
 The Theatre 
 
 An amphitheatre or circus was a luxury, a theatre 
 was almost a necessity of every self-respecting town. 
 Hollowed, whenever possible, out of the summit or 
 flank of a hill, we find their remains not only in great 
 cities such as Carthage or Sufetula (Sbeitla) or Hadru- 
 metum (Sousse), but in little frontier fortresses like 
 Timgad or Tebessa, and country towns such as Dougga. 
 
 For four hundred years the theatre maintained its 
 popularity, but it did so only because it was content 
 
 * Convivia held in honour of martyrs, at their graves, are 
 mentioned by Theodoret (a.d. 429) ; and Augustine complains of 
 excessive drinking at these feasts. Vide Egypt and Israel, p. 133. 
 
 125
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 to follow rather than to form popular taste ; and 
 popular taste, at any rate among the Romans, fell 
 very low. 
 
 In truth, the Romans never took kindly to the 
 Greek drama, whether tragic or comic. The solemnity 
 of the themes chosen, the restrained majesty of the 
 poetry, the elaborate and balanced melody of the 
 choruses, all this required an elevation of mental 
 training and a sensitiveness of ear of which a Roman 
 audience was as incapable as an English one would 
 be to day ; and so Tragedy became Drama and Drama 
 Melodrama. In the days of the Republic, while 
 " Matron " was still 
 
 " Magnum et venerabile nomen, 
 Gentibus, et nostrae multum quod profuit urbi," 
 
 dramatists kept their hands off the subject ; but under 
 the Empire, when women counted the years by their 
 divorces instead of by the Consuls, problem plays 
 became the rage. 
 
 The decay of Comedy was even more rapid and 
 complete ; the fall from Comedy to Farce, from Farce 
 to Burlesque, and from Burlesque to mere buffoonery 
 was unbroken, until at last the legitimate Drama 
 became little better than a variety entertainment. 
 " There," says Apuleius,* " the Mimic plays the fool, 
 the Comedian chatters, the Tragedian rants, the 
 Pantomimist (actor in dumb show) gesticulates, the 
 Acrobat risks his neck, and the Conjurer does his 
 tricks." By degrees the old Drama, in which many 
 characters had their balanced parts, was broken up 
 into monologues ; sometimes the choirs occupied the 
 orchestra and accompanied the actor as he declaimed, 
 " through music " ; sometimes the choir played and 
 sang while the actor did his part in dumb show. Then 
 there was the Mimic who imitated common actions 
 and vulgar people ; or the rough-and-tumble work of 
 
 * Flor. 1-5. 
 126
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 the Clown, with the Pantaloon, stupidus gregis, who 
 took all the kicks and buffetings ; or the comic busi- 
 ness, like the harlequinade of old-fashioned pantomine, 
 between the thief [Laureolus] and the policeman. Here 
 there came a touch of tragedy, for since Roman pro- 
 priety required that the law should triumph in the 
 end, it was necessary that eventually the poor knave 
 should be caught and crucified. Under Domitian this 
 sentence was actually carried out on the stage, to the 
 great content of the audience, who, then as now, loved 
 realism.* 
 
 Lastly, the performance ended with a general tombola 
 or scramble, in which the weaker were thrown down, 
 trampled on, suffocated, and sometimes killed. Fruit, 
 sweetmeats, cakes, money, coins, and medals, with 
 filthy devices, struck for the purpose, were showered 
 upon the rows of seats. At last it was found necessary 
 to give lottery tickets {tesserce) to the respectable folk, 
 and let them leave before the horse-play began. 
 
 As last signs of decadence, encores were allowed, 
 and a claque, laudiccni, employed. 
 
 To turn from the performances to the buildings is 
 like coming out of darkness into light ; it is difficult 
 to imagine anything more beautiful and gracious than 
 some of the African theatres. 
 
 It is sometimes said that whereas the Greeks placed 
 their theatres high up, amid beautiful scenery, as at 
 Taormina, or Syracuse, or Segestus, the Romans were 
 indifferent about the surroundings. Certainly this is 
 true of the two principal theatres of Rome, those of 
 Pompey and Marcellus, as it is of some in Africa, such 
 as those at Bulla Regia, Colonia Juha Assuras (Zam- 
 four), or Althiburos (Medeina), and always for the same 
 reason that they had to be erected on level ground ; 
 but whenever possible, as at Thamugadi, or Carthage, 
 or Thugga, they were hollowed out of the summit, or, 
 
 * L'Afriqtte Romaine, p. 259. 
 
 127
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 at any rate, the flank of a hill, and commanded a view 
 hardly inferior to the famous panoramas from the 
 theatres of Sicily. Since, except in detail, they very 
 closely resemble one another, let us take as an example 
 that at Dougga, as being the most perfect as well as 
 the most beautiful both in structure and in situation. 
 
 As is the case with all Latin theatres, and it is one 
 of the points which distinguish them from the Greek, 
 the auditorium, or cavea, is a perfect semicircle, the 
 diameter in this case being seventy yards and the 
 radius thirty five. The orchestra, or pit, is surrounded 
 by five steps, on which were placed seats for magis- 
 trates and persons of importance. Access to this part 
 of the theatre, which was separated by a wall from 
 the rest, was given by two arched entrances or 
 vomitoria, one on each side. Over that to the right, 
 as you face the audience, was the royal box, or 
 pulvinar, which was occupied usually by the man who 
 bore the expense of the spectacle. The rest of the 
 cavea, which was hollowed out of the hill, was formed 
 of twenty five rows of seats. These were divided into 
 three classes, one above the other, by walls and pas- 
 sages ; access was given by a grand staircase down 
 the middle and four other staircases which divided 
 the seats into six ciinei or wedges. Round the top 
 ran a handsome pillared portico or arcade. The 
 portico, which had five doors, one opposite each stair- 
 case, bore, as usual, a great inscription. This informs 
 us, with much detail, that Publius Marcius Quadratus, 
 on the occasion of his elevation to the post of Perpetual 
 Flamen of the divine Augustus, by the Emperor An- 
 toninus, presented the entire theatre to his country ; 
 that he also gave in it scenic representations, a dis- 
 tribution of food, a feast, and a show of gymnastics. 
 
 Let us now turn to the stage. 
 
 In front of the stage, or scena, beyond the passage 
 between the two vomitoria, stood the pulpitmn ; this 
 
 128
 
 LIFE IN THE TOWN 
 
 was a wall about three feet high, in which were a 
 series of seven recesses, alternately square and semi- 
 circular ; in the middle recess, which was semicircular, 
 stood the altar, which in a Greek theatre would have 
 stood in the centre of the orchestra ; it reminds us 
 that, even in its worst days, the performance never 
 altogether lost its religious character, and for this 
 reason men had to attend in full dress, that is, wearing 
 the toga. Tertullian created such a scandal at Carthage 
 by breaking this rule and going in his pallium only, 
 that he was obliged to publish an elaborate explanation 
 and apology. In the last recess at each end was a 
 staircase, by which, if necessary, the choir or per- 
 formers could reach the orchestra. 
 
 Behind this was the curtain, the auleimi. As a 
 rule, this was like our drop scene, of a single piece, but 
 it worked on a roller which lay below the stage, so that 
 it was dropped at the beginning, and raised at the 
 end of the performance. On the bottom of it were 
 painted or worked figures of Britons, so that as it 
 rose it seemed as if they were raising it — 
 
 " Purpurea intexti tollunt aulea Britanni." * 
 
 On the stage of the theatre of Timgad there are still 
 sixteen holes for the supports on which the roller 
 rested. 
 
 The arrangement at Dougga was somewhat different, 
 in that a series of small curtains took the place of one 
 large one ; but it has been found necessary to rebuild 
 the front of the stage, and the method of working the 
 curtains is not clear. 
 
 The stage itself, which is about seventeen feet 
 deep, was covered with mosaic, except in the middle, 
 where there were four trap-doors, for the sudden 
 appearance of gods or ghosts, " ' Mater te appdlo ' 
 dictitantes," f and other similar stage business. 
 
 * Verg., ^n. i. 282. f Cic, Pro Cluentio. 
 
 I 129
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 All this is not very unlike a modern theatre, and 
 has been imitated with success at Bayreuth. The 
 great difference is in the solid wall which took the 
 place of our movable scenery, at the back of the stage. 
 This was as high as the gallery which ran round the 
 top of the cavea, and must have been of two, if not 
 three, storeys, of great splendour and beauty. 
 
 Across the stage, from side to side, ran a low wall 
 about four feet high, on which rested an arcade of 
 thirty-two pillars. The wall was not straight, but, 
 like the pulpitum, followed the line almost universally 
 adopted by the Imperial architects, and was bent into 
 a semicircular apse in the centre, flanked by a square 
 recess on either side. In the centre of each of these 
 was a staircase, rising from the stage in front, and 
 dropping to the green room, or part reserved for 
 the actors, behind. By the side of each of these 
 flights of steps were four pillars, rising to the height 
 of the others, but resting on the stage. The arcade 
 of pillars undoubtedly carried a cornice ; how these 
 large pillars were crowned is uncertain : perhaps they 
 carried statues. The upper storey or storeys of the 
 scena have perished. 
 
 Such is the theatre of Dougga ; but the whole place 
 is so interesting, and is so good an example of a pros- 
 perous Roman country town, as to deserve a somewhat 
 more detailed notice than can be given by a description 
 of the separate buildings. 
 
 130
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A COUNTRY TOWN 
 
 The journey from Tunis to Dougga is rather wearisome. 
 For the first forty miles the train takes us along the 
 banks of the Medjerba to Medjez-el-Bab, the Roman 
 Membressa, It was on the plain, south-east of Mem- 
 bressa, that in a.d. 536, Belisarius defeated the 
 mutineers under his former lieutenant Stotzas. Of 
 the gateway which gave the place its modern name, 
 " The Gate of the Ford," nothing remains. In fact, 
 with the exception of a few capitals, and the stones of 
 which the modern bridge has been constructed, nothing 
 remains of the old Roman settlement. The Arab 
 village was founded in the fifteenth century by the 
 Moors who had been driven from Andalucia. The rest 
 of the journey, lasting six to seven hours, has to be made 
 in a covered cart, called by courtesy a diligence. 
 
 The road runs along the lower slopes of the Djebel 
 Djebs, between which and the Djebel Krab the Med- 
 jerba flows, through Slouguia (Chiddibia) to Testour 
 (Tichilla). Both these villages were also founded by 
 the Moors from Spain. The open spaces, the wide 
 straight streets, the tiled houses with pent houses in 
 front — above all, the white complexion of the Andlas, 
 as the inhabitants are called, give the villages a strangely 
 European appearance. 
 
 Another five miles and we reach Ain Tounga, which 
 once bore the sonorous name of Municipium Septiniium 
 Anreliiun Antoninianiim Herculeimi frugifcrum Thig- 
 nicce. The ruins are very extensive and interesting ; 
 
 131
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 they include temples to Mercury, Saturn, Coelestis, and 
 an unknown deity ; the remains of cisterns, a triumphal 
 arch, a church, and a huge Byzantine fortress. 
 
 Leaving the Siliana, which we have followed for 
 some miles, we follow the Oued Khalled through Sustri 
 (Civitas Sustritana) and Ain Golea to Teboursouk 
 (Thubursicum Bure). Here we stay for the night. 
 
 Teboursouk was at one time a town of some im- 
 portance, but little of the old Roman colony remains, 
 except two triumphal arches, which have been built 
 up in the walls of the vast and very interesting Byzan- 
 tine fortress, and part of the old city wall. It is 
 built high up against the rocky hill of Sidi Rahma, 
 A deep ravine protects it in front. 
 
 From Teboursouk a drive of about six miles brings 
 us to Dougga. The road climbs higher and higher 
 along the flank of a great amphitheatre of hills, the 
 Kef Teboursouk and the Kef Dougga, to a lofty cape, 
 pushing out into the plain, on the farther slope of 
 which the ruined city lies. Climbing up the precipitous 
 side of the hill to the plateau which crowns it, we find 
 ourselves among the scattered dolmens of some forgotten 
 race. They much resemble those at Roknia, but are 
 less numerous, less perfect, and therefore less interest- 
 ing. Beyond them lies the spina of the circus. It was 
 two hundred yards long, but, except the metcB at the 
 ends, little now remains. To the left of it lay a 
 temple ; then a group of cisterns fed by a little aque- 
 duct, and then the great Byzantine enceinte which 
 ran from the edge of the precipice to the capitol, which 
 crowned the other slope of the hill. 
 
 Scrambling over the Byzantine wall, we find our- 
 selves in the Temple of Saturn, and at our feet, low 
 down by the side of the road, lies an interesting 
 Christian basilica, built with the stones of the old 
 temple. It must have been a pretty little building 
 of the usual type, a nave with aisles and arcades of 
 132
 
 A COUNTRY TOWN 
 
 pillars, and a semicircular apse at the east end ; two 
 flights of steps led up to the preshytcriuin, and two 
 others down to the very perfect crypt below. Several 
 sarcophagi have been found in situ ; on one we can 
 still read the name : 
 
 VICTORIA SANTIMONIALE IN PACE. 
 
 Two annexes lie to the north and to the south. Close 
 by was found the inscription to the " Holy and Happy 
 Martyrs," printed elsewhere.* 
 
 A few steps from the Temple of Saturn bring us 
 to the great central entrance to the arcade, which 
 encircled the topmost row of seats in the theatre. \\q 
 pass on, and pause for a moment to look at one of 
 the most beautiful scenes that North Africa has to show. 
 
 The morning had been wet, and, though the sun 
 had broken through and was shining brightly, heavy 
 masses of cloud still floated across the sky and threw 
 dark patches of purple shadow over hill and valley 
 before us. To the left stretched the long fertile 
 valley of the Oued Khalled, through which ran the 
 road from Carthage, through Sicca Veneria (Kef) 
 to Theveste (Tebessa). It was along this road that 
 Matho and Spendius led the mutinous mercenaries, 
 and it was here that they found the multitude of 
 crosses bearing crucified lions. Somewhere near lay 
 Zama. Under Roman cultivation it must have been 
 a tract of immense fertility, as indeed is shown by the 
 incredible number of Roman towns, villas, and stations 
 which lay in all directions. Even now the fields of wheat 
 and barley, the vineyards, and above all the great olive 
 gardens, show that its richness is returning. On the other 
 side the wide open valley is shut in by the heights of 
 the Djebel Abdullah Cherid. Higher still, in the far 
 blue distance, start up the wild crags of Zaghouan. 
 
 Close in front, and to our right, lay the wonderful ruins 
 
 * Vide p. 125. 
 
 133
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 of the wealthy Roman town, Colonia Licinia Septimia 
 Aurelia Alexandrina Thugga. It took its name from the 
 Libyan village of " Tucca," " The Pastures." 
 
 Immediately below us, just outside the theatre, 
 lay the squalid little Arab village of Dougga, which 
 unfortunately occupies much of the site of the old 
 town. In a sheltered spot close by, an Arab sheik, 
 in gorgeous apparel, was exercising his horse, in 
 readiness for the Fantasia which was to be held at 
 Tunis on the following Sunday, in the presence of the 
 Bey and of the French authorities. The horse 
 was richly caparisoned. The head-piece, blinkers, 
 and reins, and the high saddle, rising almost to the 
 shoulders of the rider, were of red leather, worked 
 in gold. The feet rested in broad, square stirrups, 
 the sharp corners of which acted as spurs. But in 
 addition to these, the rider wore murderous-looking 
 prick-spurs, nearly a foot long, with which he could 
 stab his unfortunate horse in the very tenderest 
 places, and make it prance and rear, not from spirit, 
 but from sheer agony. In a corner against a wall 
 squatted a musician, to the sound of whose pipes 
 the horseman was trying to make his horse keep 
 time. All round stood or crouched a group of natives, 
 watching his evolutions with the languid curiosity 
 which is all they ever vouchsafe to show. 
 
 To the right of the theatre lies the Forum, con- 
 sisting, not of a single court as at Timgad, but of a 
 series of small spaces, esplanades, and staircases, in 
 the centre of which stands the Capitol. We follow 
 an old road, only partly excavated. To our left as 
 we enter the Forum is a little semicircular shrine 
 dedicated to Pietas Augusta. Close by are the 
 foundations, now overgrown with shrubs, of a rect- 
 angular building, probably a Temple of Fortune, ac- 
 cording to an inscription found close by : " Fortunae, 
 AvG Veneri Concordle Mercvrio." 
 
 134
 
 A COUNTRY TOWN 
 
 Thus we reach the upper court of the Forum, 
 called the Place of the Rose of the Winds. In front 
 rises the wonderful Capitol : to the right lies the 
 Temple of Mercury. The sanctuary consisted of 
 three cells, preceded by a portico of ten pillars carrying 
 a long inscription, telhng us how Quintus Pacuvius 
 Saturus, his wife Nahania Victoria, and their son Fehx 
 Victorianus built this Temple to Mercury. Another text 
 shows that it was built between the years a.d. 160-220. 
 
 On the pavement of the Forum, in front of the 
 temple, is cut a curious chart or compass of the winds, 
 from which the place takes its name. It is a large 
 circle, divided into twenty-four segments. In every 
 other one of these is carved the name of the wind 
 which blew from that quarter. Here are the names : 
 Septentrio (N.). Aqvilo. Evroaqvilo. Vvltvrnvs 
 (E.). EvRvs. Levconotvs. Avster (S.). Libonotvs. 
 Africvs. Favonivs (W.). Argestes. Circivs. 
 
 Beyond the Forum stands high against the sky 
 the beautiful portico of the Capitol. Then past the 
 Arch of Severus, known as the Roman Gate, Bab 
 er Roumia, and beyond another cluster of cisterns 
 fed by an aqueduct, fed with the waters of the Ain-el- 
 Hamman, we catch a glimpse through its sheltering 
 olives of the lovely Temple of Ccelestis. 
 
 A little below the Forum rises the striking gateway of 
 the Dar-el-Acheb, or House of Ahab, as it is called from 
 the name of its owner. Its former purpose is unknown. 
 
 Immediately in front of us, the ground drops so 
 abruptly that it reaches to the second storey at the 
 back, of houses which open on the roadway in front. 
 The beautiful mosaic floors of many of these remain 
 in situ. Others are at Tunis. Amongst these is that 
 of the charioteer " Eros " * and a very large one of 
 three colossal Cyclopes working in the cavern-forge of 
 Vulcan. The mosaic is much injured, but the Cyclopes 
 
 * Vide p. III. 
 
 135
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 are almost perfect. They are wielding sledge-hammers. 
 The hammer of one has just struck the anvil. The 
 second holds his high over his head poised in the very act 
 of bringing it down. The third is leaning backwards 
 with his hammer thrown behind him, gathering his 
 full strength for the stroke. The rhythmical swing of 
 the three hammers is admirable ; while, for the freedom 
 and vigour of its figure-drawing, this wonderful mosaic 
 deserves to rank with a fresco of Michael Angelo. 
 
 Perhaps the most beautiful of these houses is that 
 which is called, from the shape of one of its rooms, 
 " The Trefoil." The house consists of a court planted 
 with trees and shrubs, and surrounded by a portico 
 formed of columns covered v/ith stucco, on which 
 rested a wooden ceiling. The floor is covered with a 
 rich pavement of mosaics, representing two masques, 
 tragic and comic, a pigeon, and leafy vine branches 
 encircling a horse. The house is approached from 
 behind by a beautiful staircase with landings enriched 
 with mosaics. 
 
 To our right as we descend the hill lie the great 
 public thermae, supplied with water by cisterns which 
 are themselves fed by an aqueduct. To our left are 
 the imposing ruins of another arch to Septimius 
 Severus. 
 
 Passing on, through an olive garden in which are 
 the remains of some huge dolmen tombs, formed of 
 dressed stones, and of a much later date than those 
 near the Temple of Saturn, we see the imposing mass 
 of the great Libico-Punic mausoleum of Ataban, about 
 which so much has been said.* Surrounded by olives 
 of immemorial age, it looks out calmly over the green 
 valley and on the great road, first made when itself 
 was old, along which so many civilisations have 
 stormed and passed away, leaving the old Berber stock 
 almost where and as they found it. 
 
 * Vide p. 2 1 . 
 136
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 LACHRYM^ ECCLESIiE, A.D. I50-39I. 
 
 The beginnings of Christianity in North Africa are 
 lost beyond the reach, not merely of history, but even 
 of tradition or legend. All we can say is that, when 
 light first breaks in, late in the second century, we 
 find a vigorous and active Church, widely spread 
 and fully organised, with bishops in all the important 
 towns. Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage, summoned* 
 a synod of seventy. In general character it resembled 
 the Eastern churches, such as those of Asia Minor, 
 more than the Church of Rome, especially in the 
 position assigned to the bishops, which was, at any 
 rate after the time of Cyprian, essentially autocratic 
 and monarchic, rather than constitutional, as it has 
 always been at Rome ; no body of priests, for instance, 
 ever claimed or gained the position occupied at the 
 Imperial city by the College of Cardinals. It treated 
 with Rome as a sister Church ; sometimes submitting 
 to it its difficulties for solution, sometimes itself called 
 in to give its decision in some difficult case. Thus 
 in the time of Cyprian, a.d, 251, the claims of the 
 rival Popes, Novatianus and Cornelius, were referred 
 to him for adjudication. The Church was Eastern 
 too, in its fiery turbulence and restless activity, but 
 with the great difference that the questions which 
 divided it were not intellectual, but disciplinary. 
 
 The history of the Church gathers round three or 
 four outstanding men — the fiery apologist, Tertullian ; 
 
 * Cite. A.D. 215. 
 
 137
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the great Bishop, Cyprian ; the schismatic, Donatus ; 
 the learned theologian, Augustine. It will give 
 coherence as well as colour and interest to what 
 follows, to make it centre, so far as possible, in these 
 names. 
 
 Tertullian was born at Carthage about the year 
 A.D. 150, and died there about sixty years later ; 
 that is all we know. His father was a Proconsular 
 centurion ; he himself was brought up to be a lawyer. 
 He was converted to Christianity in the year a.d. 192, 
 and ordained deacon and priest ; in a.d, 199 he joined 
 the schism of Montanus, driven to it, he says, by 
 the envy and contumeliousness of the clergy. Such, 
 in bare outline, was his life. Its importance lies in 
 the period it covered, and in the writings which his 
 surroundings called forth. 
 
 The Golden Age of the Empire died with J\larcus 
 Aurelius in a.d. 180. The Age of Iron began with 
 his son Commodus, the Gladiator. Still, both he 
 and his successors, Pertinax and Didius Julianus, 
 in spite of the efforts made by the priestesses of 
 Ccelestis to influence Pertinax, were friendly, or at 
 least neutral, towards Christianity. With Septimius 
 Severus (a.d. 193-211) began the military despotism, 
 and with it a time of persecution. 
 
 Severus was a Berber, born at Leptis, and raised 
 to the purple by his army. Not unnaturally, he relied 
 upon the army which had placed him on the throne. 
 " Enrich the soldiers," he said ; " never mind the 
 others." His interest in North Africa, and her pride 
 in him, are writ large on the face of the country, in 
 the many triumphal arches erected in his honour, 
 at Tebessa, Lambessa, the two great camps on the 
 slopes of the Aures, at Haidra (Ammaedara), Dougga, 
 and elsewhere. During the civil war which occupied 
 the first years of his reign, he was busy about other 
 things, and the Church in Italy had peace ; but in 
 
 138
 
 LACHRYM^ ECCLESI^ 
 
 Africa there were intervals of sharp and cruel persecu- 
 tion. At last, with peace to the Empire, came times 
 of trouble to the Church ; in a.d. 198, when Vigellius 
 Saturninus was Proconsul, the sword was definitely 
 unsheathed. 
 
 The apology, or defence of Christianity, which 
 this called forth, is the best known and most famous 
 of all the writings of Tertullian, and this not merely 
 because of its impassioned eloquence and vigour and 
 dialectical skill. More remarkable than any of these 
 is the tone adopted and the absence of any " apology " 
 in the modern sense of the word. There is no plea 
 for mercy, but a demand for justice ; no cry for 
 pardon for hidden crime or disloyalty, but a claim 
 for praise and honour for conspicuous virtue. 
 Christians are the best citizens,* the truest patriots. 
 It is in such paradoxes as these that he delights ; 
 we find them on every page : " Lie to be true," " God 
 is great when little " ; or, to take the most celebrated 
 of them all, " The Son of God died ; it is credible 
 because it is foolishness ; buried, He rose again ; 
 it is certain because it is impossible." " Mortuits est 
 Dei Filius, prorsus credible est quia ineptum est ; Et 
 sepultus resit ir exit, certum est quia impossihile est." 
 Well may Pusey say of him, " His writings were 
 thunderbolts, the fire which kindles and the beacon 
 which warns " ; or, in his own words, " O wretched 
 man that I am, always consumed with the fever of 
 impatience." " Miser rimus ego, semper ceger caloribii^ 
 impaticnticB." It is easy to understand why he set 
 so deep a stamp upon the character of the African 
 Church, and how it was that men like Cyprian and 
 Augusthie fell so completely under his sway. 
 
 * " We are made brothers," he declares, " by those very questions 
 of money which with you set brother against brother. We are of 
 one heart and soul ; that is why we are so ready to share our goods 
 one with another. We have everything in common, except our 
 women." {Apol, 39.) 
 
 139
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 To fight against them is useless ; to destroy them 
 is impossible ; they multiply under persecution, 
 and, in his own great words, " the blood of Christians 
 is the seed " of the Church. With fierce eloquence 
 he defends God Himself for permitting persecution 
 and martyrdom. It is not death — it is salvation ; 
 God is killing death by death, and is justified in doing 
 so. " What you call perversity, I call reason ; what 
 you call cruelty, I call kindness." " Perversitas 
 quam pittas Ratio est, quod scevitia^n csstimas Gratia 
 est." 
 
 A very Malleus HcBveticormn, his pen was always 
 at the service of the Church, even after his own lapse 
 into the schism of Montanus. 
 
 Whatever his subject, he was always vehement, 
 always in extremes, often powerful. Sometimes he 
 descended to personalities. In his answer to a painter, 
 Hermogenes, who had ventured to write a pamphlet 
 in defence of Gnosticism, " If your pictures," he 
 says, " are like your book, you are the sorriest painter 
 that ever lived." 
 
 Later on the Church itself came in for its share 
 of castigation. How far the assault was deserved, 
 or what deduction we must make for a constitutional 
 tendency to exaggeration, it is difficult to say. A 
 few quotations may be given. 
 
 Christians who escape persecution by flight or 
 payment : " I do not know whether to weep or blush 
 when I see on the police lists, among publicans, pick- 
 pockets, thieves, gamblers, and pimps, the fines paid 
 by Christians. I suppose that the Apostles organised 
 the episcopate provisionally, in order that the bishops 
 might enjoy the revenues of their sees in safety, under 
 pretence of ruling them." As to the poor laity : 
 " Their guides themselves — deacons, priests, and 
 bishops — are in full flight ; now the people know 
 what is meant by 'flee from one city to another.' 
 
 140
 
 LACHRYM^ ECCLESI.E 
 
 When the officers desert, who among the crowd of 
 soldiers will dare advise others to keep their ranks ? " 
 As to these officers : " Doubtless they are packing 
 their boxes, to be ready to fly ' from city to city ' ; 
 that is the only text they remember well ; . . . their 
 pastors ! I know them ; lions in peace, stags in 
 war."* 
 
 He deals with equal fathf illness with the Pope. 
 " Whence did you receive the rights you usurp for 
 your Church ? Do you pretend to believe that you 
 have inherited the power of binding and loosing — 
 that is to say, you and the Church which traces up 
 to Peter ? Who are you who destroy and alter the 
 manifest intention of our Lord, who gave this power 
 to Peter personally ! How does all this apply to the 
 Church, at any rate to yours, O man of the flesh ? "f 
 
 To attend the games was to go " de coelo in cosnum," 
 " from the sky to the sty." 
 
 For the benefit of theatre-goers, he relates how a 
 woman once came home from the theatre possessed 
 of a devil ; and how the evil spirit, when cast out, 
 complained bitterly, protesting that he had every 
 right to her, as he had found her trespassing on his 
 domain. " In meo earn inveni."X 
 
 Under Hilarion, a.d. 202-203, persecution broke 
 out again. The occasion seems to have been the 
 refusal of a Christian soldier to accept the laurel crown 
 [donativum) presented by Severus and Caracalla ; § 
 but it took a new form — the refusal to Christian dead 
 of their own proper place of burial : " Arece non sint," 
 " No cemeteries." Severus had given leave to all 
 classes to form burial clubs, and the Christians took 
 advantage of this permission to register themselves 
 as an association of this kind, and so bring themselves 
 and their places of meeting under the protection of 
 
 * De Fi<ga, ii-i^. ] De Pndic, 21. 
 
 X De Sped. § De Corona. 
 
 141
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the law, and become possessed of a cemetery of their 
 own. As a matter of fact, the Christians were using 
 the law for a purpose for which it was never intended ; 
 but it was equally true that their persecutors stretched 
 the law also ; for the edict of Severus did not condemn 
 a man for being a Jew or a Christian, but only for 
 becoming one — it was intended to prevent prosely- 
 tising. " Judcsos fieri " (not esse) " sub gravi poend 
 vetuit. Idem etiam de Christianis sanxit." Under 
 Julius Aspar there was peace for some five or six 
 years ; on the death of Severus, trouble broke out 
 again. 
 
 Some five or six years after Tertullian's death, 
 about the year a.d, 220, was born a disciple who was 
 to prove greater than his master, Thascius Cyprianus, 
 He was a man of rank, position and wealth. His 
 home was at La Marsa, the pleasant valley which 
 leads down to the sea between the Beacon Hill of 
 Cape Carthage and the heights of Djebel Khaoui 
 and Kamart. Then, as now, it was the pleasantest 
 and most fashionable suburb of Carthage. Large- 
 minded, generous in money matters, eloquent, able, 
 popular, and ambitious, he lived for five and twenty 
 years the ordinary life of a Roman gentleman. Then 
 in the year a.d. 245 he was converted to Christianity 
 by an old priest, Caecilianus, and baptized by the 
 name of Csecilius, after the man to whom he owed 
 his conversion. He at once sold his estates and villa 
 at La Marsa and gave the money to the poor. His 
 friends bought in the villa, but he was with difficulty 
 restrained from selling it again. It was to this villa 
 that he was confined just before his martyrdom. 
 Four years later, in A.D, 249, the unanimous voice of 
 the people, never more truly than on that day the 
 voice of God, called him, sorely against his will, to 
 the difficult, dangerous, and thankless post of Arch- 
 bishop of Carthage and Pope of the African Church. 
 142
 
 LACHRYM^. ECCLESI^ 
 
 But with these had come, perhaps inevitably, a 
 widespread relaxation of discipline ; and the disorders 
 and scandals within the Church, which had driven 
 Tertullian into schism, had grown rank and monstrous. 
 
 In A.D. 249 Decius became Emperor, and in the 
 following year he promulgated an edict requiring 
 all Christians formally to recant within a certain 
 time. Many stood firm ; the names or office of some 
 of these are known ; a young reader endured torture 
 and exile ; a priest, Numidicus, Paulus, Mappalicus, 
 Celerinus, and others sealed their faith with their 
 blood ; but the falling away was general. Day after 
 day, Byrsa was besieged by crowds of Christians 
 thronging to make their submission before the time 
 of grace expired. 
 
 Cyprian fled and remained in hiding for sixteen 
 months, until the worst was over. Doubtless he was 
 right — his life was of more value to the Church than 
 his death. Doubtless also, to a man of his proud 
 nature and dauntless courage, to live under the stigma 
 of cowardice was far harder than to face the danger, 
 and, if necessary, to die. During his absence, a 
 violent opposition to his return sprang up under a 
 certain Felicissimus. A terrible pestilence which broke 
 out soon after, in which Cyprian showed himself a 
 very Carlo Borromeo in his generosity, courage, and 
 loving care of the sufferers, whether Christian or 
 not, made his position unassailable. 
 
 In a letter written at that terrible time, he exhorts 
 his flock to courage, faith, and resignation, and bids 
 them not to weep too sorely over those who die : 
 " We have not lost them ; they have only gone before. 
 Like travellers we may regret their departure, but 
 not lament over them. Put on no mourning here 
 for those who, on high, are clothed in white. There, 
 on high, await us our parents, our brothers, our children, 
 who in serried ranks lament our absence ; sure of their 
 
 143
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 own salvation, they are only anxious about ours. 
 What joy for them to see us again and embrace us ! 
 There you will see the glorious company [chorus) of 
 the Apostles, the army of prophets, the innumerable 
 throngs of crowned martyrs, virgins who have over- 
 come the temptations of the flesh and of the body, 
 the charitable who have exchanged the good things 
 of this world for the treasures of heaven."* 
 
 Then came the end. The legions in Gaul had 
 made Valerian Emperor (a.d. 253), a man whom all 
 thought worthy of reigning until he reigned — " vir 
 omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imper asset " f — as 
 Tacitus says of Galba. In August a.d. 257, he issued 
 a first edict of persecution, closing the cemeteries, 
 forbidding all assemblages of Christians, and order- 
 ing all to join in the official worship. On August 30 
 the Proconsul, Paternus, summoned Cyprian before 
 him, and on his refusal to conform, banished him to 
 Curubis (Kourba) across the Gulf, on the east coast 
 of Cape ]3on. There he remained for nearly a year. 
 It was at Curubis in the autumn of that year that 
 he composed his last treatise : an exhortation to 
 martyrdom. 
 
 In July of the following year, a.d. 258, from the 
 far east where he was fighting, Valerian issued another 
 edict more terrible still, aimed directly at the heads of 
 the Church. To this persecution belong the massacres 
 at Utica, known as the Massa Candida, the martyr- 
 dom of Theogones, Bishop of Hippo, of Jacobus and 
 Marianus at Cirta, of Lucius, Montanus, Julianus, 
 Victorinus, Flavianus, and others at Carthage. 
 
 At last the Proconsul, Galerius Flavianus, was 
 compelled to take action against Cyprian himself. 
 He had already recalled him from Curubis and confined 
 him to his villa at La Marsa, in the earnest hope, we 
 cannot help thinking, that he would seize the oppor- 
 
 * De Mart. t Hist. i. 49. 
 
 144
 
 LACHRYM^ ECCLESI^ 
 
 tunity thus offered him and escape. This time, 
 however, the path of duty was clear, and Cyprian 
 refused to fly. " A bishop," he said, " must confess 
 his Lord among his flock." On September 13 he 
 was brought to the Villa of Sextus {ad Sexti) at La 
 Marsa, near the site of the present British Consulate, 
 to which the Proconsul had retired on account of ill- 
 ness. Flavianus was, however, too unwell to conduct 
 the trial on that day, and he was remanded. He 
 passed the night with his friends in the quarters of 
 the chief ofhcer who had charge of him, in or near 
 the Proconsular Palace on Byrsa. In the morning 
 he walked back to the Ager Sexti, a distance of about 
 two miles, and was taken to a large hall, called the 
 Atriimi Saiiciolum, where the trial took place. The 
 ofhcer in charge, seeing that his robes were wet with 
 perspiration, offered him others. " Never mind," 
 rephed the Bishop, " all will be set right to-day." 
 
 The Proconsul was surrounded by his guard of 
 the famous Third Legion. The trial was short and 
 dignified, worthy of two men who respected and, 
 perhaps, knew and liked one another. 
 
 " Are you Thascius Cyprianus ? " — " I am." 
 
 " Pope of these impious men ? " — " I am." 
 
 " The holy Emperors order you to sacrifice." — 
 " I will not sacrifice." 
 
 " Be on your guard." (" Consule tibi.") — " Do what 
 you are commanded to do. In so clear a case there is 
 no room for hesitation." 
 
 The Proconsul then pronounced sentence of death. 
 Cyprian replied, " Thanks be to God." 
 
 He was led out to a spot not far from the house, 
 evidently frequently used for executions, for the 
 people knew the spot and had assembled in multi- 
 tudes to see the death of the friend and benefactor 
 of all, the foremost citizen of Carthage. Arrived at 
 the place, he held the handkerchief to his eyes, and 
 
 K 145
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 as it was being tied, he bade his friends, in his lordly 
 way, give twenty-live pieces of gold (ii^) to the 
 executioner. Utterly overcome, perhaps by the vast 
 concourse of people, perhaps by the generosity and 
 dignity of the great man he was called upon to kill, 
 the soldier was unable to hold the sword ; the centurion 
 took it from his trembling hand and struck the blow,* 
 
 So died Cyprian. He was thirty-eight years old ; 
 he had been a Christian for fourteen years, and a 
 bishop for nine. 
 
 All day his body lay where he had died. In the 
 evening the Christians were allowed to remove it, and 
 with great pomp and many torches bore it to the ceme- 
 tery of Macrobius Candidianus (" ad areas Macyohii "), 
 near the huge cisterns of Malga {pixia piscinas), 
 where it was buried. The exact spot is unknown, 
 but a cross has been erected on the little mound 
 known as the Koudiat Sousou, near the cisterns, in 
 memory of the greatest of all North African Church- 
 men. 
 
 The wild, untamable Berber nature, with its 
 incapacity for sustained unity of action, its devouring 
 passion for freedom, and its love of extremes, rendered 
 the problems which faced Cyprian and those who 
 came after him very different from those which had 
 to be dealt with elsewhere. The righteous anger of 
 Tertullian at the evils which he saw in the Church 
 drove him first into the schism of Montanus, and then 
 into practical isolation ; and this was only the begin- 
 ning of that spirit of uncompromising and inflexible 
 intolerance which rent the Church asunder. A man 
 who will not forgive must himself need no forgiveness, 
 and this certainly was not the case with those whom 
 we know as Donatists, men who had only reached 
 the familiar level of those who have religion enough 
 
 * Archbishop Benson, in his Life oj Cyprian, was the first to 
 notice this incident. 
 
 146
 
 ^ LACHRYMifi: ECCLESI/E 
 
 to make them hate, but not enough to make them 
 love one another. 
 
 So matters remained during the years of comparative 
 peace which elapsed between the death of the great 
 Archbishop and the persecution ordered by Diocletian, 
 A.D. 293. 
 
 In A.D. 315 Majorinus died, and his place 
 was taken by Donatus, from whom the whole 
 movement took its name. He was a man of great 
 learning and ability, eloquent and earnest, but hard, 
 proud, unloving, and overbearing. Now also the 
 Donatists, in their struggle against the authority 
 of the Emperor, began to make common cause with 
 the Circumcelliones,* who were destined from thence- 
 forth to be both the strength and the scandal of the 
 party. 
 
 The origin of this wild sect of fanatics is unknown. 
 They are supposed to have got their name from their 
 habit of wandering from house to house begging, 
 like the Marabouts of to-day. Their distinguishing 
 marks were their wild extravagances, and their con- 
 tempt for life — their own or anybody else's. In the 
 distant villages of Numidia and Mauretania, amongst 
 a savage, half-nomad race, never really subdued to 
 Rome, and only half converted to Christianity, their 
 doctrines were received with enthusiasm. Driven 
 from their homes by the officers of justice, the wild 
 peasantry dropped easily and gladly back into a nomad 
 life of idleness and plunder. Carrying no swords, 
 for these they held to be forbidden by Divine authority, 
 but armed with heavy clubs which they called 
 Israelites, they haunted the fringe of the desert in 
 marauding gangs which were the terror of the open 
 country. As with David in Adullam, " Every one 
 that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, 
 and every one that was discontented gathered them- 
 
 * Or " Agonistici " as they preferred to call themselves. 
 
 147
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 selves unto " * them. Giving and receiving no quarter, 
 they were not afraid to meet even the Imperial troops 
 in open battle. Their contempt for law and order 
 was only equalled by their scorn and hatred of their 
 brother Christians. Every convert was rebaptized, 
 after doing open penance. If a church fell into tlieir 
 hands, the walls were scraped, the wooden Altar 
 burnt, the holy vessels melted, and the consecrated 
 elements given to the dogs. 
 
 Tired out with their excesses, and despairing of 
 gaining peace by force, Constantine exhorted the 
 Proconsul Ursacius to try to come to terms with 
 them, but their only reply was that they would have 
 nothing to do with " his fool of a Bishop." In a.d. 330 
 Donatus held a synod at which two hundred and 
 seventy bishops were present. Soon his followers, re- 
 presenting as they did the cause of opposition to the 
 hated authority of Rome, became the popular party 
 throughout North Africa. 
 
 Meanwhile the links which bound Africa to Rome 
 were wearing very thin. Driven to despair by the 
 enormities of the Roman Governor, Romanus, Firmus 
 (a.d. 366), one of the most powerful of the Berber prin- 
 ces, raised a revolt in the west, which it needed the 
 presence of Theodosius himself, fresh from his 
 triumphs in Britain, to quell ; a service to the Empire 
 which was repaid by his judicial murder at Carthage. 
 
 It is strange that of the three great men who made 
 the Church of Africa illustrious, no one was born or 
 brought up a Christian. Two were frankly pagan, 
 and the third a Manichee. For our present purpose, 
 it is enough to say that the teaching of Manes was an 
 attempt to graft on Christianity the Persian doctrine 
 of the eternity of Evil as well as of Good, each being 
 the attribute of an eternal principle or God. Although 
 under the teaching of Ambrose of Milan, Augustine 
 
 * I Sam. xxii. 2. 
 148
 
 LACHRYM^ ECCLESI^ 
 
 escaped from this heresy, his views to the end were 
 strongly influenced by it. Of his doctrines of pre- 
 destination, acquiesced in by the Church when 
 presented under the aegis of the saint, but repudiated 
 when they were revived by Janseniiis and developed 
 logically by Calvin, we need say nothing ; but his 
 views as to the inherent evil of matter, both of the 
 world and of the body, concern us because they led 
 him to introduce, and, so far as he was able, to develop, 
 monasticism in Africa. Ambrose had influenced him 
 profoundly ; his teaching had made him a Christian, 
 and the splendour of his rule at Milan made him 
 through life a model to his young convert. Especially 
 Augustine had seen there and studied at first hand the 
 practice of the monastic life, which, with its austerities 
 and its implied teaching that holiness could only be 
 sought in separation from an evil world and the crush- 
 ing of the appetites of the body, appealed strongly, not 
 only to his ardent African temperament, but also to 
 the taint of the old Manichean teaching from which he 
 never wholly freed himself. On his return to Africa, 
 he resolved to put in practice what he had seen and 
 admired. Arrived at his old home and birthplace at 
 Souk Ahras (Thagaste), he sold his possessions, with 
 the exception of a house near the gate of the city ; 
 there he installed himself with his two friends, Alypius 
 and Evodius. Later he founded a regular m.onastery 
 at Hippo, in a house put at his disposal by the Bishop 
 Valerius, by whom he was ordained priest, a.d. 391. 
 Several bishops were chosen from among the inmates, 
 Augustine himself among the number, and these 
 carried the rule into their dioceses. Supported by 
 the great name of Augustine, such establishments 
 spread with extraordinary rapidity. Fulgentius 
 founded four in the Byzacene — one in the mountains 
 of Mididi ; another at Ruspoe near Sfax ; a third on the 
 islands of Kerkennah, on the coast of Tunisia, oft Sfax, 
 
 149
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 famous as the place of refuge for Hannibal, and perhaps 
 even more as being the fabled home of Circe, as Djerba, 
 a little farther south, was of the Lotus Eaters ; the 
 site of the fourth is not known. By the end of 
 the fourth century, Carthage had its convents, and 
 soon the country was covered with them. At Lamta 
 {Leptis Minor), Sousse {H adrimietmn) , on the islands 
 of El Kneis and Thabarka ; near the present Kairouan ; 
 at Kairin and Monastir ; at Sbeitla (Sufetula) and 
 Haidra [AmmcBdara) ; at Tebessa and Timgad. That 
 at Timgad is now in course of excavation ; it is remark- 
 able for the grandeur of the church and the richness 
 of the mosaics of the baptistery ; that at Tebessa, the 
 most important of all, is described elsewhere. 
 
 150
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 cadaver urbis * 
 Carthage 
 
 Before saying farewell to Carthage, let us climb the 
 steep street of Sidi boii Said, which lies on the slope 
 of Cape Carthage,! and from the lighthouse, which has 
 taken the place of the old Pharos, look out on the 
 scene of the traged}^ of nearly three thousand years. 
 
 With the exception of the village below us, and 
 of certain buildings which Cardinal Lavigerie erected 
 on Byrsa and elsewhere, all must now be strangely 
 like what Elissar saw before the first stone of her city 
 was laid. Beyond the fan-shaped peninsula where 
 Carthage stood, we look over the isthmus between 
 the Lake of Tunis and the Sebka er Riana to the 
 range of Djebel Sidi Ahmor, which cut it off from the 
 mainland. Where the mountains touch the lake, 
 lie the white houses and domes of Tunis between the 
 waters of the lake on one side and those of the Sebka 
 er Sedjoumi on the other. Farther to the left, over 
 La Goulette, the palisades which shut in the lake, 
 lie the little watering-places of Rades (Maxula) and 
 Hammam Lif ; above these rise the crescent heights 
 of Bou Kornein, and, higher still, the distant crags 
 of Zaghouan, from which Carthage drew its supply 
 of water. The fine ruins of the Nympheum still 
 mark the spot where the aqueduct started from the 
 springs. Somewhere in the hills behind Bou Kornein 
 hes the defile of the Hatchet, where Carthage executed 
 her vengeance on the mercenaries, and the site of the 
 camp and town of Nepheris. Farther still to the left 
 are the blue waters of the Gulf of Tunis, shut in by the 
 
 * " Uno loco tot oppidum cadavera projecta jaceant." — Cic. 
 Ep. iv. 5. 
 
 t The cape rises to a height of 393 feet above the sea. 
 
 151
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 range of mountains which end in Cape Bon. There it 
 was that Regulus landed and Cyprian was banished. 
 
 To our right and left, as we stand on the lighthouse, 
 run the hills, but the plain before us is unbroken save 
 by two or three insignificant knolls, of which Byrsa, 
 crowned by the new cathedral, is the highest. The 
 levels are green with barley, the more broken land is 
 covered with rank grass, sweet with wild thyme, 
 asphodel, and mignonette nearly five feet high. Here 
 and there, especially on the slopes of Byrsa, is a gor- 
 geous blaze of golden pyrethrum. And that is all. 
 Two vast cities have run their course there ; of the 
 former no traces remain save two little ponds, some 
 tombs, and a layer of ashes ; of the latter only some 
 foundations — " etiam periere ruincB." 
 
 To our right as we stand on the Pharos, the ground 
 sinks rapidly, and a little valley opens from the plain 
 to the sea. Where now stands the pleasant little 
 watering-place of La Marsa, with the palace of the 
 Bey on one side and the Residence de France on the 
 other, lay the villa of Cyprian. Here it was that he 
 was arrested. The Ager Sexti, where he was tried 
 and martyred, lay a little farther inland where we 
 now see the English Consulate. Farther still, between 
 us and Byrsa, stands a cross on the little mound 
 called Koudiat Sousou, which marks, as near as may 
 be, the Area Macrobii, the Cemetery of Macrobius, 
 where he was buried. 
 
 Beyond La Marsa the ground rises again, almost 
 as rapidly as it fell, into the heights of Djebel Khaoui, 
 the Hollow Mountain, ending in Cape Kamart. All 
 this ground was covered with the villas of IMegara ; 
 the wealthy merchants of Tunis are beginning to 
 replace them with houses of their own. Where 
 Kamart looks down on the shore of the Sebka, Scipio 
 stormed Megara, but was forced to retreat. 
 
 On Djebel Khaoui lay the Jewish Cemetery ; the 
 
 152
 
 CADAVER URBIS 
 
 hill gets its name from the multitude of sepulchres 
 with which its surface is undermined. The tombs 
 are of a type with which the Holy Land has made us 
 famiUar. A square hole sunk in the rock to a depth 
 of four or five feet opens, by a small entrance which 
 can be closed by a stone, into a chamber in the rock 
 about twelve feet square and six high. On each side 
 of the chamber are three loculi, two and a half feet 
 square and six feet deep, in which the dead were laid ; 
 the entrance was then cemented over. Sometimes 
 one of these lociili was enlarged, and opened into a 
 further chamber similar to the first. The enormous 
 number of tombs testifies to the size of the Jewish 
 population. The \\'hite Fathers, from Byrsa, have a 
 little settlement on the hill. When we visited the spot 
 they were engaged in excavating a very large tomb 
 which they had discovered in their plot of ground. 
 
 Near the Cross of Cyprian are the remains of the 
 cisterns of La Malga. They were fifteen in number, 
 and were fed by the aqueduct which Hadrian con- 
 structed from Djebel Zaghouan, a distance of nearly 
 sixty miles. Traces of the aqueduct can be seen close 
 by. Long stretches of it still lie between Tunis and 
 the Bardo, and span the plain near Oudna. In their 
 present form the cisterns are certainly Roman, but 
 probably they are the successors of Punic works of the 
 same description. For the most part they have been 
 destroyed ; the fragments which remain are sufficient to 
 form an Arab village, and provide shelter for the beasts. 
 
 Near the cisterns are other ruins of importance — 
 the house of the charioteer Scorpianus, and the two 
 cemeteries of the Roman officials. It was here that, 
 on his entrance into Carthage, the ferocious Hunneric 
 trampled beneath his horses' hoofs the bishops and 
 the clergy who had come out to meet him. 
 
 The graves in the cemeteries are very simple — a 
 cippus of masonry containing two or three urns. 
 
 153
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Their peculiarity is the funnel which leads to the 
 surface, by which libations could reach the ashes of 
 the dead. Some of the imprecations which, written 
 on thin sheets of lead, were dropped into these funnels, 
 have been described already. One or two, of a some- 
 what different character, may be noticed here. Here 
 is one : * — 
 
 " Te rogo qui infernales partes tenes commendo tibi Julia 
 Faustina Marii filia ut earn celerius abducas et ibi in numerum 
 tu abias." 
 
 On the other side, which is injured, we read : — 
 
 "... Faustina ut earn celerius abducas infernalis partibus 
 
 in numeru tu abias." 
 
 " I invoke thee, who reignest over the infernal regions, I 
 
 commend to thee Julia Faustilla, daughter of Marius, that 
 
 thou mayest carry her off as quickly as may be, and there 
 
 keep her, in the number of thy people." 
 
 Another, surrounded with magical names in Greek, 
 runs as follows : j — 
 
 URATUR 
 
 SUCESA 
 ADURATUR 
 AMORE VET 
 DESIDRI 
 SUCESI 
 
 " May Successa be burnt and consumed with love and 
 desire for Successus." 
 
 Not far off is the amphitheatre, the scene of the 
 martyrdom of Perpetua and many others. Not so 
 large as the Colosseum, but two storeys higher, it 
 must have been a building of great magnificence. 
 The arrangements differed from those at Rome, in 
 that the arena was solid ground instead of being a 
 movable platform. The dens for wild beasts and 
 other necessary rooms, which at Rome were under 
 the arena, are here in the podium, which lifted the 
 ranges of seats to a safe height above the arena. All 
 over the arena was found a layer of reddish sand, 
 
 * C.I.L. 12505. t Ibid., 12507.
 
 CADAVER URBIS 
 
 about eighteen inches thick ; it recalls the seas of blood 
 which have flowed there, even if it does not owe its 
 discoloration to them. Below the centre of the 
 arena was found a large vaulted chamber ; probably 
 this was the career in which the martyrs, and others 
 who were to fight the wild beasts, were confined and 
 prepared for the terrible ordeal. On a marble pillar 
 preserved in the vault is a most human document : 
 it is an inscription of a single word, Evasi, " I have 
 escaped," doubtless from the paw of the lion. The 
 vault has now been fitted up as a chapel to St. Perpetua 
 In the arena has been found also a square pit, 
 communicating with an underground passage. Probably 
 it was a trap-door through which the beasts could be 
 lifted on to the stage. Here it was that the seal of Mer- 
 cury, with his red-hot iron, was found. Another tabula 
 execrationis was found here ; it runs as follows : — 
 
 " O Demon, bind and fetter fast Maurussus, whom Felicitas 
 brought into the world. 
 
 " Rob of his shimber that he may not be able to sleep, 
 Maurussus, whom Felicitas brought into the world. 
 
 " Almighty God, take to the nethermost hell Maurussus, 
 whom Felicitas brought into the world. 
 
 " Thou that reignest over the countries of Italy and Cam- 
 pania, Thou whose power extends over the Acherusian Lake, 
 take to the abodes of Tartarus, within the space of seven 
 days, Maurussus, whom Felicitas brought into the world. 
 
 " Demon, who rulest over Spain and Africa, thou who 
 alone canst cross the sea, counteract every remedy, every 
 charm, every medicine, every libation of oil." [Rnlnes de 
 Carthage, p. i6.) 
 
 And so on. It is interesting to notice that, as is 
 usual in such magical incantations, the victim is de- 
 scribed as the son, not of his father, but of his mother. 
 
 Here also were found two votive plates of metal, 
 shaped like feet, which have been noticed already. 
 They bear no legible inscription. 
 
 Until the Middle Ages the amphitheatre was fairly 
 perfect. It was destroyed by the Arabs, partly for 
 
 155
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the sake of the stones ; even more to get at the copper 
 clamps, set in lead, which bound the stones together ; 
 the surface of the Colosseum has been marred by 
 the same Vandalism. Close by is the Koudiat Tsalh. 
 
 Still a little farther south are the remains of the 
 circus. The spina was three hundred and thirty 
 yards long, the circus itself nearly double that length. 
 It would accommodate about three hundred thousand 
 spectators. In a.d. 536, and again in the following 
 year, the mutinous Byzantine soldiers fortified them- 
 selves within it. After that it was completely de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 Returning past the amphitheatre and the Cross of 
 St. Cyprian we reach the theatre, hollowed out of 
 the side of a little hill. Here Apuleius pronounced 
 one of his celebrated discourses, and Tertullian 
 scandalised the people by coming in morning dress. 
 We may remember that Augustine, in his Confessions, 
 takes himself severely to task for his love of theatrical 
 performances. It was destroyed and burnt by the 
 Vandals in a.d. 439. A few tolerable statues have 
 been found there, including a colossal Apollo leaning 
 on his tripod and a beautiful Demeter. These are 
 now in the Bardo. 
 
 Close by stood the Odeum, or Opera-House. It 
 was erected a.d. 204, when the Carthaginians obtained 
 leave to celebrate the Pythian Games. It was like 
 the theatre, only smaller and roofed in, and shared 
 its fate. Little of it now remains ; but the best 
 statues yet unearthed at Carthage have been found 
 here ; two, one of Venus and another of Juno Regina, 
 so called, are really fine. 
 
 Byrsa, which should be the most interesting site 
 in all Carthage, is, partly perhaps on that account, 
 the most disappointing. The destruction has been 
 more thorough even than elsewhere, and the site is 
 covered with modern buildings which have nothing 
 
 156
 
 CADAVER URBIS 
 
 to recommend them except that they are the burial- 
 place of the great Cardinal Lavigerie. Of Punic work 
 not a wrack remains except one doubtful piece of wall. 
 No trace is left of the great Temple of Eschmoun 
 which saw the double tragedy of the beginning and end 
 of Karthhadack, when Elissar threw herself upon the 
 pyre, and when the wife of Hasdrubal cast herself 
 and her children into the blazing ruins of the temple. 
 Standing out in front have been found some bases 
 of columns belonging to the Temple of ^Esculapius, 
 which took its place, but these are the only fragments 
 which have been identified. Behind them, in the 
 garden of the Primatial, stands the paltry little chapel 
 of St. Louis of France, who died here on his crusade 
 against Tunis. He was buried in the wonderful 
 church of Monreale above Palermo ; but some relics 
 have been brought back and lie in the new cathedral. 
 
 In front of and below the chapel lie a series of 
 seven apsidal chambers, nearly sixty yards in length ; 
 the middle and most important room was lined with 
 marble, the others with stucco. They probably belong 
 to the time when Augustus had the site levelled, and 
 were the undercroft of some important building. 
 
 Ruins, possibly of the Capitoline Temple, lie under 
 the cathedral ; amongst them were found a colossal 
 Victory, recalHng the Nike of Samothrace, and two 
 huge reliefs of Abundance. The only ruins above 
 ground lie by the side of the cathedral ; perhaps they 
 belonged to the Proconsular Palace. 
 
 At the south-east side of the hill a fine piece of 
 wall has been laid bare, which is, perhaps — Punic ; 
 and a curious cr\^pt, perhaps — for everything here is 
 " perhaps " — a prison. Later on it was consecrated 
 as a chapel in honour of some saints who, possibly, 
 had been confined there. The walls were decorated 
 with rude paintings of saints with haloes, a pagan 
 sign of canonisation which the Church hesitated long 
 
 157
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 before she could accept. The paintings have faded, 
 but a copy has been placed in the Museum. 
 
 Hard by is a Punic necropolis ; the graves are 
 protected by triangular vaults of large stones. Near 
 this has been found a plague pit, containing some 
 hundreds of skeletons. Probably it dates from the 
 great pestilence of 196 B.C. 
 
 A little farther on are the trifling remains of a curious 
 wall built entirely of ampJiorcB. The dates on the 
 jars — 45-15 B.C. — show that it belongs to the time of 
 Augustus. Except that the amphorce are unbroken, 
 it reminds us of the Monte Testaccio at Rome. 
 
 Near the shore, about six hundred yards from the foot 
 of Byrsa, lie two little ponds. The nearer is bent like the 
 blade of a sickle, the other is long and straight like its 
 handle. Next to Byrsa itself, these are the most interest- 
 ing relics of old Carthage ; for they represent the famous 
 ports which the Dido was excavating when yEneas came. 
 
 When, in a.d. 698, Hassan destroyed Carthage, 
 he filled up the harbours for fear Carthage should 
 again rise from the dust to rival his Capital at Tunis. 
 Quite recently they have been dug out, but only 
 in part, so the ponds mark the position, but give no 
 idea of the size of the original ports. The nearer 
 takes the place of the circular Cothon, and it is pleasant 
 to imagine that a depression between it and the sea 
 marks the channel cut by the Carthaginians after the 
 entrance had been blocked by the mole of Scipio. 
 In the centre is the island on which stood the Admiral's 
 house, surmounted by a tower. On this island ex- 
 cavations are now being carried on by the soldiers. The 
 officer who was directing the work pointed out how the 
 digging proved the accuracy of the old descriptions. 
 Many of the pillars and other broken fragments un- 
 earthed were certainly Roman, but the great stones 
 of the foundations are marked with the Tanith in red 
 paint, and are equally certainly Punic. 
 
 158
 
 CADAVER URBIS 
 
 The passage from the naval to the commercial 
 port and from this to the sea is still blocked, but the 
 remains of the breakwater, and of the vast mole of 
 Scipio, are visible. Very careful soundings were made 
 by Lieut, de Roquefeuil, in 1898, but the conclusions 
 arrived at are still precarious. 
 
 Close to the Cothon, between it and Byrsa, lay the 
 Forum, or Agora, where Scipio halted for a night before 
 his awful onslaught on the city. Here Bomilcar was 
 crucified for aspiring to kingly power, and many an un- 
 fortunate general or admiral paid the same penalty for 
 failure. Here also stood the statue of Apollo in robes 
 of gold, which formed part of the booty of Scipio. 
 
 Walking by the shore, along the lines of the 
 ancient quays towards Bordj Djedid, we pass the 
 ruins of the huge Thermae of Antoninus, now called 
 Dermech, a corruption of the word " thermae." Then, 
 turning to the left, we reach the cisterns which fed 
 the baths. The Arabs call them " Mouadjel ech 
 Cheiatin," "The Devil's Cisterns." They consist of 
 seventeen parallel chambers, one hundred feet long, 
 twenty-four feet wide, and thirty high ; at the ends of 
 these run two more, four hundred and fifty feet long. 
 The reservoirs communicate with one another by 
 openings high up in the wall, to ensure an equal depth 
 of water in them all, and to allow all sediment to sink, 
 as the water made its way slowly from one chamber to 
 another. Any reservoir could be isolated and cleaned 
 by means of sluice gates and air- or man-holes in 
 the crown of the vault. 
 
 Turning to the right and passing the Theatre and 
 Odeum, we reach the great Basilica known as the 
 Damous-el-Karita, " Domus Caritatis," " The House of 
 Love." It stands in the centre of a vast Christian 
 cemetery, and must have been one of the grandest 
 churches of Carthage, if not all Africa. 
 
 Such is Carthage. 
 
 159
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 res ultimo, a.d. 423-55o 
 
 The Vandals 
 
 The final downfall of the tottering Empire of Rome 
 was wrought by the flooding of the civilised provinces 
 of the south — Gaul, Spain, and finally Italy itself — 
 by stream after stream of the strong, virile races of 
 the north and east. 
 
 Amongst the hordes which, at the beginning of the 
 fifth century, under the pressure of the Huns and 
 Sarmatians in their rear, became dislodged like an 
 avalanche or landslip, and swept south and west in 
 the army of Rhodogast or Rodogaisus, were the 
 Vandals. We first find them in the second century, 
 settled to the south of the Baltic ; a southern division 
 of the race, living in Bohemia, took part in the Marco- 
 mannic Wars of a.d. 167-179. About the middle of 
 the third century they joined the Goths and occupied 
 Dacia and the country north of the Black Sea ; in 
 A.D. 277 the Emperor Probus planted a colony of them 
 in Britain. In the year a.d. 405 they joined the 
 Alani, Burgundians, and Suevi, and invaded Italy 
 under the banner of Rhodogast. Whilst besieging 
 Florence they were surrounded by the Romans under 
 Stilicho and compelled to surrender with a loss of 
 twenty thousand men, including their king. Next 
 year, a.d. 406, they moved towards Gaul, and were 
 again defeated by the Franks. However, they rejoined 
 their old allies, the Alani, Suevi, and Burgundians, 
 and with them crossed the Rhone on the last day of 
 160
 
 RES ULTIMO 
 
 A D. 406, and never returned. It is from this memor- 
 able passage that Gibbon dates the Fall of the Roman 
 Empire in the countries beyond the Alps. 
 
 This movement to the west is said to have been 
 made at the suggestion of Stilicho, who was himself 
 of Vandal stock. Probably this is untrue, but it was 
 undoubtedly his policy to defend Italy at the expense 
 of the outlying provinces, which he could no longer 
 hold. Thus, " the barriers which had so long separated 
 the savage from the civilised nations of the earth were 
 from that fatal moment levelled with the ground." 
 
 In less than two years, a.d. 409, the Vandals had 
 reached the Pyrenees ; and, leaving their allies behind 
 them, to help towards the making of modern France, 
 they poured over the mountain passes into Spain. 
 There they parted into three bands. One drifted 
 to the west, into Tarrantum ; another south-west, 
 into Lusitania ; the rest made their way due south 
 into Boeotia. By the year a.d. 422, they had taken 
 Seville and Carthagena, and occupied the southern 
 provinces of Spain, to which their coming gave the 
 new name of Andalucia. 
 
 But even this was not destined to be their final 
 resting-place. In a.d. 423, the Emperor Honorius 
 died, and, after the usual interval of confusion, and 
 the attempted usurpation of the throne by his prin- 
 cipal secretary {priniicerius) John, aided and abetted 
 by his great general Aetius, his son Valentinian III. 
 succeeded to the vacant throne, at the age of six 
 years. During the long minority of the young Emperor 
 the reins of power were in the hands of his mother, 
 Galla Placidia, a strangely interesting woman, daughter, 
 sister, wife, and mother of Emperors of Rome. At 
 one time, as wife of Athaulphus (Adolphus), brother- 
 in-law of Alaric, she had reigned as Queen of the Goths ; 
 then she had been the victim and slave of his murderer, 
 Singeric ; next as wife of the brave Constantius, she 
 
 L 161
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 had become Empress of Rome; on his death she had been 
 driven as an exile to the Court of Theodosius at Con- 
 stantinople ; now she returned in triumph to Italy as 
 Empress in all but name. Her lovely tomb at Ravenna 
 is almost the last possibility of beauty in mosaic* 
 
 The task of restoring order in Africa, of reviving 
 the waning spirit of allegiance, of curbing the wild 
 excesses of the Donatists and giving peace to the 
 distracted country, was entrusted by Placidia to 
 Count Boniface, a strange mixture of Saint, Knight 
 and Condotiero. His defence of Marseilles attested 
 his military skill, his personal courage had won him 
 the respect and fear of the barbarians, his warm 
 friendship with the aged Augustine made him accept- 
 able to the Church, the tried probity of his character 
 and the sternness of his even-handed justice made him 
 worthy of the dignity given to him, while his devoted 
 loyalty to Placidia was proved by the fact that during 
 her exile at Constantinople he alone had remained 
 faithful to her, and that money and troops supplied 
 by him had contributed largely to the suppression of 
 the revolt of John. 
 
 Unhappily for Boniface, he left near the throne at 
 Ravenna his great and unscrupulous rival, Aetius, a man 
 who, though his defeat of Attila, the Scourge of God, on 
 the field of Chalons, put his military genius beyond the 
 reach of doubt, had shown by his support of the usurper 
 John, that his loyalty could not be depended upon. 
 
 Aetius took advantage of the absence of Boniface 
 to gain complete ascendency over the mind of Galla 
 Placidia, and by his intrigues and treachery under- 
 mined her confidence in her one loyal subject. So well 
 
 * The sarcophagus of Athaulphus (Athanulph) still stands in 
 the Church of S. Aquilinus which he founded at Milan. The sarco- 
 
 Shagus of Galla Placidia, at Ravenna, stands between those of 
 [onorius and Constantius. These are, apparently, the only Imperial 
 tombs which have never been moved. Her daughter Honoria lies 
 in the same chapel. 
 
 162
 
 RES ULTIM.E 
 
 did he succeed that at last Boniface was driven, in 
 self-defence, to the rebellion of which he had been 
 unjustly accused. 
 
 In spite of a touching letter from Augustine, 
 imploring him not to plunge the country and empire 
 into a parricidal war, Boniface, a.d. 428, invited the 
 Vandals to come over from Spain and help him. All 
 the country west of the Ampsagas* was to be theirs, 
 on condition that they guaranteed him the peaceful 
 and undisturbed possession of the rest. 
 
 The invitation came at a most opportune moment. 
 The Vandal King, Godigisclus, had fallen in battle 
 on the other side of the Rhine, and now his son and 
 successor, Gontharis, had been murdered by his bastard 
 brother, the terrible Geiseric, or Genseric, a name 
 which deservedly ranks with those of Alaric and 
 Attila. Base-born, of small stature, slow of speech, 
 deformed in body by a fall from his horse, he was 
 destined for the next forty years to prove that his 
 vast ambition was justified by a dauntless courage, 
 a genius for war, and an aptitude for state-craft which 
 were unhampered by any scruples of pity or of honour. 
 
 Nothing could suit such a man better than such 
 an invitation. In a.d. 429 he crossed from Gibraltar 
 to Ceuta in ships supplied by the anxious Boniface 
 and the still more anxious Spaniards. Surely never was 
 guest so sped on his departure and so welcomed on 
 his arrival. With him he brought a mixed multitude, 
 a nation rather than an army, eighty or ninety thousand 
 strong, of whom about half were soldiers. Like all 
 invaders of Africa, he was hailed as a deliverer, and 
 his success was immediate and complete ; but his 
 coming set the country in a blaze. All the elements 
 of disorder which the firm rule of Boniface had kept 
 in control, broke loose ; the natives rose against the 
 
 * The Oued-el-Kebir, which falls into the sea north of Constantine, 
 near Djidjeli. 
 
 163
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Roman sway, while the Donatists, after seventeen years 
 of rigorous suppression and proscription, naturally 
 joined the Arian invaders, who were bound to them by 
 that strongest of all ties, a common hatred of the Church. 
 
 That Genseric should confine himself within the 
 borders assigned him longer than suited his purpose 
 was more than could be expected, and Boniface soon 
 realised his mistake. Friends visited him from the 
 Court of Ravenna, and returned bearing with them 
 the forged letters which disclosed the treachery of 
 Aetius ; the breach between Boniface and Placidia 
 was healed, and Boniface determined to resist his 
 formidable allies. But it was too late ; he was defeated 
 by Genseric, and at last shut up and besieged in Hippo, 
 where he arrived in time to close the eyes of his friend 
 Augustine, who died there on August 28th, a.d. 430. 
 From May a.d. 430 until July a.d. 431, the siege lasted 
 Realising the importance of Africa, Placidia implored 
 the help of the Emperor of the East, and Aspar sailed 
 from Constantinople to relieve the besieged city. Thus 
 reinforced, Boniface ventured on a second battle, and 
 his defeat sealed the fate of Roman Africa. In despair, 
 he left Hippo with Aspar, taking his soldiers with 
 him, and leaving the defenceless citizens to the tender 
 mercies of the Vandals. 
 
 Near Ravenna he met his rival Aetius in battle, 
 and, though victorious, he received a fatal wound, 
 at the hand, it was said, of Aetius himself. Tradition, 
 or legend, has cast a halo of romance round his death. 
 We are told that the quarrel was decided by a hand-to- 
 hand encounter between the two generals. Owing to 
 the greater length of his spear, Aetius was victorious, 
 and Boniface, with his last breath, committed his 
 young wife to him as the only man worthy of her.* 
 
 * A somewhat similar story is told by Gibbon of the death of 
 Stotzas. Cf. Gibbon xi. 3 : " He fell in a single combat, but he 
 smiled in the agonies of death, when he was informed that his own 
 javelin had reached the heart of his antagonist." 
 
 164
 
 RES ULTIMO 
 
 The story is interesting, if only as an anticipation of 
 the tournament as a court of honour, and of the 
 coming ages of romance and chivalry. 
 
 In the full tide of victory, Genseric was obliged 
 to pause for a time. Difficulties thickened round 
 him. His advance to the east had left Mauretania 
 almost stripped of troops and open to the ravages 
 of the Romans from Spain : in fs'umidia the almost 
 impregnable fortress of Cirta (Constantine) defied his 
 arms ; and his nephews, the sons of the murdered 
 Gontharis, added to his difficulties by stirring up 
 mutiny in the ranks of his army. It was said that he 
 shed more Vandal blood on the scaffold than on the 
 field of battle, before the disaffection was appeased. 
 Meanwhile, on January 30th, a.d. 435, he made a 
 peace with Valentinian, by which he secured to the 
 Roman Emperor the peaceful possession of Carthage 
 and of the Proconsular province of Africa. 
 
 This arrangement lasted just as long as suited the 
 convenience of Genseric. In a.d. 439 he was ready to 
 take the field again. Suddenly, without the slightest 
 notice, he advanced upon Carthage, and surprised 
 and took it, five hundred and thirty years after its 
 capture and destruction by Scipio. The land of 
 Proconsular Africa he divided amongst such of his 
 followers as were not already provided for ; Carthage 
 he made a pirate stronghold. An alliance with Attila, 
 King of the Huns, secured him from the interference 
 of Rome. 
 
 Of all the great barbarian invaders, Genseric seems 
 to have been the ablest and most versatile. Not 
 content with his African conquests, he built a fleet 
 and seized the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Corsica, and 
 Sardinia ; the Vandal fleet became the scourge of the 
 Mediterranean, as the Barbary corsairs were later 
 on in history. " Whither shall we steer ? " asked 
 his ship's master, when starting on one of these 
 
 165
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 buccaneering expeditions. " Where God wills," was 
 Genseric's answer ; and " God " seems generally to 
 have " willed " that he should go wherever booty was 
 most plentiful and least protected. 
 
 In A.D. 455 Genseric received another invitation, 
 not less agreeable than the first. After murdering 
 Aetius with his own hand, " cutting off his right hand 
 with his left," the wretched Valentinian III. had been 
 himself murdered by Petronius Maximus, a wealthy 
 senator, whose wife he had debauched. With the 
 throne Maximus seized also the Empress Eudoxia, 
 daughter of Theodosius, Emperor of the East, and 
 made her his wife. The unwilling bride invoked the 
 aid of the terrible King of the Vandals to avenge her 
 wrongs. Such a call was not likely to remain un- 
 answered. Genseric sailed at once, and landed at the 
 mouth of the Tiber, where his arrival was a signal 
 for the murder of Maximus. Advancing boldly from 
 Ostia, he was met at the gate of Rome by the Bishop, 
 Leo, who pleaded for the defenceless city, as he 
 had interceded with Attila. Again he was in part 
 successful. There was no general massacre, and the 
 city was not destroyed ; but for fourteen days, from 
 June 15th to 29th, it was given up to the will of the 
 wild Vandal and African soldiery to be sacked and 
 systematically looted. Then Genseric returned to 
 Carthage, laden with his priceless booty. Gold and 
 silver statues of the gods, the bronze tiles of the 
 Capitol, which Domitian had gilded at a cost, it is 
 said, of ;^2,400,ooo, the golden candlestick and table 
 of showbread from Jerusalem, with other treasures 
 stored in the Temple of Peace in the Forum, all found 
 their way to Carthage ; and Elissar was avenged. 
 
 With his other prey, Genseric carried back also 
 the Empress Eudoxia and her two daughters, Eudocia 
 and Placidia, and many thousand prisoners for sale. 
 The elder daughter Eudocia he gave as wife to his 
 166
 
 RES ULTIMiE 
 
 son Hunneric ; he also demanded and received from 
 the Emperor Marcian an ample dowry for her as the 
 descendant and heiress of Theodosias. After long 
 delay, Eudoxia and Placidia, who was the wife of 
 a Roman senator, were surrounded and sent to 
 Constantinople. The miseries of the prisoners were 
 alleviated so far as possible by the noble exertions 
 of the Bishop, Deogratias. The gold and silver plate 
 belonging to the churches was sold, to purchase the 
 liberty of some, and food and medicines for others. 
 The churches themselves were transformed into 
 hospitals. 
 
 Of the general character of the Vandal sway in 
 North Africa it is very difficult to form a just estimate. 
 We know little of it, except from those who suffered 
 under it, and whose testimony must be received 
 with caution. The mixed multitude which crossed 
 over from Africa had never been very numerous — 
 not more than about ninety thousand, including 
 women and children, and many of these must have 
 fallen or been left on the way ; the population of 
 Carthage alone outnumbered them four- or five-fold. 
 The soldiers who had brought their wives and children 
 with them had, of course, to be provided for ; doubt- 
 less there were acts of violence and spoliation, but we 
 do not read of any wholesale confiscation of land 
 except in the Proconsular province of Africa — that is, 
 in the neighbourhood of Carthage. It is certain that 
 the Vandals recognised two classes of occupiers : 
 Roman or civil, who paid a contribution in money ; 
 and barbarian or military, who gave nothing but 
 military service. Two governments existed side by 
 side. Over the Vandals were set counts and inferior 
 officers, captains of thousands and of hundreds, who 
 exercised military authority in time of war, and 
 civil in time of peace. By the side of these, the Roman 
 organisation remained ahnost untouched. The old 
 
 167
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Imperial laws were still administered ; Roman officials 
 collected the taxes ; Roman magistrates still sat in 
 the cities. The Defensor Civitatis still held his tribunal, 
 and appeals were still made to the Prespositics judiciis 
 Romanis in Regno Africce Vandalonim, at Carthage. 
 Except for the dismantling of the walls, the cities 
 were left uninjured, and the Vandals, if they built 
 nothing, wantonly destroyed but little. Certainly they 
 made no deliberate effort to wreck the civilisation 
 they found, or to impose their manners and customs 
 on their Roman subjects. They held and garrisoned 
 Africa, and expected Africa to support them in return ; 
 but beyond this, the Romans seem to have suffered 
 little at their hands. The coloni remained much what 
 they had been, only now they worked for two masters 
 instead of one. The mountaineers, already half in- 
 dependent, were drafted into the army or manned the 
 fleets. 
 
 One exception must be made to this. For many 
 years of his long reign, Genseric, with his Donatist 
 allies, was a relentless persecutor of the Church. The 
 bishops were banished, the churches were closed, and 
 doubtless many who were not attacked as Romans 
 suffered severely as Christians, or rather Churchmen. 
 Yet even here it must be remembered that much of 
 the reckless destruction of churches may safely be 
 put down to the fury of the Donatists. Probably the 
 Church did not suffer more severely at the hands of 
 Genseric than the Donatists themselves had suffered 
 under Boniface. 
 
 But, as so often happens in such cases, this com- 
 paratively tolerable state of things did not long 
 survive its founder. After the death of Genseric, 
 A.D. 477, the natural turbulence of the wild soldiery, 
 the jealous quarrels of the chiefs, the incursions of 
 the nomads from the desert upon the unwalled cities, 
 the brigandage of the mountaineers, and the ferocious 
 168
 
 RES ULTIM.E 
 
 persecution of the Church by Hunneric, soon destroyed 
 the peace and good understanding between the various 
 classes of the inhabitants, which the sagacious poUcy 
 and firm rule of Genseric had established. 
 
 Meanwhile the general character and warlike apti- 
 tude of the Vandals were fast declining. It was only 
 seventy years since they had crossed the Rhine, but 
 already the heat and enervating climate of their new 
 home, and the still more demoralising ease and luxury 
 of their new surroundings, had sapped their strength 
 and destroyed the hardy virtues of the barbarian, 
 replacing them only with the vices of a degraded 
 civilisation. Moreover, though formidable when col- 
 lected in an anny, the smallness of their numbers 
 became apparent when they were spread over the 
 country as landed proprietors. The Idngdom of the 
 Vandals, built up in a day, fell into ruins in a night. 
 In A.D. 406 they crossed the Rhine ; in a.d. 429 they 
 reached Africa ; in a.d. 477 Genseric died ; and in 
 A.D. 533 Belisarius landed. 
 
 The Byzantines. 
 
 Old ideas, conceptions, habits of thought, and 
 claims die hard, especially if they minister to the 
 pride of the man or nation who entertains them. 
 The mere fact that they have ceased to be true has 
 little effect beyond that ot rendering them more dear, 
 and causing them to be more fondly and obstinately 
 cherished. Men and nations cling to the remem- 
 brance of what they once were, partly because it 
 is hard to relinquish the flattering memory, and 
 partly because there is always the possibility, and 
 with it the vague hope, that some unexpected turn of 
 the wheel of fortune may bring the cherished posses- 
 sion within reach again ; and then the fact that the 
 claim has never been relinquished makes the new 
 conquest more Hke the revival of a donnant title 
 
 169
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 than the creation of a new. The fleurs-de-lys of 
 France were borne on the royal standard of England 
 for many a long year after England's last possession 
 in France was gone. 
 
 Notably has this been always the case with Rome, 
 Imperial of old as Papal now. Whatever Rome has 
 once become possessed of by force of arms or diplo- 
 macy or intrigue, Rome claims for ever, however 
 clearly history may contradict the justice of the 
 original title or the validity of the new. 
 
 In the year a.d. 527 the throne of Constantinople 
 was filled by a Dacian peasant born near Sardica, 
 the modem Sofia, in Bulgaria. His name was Up- 
 rauda, the Upright, or, in its Latin form, Justinian. 
 He had been raised to the purple by the merits of his 
 uncle Justin, who, in a long military service of more 
 than fifty years, had risen from the ranks, through 
 the successive grades of tribune, count, general, until 
 at last, at the age of sixty-eight years, he was elected 
 Emperor, After an uneventful reign of nine years, 
 during which his deficiencies had been covered by 
 the diligence and ability of the Quaestor Proclus, he 
 secured the succession for his nephew, whom he had 
 brought from Dacia and educated at Constantinople. 
 
 When Justinian ascended the throne, the dominions 
 of Rome had been definitely separated into the two 
 Empires of East and West for one hundred and thirty 
 years. The Western Empire had long ceased to be 
 Roman, even in name. In Italy the Goths had ruled 
 for fifty years ; in Africa the Vandals had held un- 
 disputed sway for over a century. All this was fact, 
 but theory did not tally with it. Theoretically the 
 Empire was still one, undivided and indivisible. The 
 possessions of Old Rome had become those of New, 
 automatically, by a natural and indefeasible right 
 of succession, and all intruders, whether Goths or 
 Vandals, were usurpers, to be expelled, rightly and 
 170
 
 RES ULTIMO 
 
 justly, whenever opportunity might serve. How 
 nearly Justinian succeeded, through the genius and 
 unswerving loyalty of his great general Belisarius, 
 in enforcing the claim and reviving the dying Empire 
 of Rome, does not belong to our subject except in 
 so far as Africa is concerned. Suffice it to say that 
 he made the effort, and, in making it, completed the 
 ruin of Roman and Christian Africa, if not of Italy also. 
 
 Justinian had not long to wait for an opportunity 
 for interfering in Africa. The throne of Genseric 
 was occupied by his grandson, Hilderic, who, through 
 his mother Eudocia, could claim descent from the 
 Emperor of Rome on the one side and of Constanti- 
 nople on the other. He was a gentle, cultured, amiable 
 man, who lacked both the savagery of his father, 
 Hunneric, and the ability of his cousin and predecessor, 
 Thrasimund. His clemency to his Catholic subjects, to 
 whom he granted peace and freedom of worship, was at 
 once his glory and his ruin. The Arian clergy denounced 
 him as an apostate, an accusation to which his friendship 
 with Justinian lent some colour ; while the defeat of his 
 general, or Achilles, by a rabble of natives, aroused the 
 indignant contempt of his soldiers for his military in- 
 capacity. An insurrection, fomented and headed by his 
 cousin Gelimer, broke out. Hilderic was deposed and 
 thrown into prison, and Gelimer, whose birth and mili- 
 tary fame fitted him well for the post, usurped his throne. 
 
 On this, A.D. 231, Tripoli revolted, and invited 
 the help of Justinian on behalf of their rightful King. 
 The Emperor at once espoused the cause of his friend, 
 and haughtily warned Gelimer against any further 
 revolt, at the risk of incurring the displeasure of God 
 and of himself. The fierce Vandal replied by increasing 
 the rigour of Hilderic's imprisonment, and, with mutual 
 protestations of sincere desire for peace, " according 
 to the practice," as Gibbon remarks, " of civilised 
 nations," each side prepared for war. 
 
 171
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 The command of the Byzantine forces was given 
 by Justinian to the illustrious Belisarius, the third 
 Africanus, one of the greatest generals and noblest 
 men in all history. 
 
 Belitzar, the " White Prince," to give him his 
 proper name, was born, says Procopius, " in Germania, 
 between Thrace and Illyria," not very far, that is, 
 from the birthplace of the Emperor himself. He 
 served with distinction in the private guard of 
 Justinian, and, when his patron became Emperor, 
 was promoted to military command. As general of 
 the East he had won renown in an arduous campaign 
 against the Persians, and the new-made peace, to 
 which his prowess largely contributed, set him free 
 for an even more difficult and important operation. 
 
 It was on June 22nd, in the year of our Lord 533, 
 and in the seventh year of the reign of Justinian, that 
 the Byzantine Armada sailed from Constantinople 
 for Africa. The vessels of the fleet and transport, 
 six hundred in number, were anchored in front of the 
 palace gardens, where they were reviewed by the 
 Basileus himself. The Patriarch, surrounded by his 
 clergy, descended to the port to pronounce his solemn 
 benediction on the army as it started on its new 
 crusade. Thus, with the happiest auspices, Belisarius 
 entered on the campaign, taking with him as his 
 secretary, his Boswell, Procopius, the future historian 
 of the war. During the whole of the three months 
 that the voyage lasted, not a single Vandal vessel 
 was sighted which might carry to Carthage the news 
 of the approach of the army. A better proof of the 
 decay of Vandal enterprise could hardly be imagined, 
 for, under Genseric, the pirate corsairs of Carthage 
 had swept the Mediterranean. Belisarius landed at 
 Cape Vada, a desolate strip of beach on the Tripoli 
 border, nine days' march south of Carthage. His 
 advance on the capital was a triumphal progress. 
 172
 
 RES ULTIMyE 
 
 The natives hailed him, as they had the Vandals, 
 as a deliverer from a foreign despotism, and willingly 
 supplied the troops with provisions ; the Church 
 welcomed him as a saviour from savage persecution ; 
 even amongst the Arian Vandals there were many 
 who were unwilling to fight against one who came, 
 nominally at least, to the succour of their rightful 
 King, and the rest were utterly unprepared for organ- 
 ised resistance. On the day after his arrival, the little 
 town of Sullecte opened her gates to him ; the more 
 important cities of Leptis Magna, now a vast mass of 
 ruins on the Oued Lebda, sixty miles west of Tripoli, 
 and Hadrumetum (Sousse), followed her example. 
 Indeed it is not easy to see what else they could have 
 done, for the Vandals had destroyed their walls and 
 fortifications. Gelimer could not come to their assist- 
 ance, for, incredulous as to the coming of the foe, and 
 ignorant of their arrival, he needed time to collect his 
 forces ; above all he wished, if possible, not to risk 
 a battle before the arrival of his brother Zano, whom, 
 with his seasoned troops, he had hurriedly summoned 
 from Sardinia. 
 
 And so Belisarius was able to advance, cautiously 
 indeed, but unhindered and unopposed, leaving behind 
 him a country quiet and content ; men went about 
 their ordinary business, magistrates administered the 
 old laws, only in the new name of Justinian. It was 
 not until he reached the tenth milestone from Carthage 
 {"Ad Decimum") that Belisarius encountered an 
 enemy. Here at last Gelimer fell upon him furiously 
 with what forces he could muster, and so fierce was 
 the onset that the Greek van was beaten back, and 
 for the moment the issue hung in the balance. Then 
 the fall of Ammatas, brother of the King, and a charge 
 of the picked guard led by the general in person, 
 restored the battle, and at last Gelimer fled, utterly 
 routed, towards Numidia," his only consolation in his 
 
 ^75
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 fall being the knowledge that his last orders for the 
 murder of his innocent cousin Hilderic, had been 
 punctually carried out. 
 
 But, however comforting to him, this turned to 
 the advantage of his enemies ; for the death of the 
 King, and the flight of the usurper, left Belisarius free 
 to assume supreme command in the name of Justinian. 
 On the evening after the victory he bivouacked on 
 the field of battle, and on the morrow he entered 
 Carthage. Almost at the same moment the fleet 
 arrived and anchored in the Lake of Tunis. On the 
 eve of St. Cyprian's Day, September 14th, the defeat 
 of the Vandals, and the liberation of Africa from their 
 yoke, were publicly and solemnly proclaimed. 
 
 The first task of Belisarius was to strengthen the 
 fortifications of Carthage, for, though the walls had 
 not been destroyed, they had never been repaired, 
 and a hundred years' neglect had very seriously im- 
 paired their strength. He set about the work with 
 the amazing energy which characterised all his actions 
 and contributed so largely to his success ; a specimen 
 of his work, rude and strong, can still be seen on the 
 south-west corner of the Castro Pretorio at Rome. 
 
 The Vandal aniiy had been dispersed in the fight 
 at Ad Decimum, but not destroyed. Zano hurried 
 home from Sardinia and joined his brother ; and 
 Gelimer, collecting once more his scattered forces, 
 raised his standard at Bulla Regia, near Souk-el-Arba, 
 within a hundred miles of Carthage. Advancing 
 rapidly on the city, a second battle, in which it would 
 almost seem that Belisarius allowed himself to be 
 surprised, was fought at Tricameron, twenty miles 
 from Carthage. Zano was killed and the Vandals 
 again defeated, although, judging from the number 
 of the killed, it does not seem that they pushed home 
 their attack very vigorously, for in this battle, which 
 ended the Vandal rule in Africa, no more than fifty 
 
 174
 
 RES ULTIMO 
 
 Greeks and eight hundred Vandals fell. This time 
 Gelimer accepted his defeat as final ; after a short 
 flight, he surrendered to Pharas, the officer sent in 
 pursuit of him, and was taken to Constantinople. 
 After adorning the triumph of Belisarius, he was given 
 an ample estate in Galatia, where he lived and died 
 in peace and obscurity. 
 
 Thus ended the Vandal dynasty in Africa. Within 
 three months of his arrival, Belisarius was able to send 
 word to Justinian, that Africa was once more a part 
 of the Empire of Rome. 
 
 Master by both land and sea, Belisarius despatched 
 the fleet along the coast as far as to the Pillars of 
 Hercules, to receive the submission of the seaboard 
 towns. To Sardinia and Corsica he sent the head 
 of Zano ; the argument was convincing, and the 
 islands submitted : the pick of the Vandal soldiery 
 he deported to Constantinople, where they were 
 drafted into the armies of the East, fomiing five troops 
 known by the name of Justiniani Vandalici. 
 
 The history of Africa has no surprises. It is like an 
 old-fashioned song — every verse has new words, but 
 the tune is the same. With that unconquerable love 
 of liberty which is born of the mountains and the sea, 
 the natives have always refused to accept a foreign 
 yoke. They welcomed the Romans as deliverers from 
 the Carthaginians, the Vandals from the Romans, the 
 Byzantines from the Vandals ; now the turn of the 
 Byzantines was come. Carthage had to deal with 
 Syphax or Masinissa, Rome with Tacfarinas* and 
 Jugurtha, the Arabs with Koceila and the Kahenah, 
 the French with Abd-el-Kader, Bou Naza, and Bou 
 Bagha. Now the Byzantines met the same spirit in 
 labdas and Koutsina. 
 
 * This African Arminius belonged to the tribe of the Musulamii, 
 south of the Aures. He was able to hold the Roman army in check 
 for seven years, a.d. 17 to 24. Finally he was killed at Aumale.
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 For the moment all seemed quiet, but beneath 
 the external peace the whole country was seething 
 with a discontent, which needed only the departure 
 of Belisarius to bring it to the surface in open rebellion. 
 Generations of luxury, followed by a century of sub- 
 jection, had fatally sapped the vigour of the Roman 
 colonists, and there remained to the cities neither 
 the defence of walls and bulwarks, nor the better 
 defence of stout hearts and the old Roman courage, 
 to save them from the wild hordes which once more 
 swept down from the mountains and up from the 
 desert. 
 
 Overawed for the moment by the genius of Beli- 
 sarius, and recognising that in a measure he was doing 
 their work, the natives had either helped him or at 
 least allowed him to pass unscathed ; now that he 
 was gone, recalled almost in disgrace, the standard 
 of rebellion was at once raised. A soothsayer or 
 sorceress had promised that Africa should be con- 
 quered only by a beardless general, and close inquiry 
 had shown that none of the Byzantine commanders 
 satisfied this requirement. No sooner was Belisarius 
 safely on his way home, than news was brought him 
 that the whole of the Byzacene (Tunisia) and of 
 Numidia was in a blaze. 
 
 Behsarius despatched his most trusty lieutenant 
 to deal as best he might with the situation ; this was 
 the eunuch Solomon, who, strangely enough, satisfied 
 the requirement of the Numidian soothsayer. 
 
 He soon had his hands full, for he had against him 
 an active and mobile enemy, fighting in and for their 
 own country, an enemy whom it was easy to defeat 
 and disperse, but impossible to conquer or permanently 
 subdue. Marching into the Byzacene, he defeated 
 them at Manme ; attacked on his way back, he turned 
 upon them and defeated them again at Burgeon with- 
 out losing a man, and so reached Carthage, only to 
 176
 
 RES ULTIMO 
 
 hear that the king, labdas, had roused Numidia and 
 was destroying the towns. It was then, a.d. 535, that 
 Thamugadi (Timgad) was wrecked and burnt. 
 
 Of the splendid thoroughness and deUberation with 
 which Solomon set himself to protect the country by 
 refortifying the towns, the wonderful system of 
 fortresses which still stud the country bears testimony. 
 
 Meanwhile greater troubles were brewing in Carthage. 
 
 Justinian, like other men, tried to run his wars 
 and colonies on business principles, and make them 
 pay their way ; and so there came to Africa two 
 Imperial commissioners, Tryphon and Eustratius, to 
 assess and collect taxes, and these men, by the exor- 
 bitance of their extortions, soon alienated the only 
 loyal portion of the population. 
 
 Again, many of the soldiers had married Vandal 
 women, and quietly annexed the farms ; this land 
 was now claimed for the Emperor and the occupiers 
 evicted. 
 
 Religious toleration, as distinct from indifference, 
 is but little understood now ; in the sixth century it 
 was undreamt of, and after a century of ruthless 
 persecution, the restored Church was not in a mood 
 to use with moderation the power she had regained. 
 As against the Vandals this did not much matter, 
 but, unfortunately, in the army of Solomon there were 
 some four thousand Heruli who were also Arians, and 
 were not at all disposed to accept the alternative of 
 either conforming or being deprived of all religious 
 observances whatever ; Christmas had tried their 
 temper, and now the still greater festival of Easter 
 was approaching. 
 
 To crown all his troubles, four hundred of the 
 Vandal horsemen who had been deported by Belisarius 
 mutinied at Lesbos, seized a vessel, and compelled the 
 captain to land them near Carthage. 
 
 A plot was hatched in the palace to murder Solomon 
 
 M 177
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 in church on Easter Day, a.d. 536. Through a mis- 
 understanding, or, as Procopius says, " restrained by 
 something Divine," it failed, but a mutiny broke out 
 amongst the troops, which desolated Africa for ten 
 years. Solomon was compelled to take sanctuary in 
 the cathedral, and finally to escape by sea to Syracuse, 
 to invoke the aid of Belisarius. 
 
 In his absence the mutineers sacked Carthage and 
 retired to Bule, where they elected Stotzas, a man of 
 great capacity, as their commander. They then 
 returned and besieged the city with ten thousand men. 
 
 Belisarius was engaged on what was to be the 
 crowning exploit of his wonderful career, the conquest 
 of the Gothic kingdom of Italy and its union with 
 the Eastern Empire of Constantinople. He had but 
 little time and few men to spare ; still, he could not 
 stand calmly on one side and see the rain of his work 
 in Africa. With a handful of men he at once set sail 
 for Carthage with Solomon. He arrived in the night. 
 When, in the morning, the news of his coming reached 
 the besieging army, the magic of his name was enough. 
 Some of the mutineers returned to their allegiance ; 
 the rest raised the siege and precipitately fled. Getting 
 together a force of two thousand men, Belisarius 
 started in hot pursuit, overtook them at Membressa 
 (Medjez-el-Bab) and inflicted a crushing defeat. Stotzas 
 fled into Numidia, and Belisarius returned to Sicily, 
 leaving two of his officers, Ildiger and Theodoras, in 
 charge pending the arrival of Germanus, nephew of 
 the Emperor, whom Justinian sent as Commander in 
 Africa. 
 
 Germanus was worthy of the difficult trust. He 
 took up at once the pursuit of Stotzas, defeated him 
 in Numidia, and drove him back into Mauretania ; 
 there, protected by a false report of his death, he 
 remained in peace, married the daughter of a local 
 prince, and, for a time, disappeared from history. 
 178
 
 RES ULTIM.E 
 
 But, like Belisarius, Germanus was not allowed time 
 to finish the work he began so well. After a couple of 
 years, a.d. 539, he was recalled, and the chief command 
 given once more to Solomon, who again showed him- 
 self unwise and weak as an administrator, though 
 beyond all question more than capable as a soldier. 
 
 In the following year two of his nephews, Cynis 
 and Sergius, sons of his brother Boccus, came out to 
 join him, and were most unwisely entrusted with the 
 government of Pentapolis and Tripoli. A deputation 
 of eighty Africans, who came to Leptis to tender the 
 submission of their tribe, were treacherously murdered 
 by Sergius, at a banquet given in their honour, and 
 the whole country rose to avenge them. Solomon 
 hastened from Carthage to the assistance of his 
 nephew, but was surprised and killed in battle near 
 Theveste (Tebessa). 
 
 In spite of the indignant protest of Antalas, an 
 African chieftain who, after fighting valiantly against 
 the Vandals, had been made the enemy of the Greeks 
 by the murder of his brother, Sergius was appointed 
 Governor in the place of his uncle. 
 
 The universal disgust and discontent brought Stotzas 
 on the scene again, only, however, to be defeated 
 and killed in battle by the hand of John, the son of 
 Sismolus, who had succeeded Solomon. John himself 
 was killed, a few days afterwards, by a fall from his 
 horse.* 
 
 Too late, Sergius was recalled, and Areobondas, a 
 weak man, unused to war and unskilled in affairs, was 
 made Exarch ; his incapacity was atoned for by 
 his marriage with the niece of the Emperor. He 
 came only to be murdered by the chief of his guard, 
 Gontharis, who himself was murdered by Artaban 
 
 * This is the account given by Procopius (ii. 18), who adds that 
 John and Stotzas were personal enemies. According to Gibbon 
 (vide p. 202), John was killed by Stotzas ; according to Corippns, 
 by the standard-bearer of Stotzas. 
 
 179
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 after a reign of thirty days. Artaban, an Armenian 
 prince, rebelled, was first imprisoned, then pardoned, 
 and finally entrusted with the command of the troops 
 despatched to Italy, and distinguished himself in the 
 war in Sicily. 
 
 After the death of Gontharis, another John, " the 
 brother of Pappas," was appointed Governor, a.d. 545. 
 He succeeded in tranquillising Africa, and, with the 
 help of the native chief, Koutsina, repulsed an inroad 
 of the Leucathians from Tripoli ; and so, at last, says 
 Procopius, the Africans, " being very few in number 
 and very poor," had a time of peace. 
 
 But these continued and devastating wars were 
 fast reducing the unhappy country to a desert. The 
 Vandals, who, it is estimated, numbered one hundred 
 and sixty thousand men who drew the sword, besides 
 women and children, had been annihilated ; the 
 number of natives who had fallen in the truceless and 
 merciless war was far larger, and to these must be 
 added the Romans and Byzantines who had been slain 
 in the savage reprisals of a desperate foe. 
 
 When Procopius landed near Tripoli with Belisarius, 
 and marched with him through Byzacene to Carthage, 
 he spoke with admiration of the populous cities, the 
 teeming countryside, the commerce, the industries, of 
 which he saw proofs on all sides. In twenty years 
 the whole of that busy scene had been reduced to 
 silent solitude. The numbers who fell have been 
 estimated at five millions, and neither Gibbon nor 
 any other historian has seen reason to consider this 
 an exaggeration. For a hundred years longer the 
 Greek Emperors maintained a nominal empire over 
 an Africa which had shrunk until it included little 
 more than Carthage, a few cities, and a fringe of 
 territory near the sea. Then the flood of Arab invasion 
 burst in, and the sun of the mighty dynasty of Rome 
 in Africa set for ever. 
 180
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 a byzantine fortress 
 Tebessa 
 
 Very wonderful are the Roman ruins, the cadavera 
 oppidiim, which He scattered broadcast over Tunisia, 
 and, in a lesser degree, Algeria also. But they are the 
 result of a settled occupation extending over a period of 
 some two or three hundred years. Even more extra- 
 ordinary are the numberless fortresses which the 
 Byzantines erected in little more than one-tenth of 
 that time. 
 
 The Vandals had destroyed the defences of the 
 cities, and this ruin it was that the Byzantines set 
 themselves to remedy. To rebuild the walls in the time 
 at their disposal was manifestly impossible ; equally 
 impossible was it to leave the cities defenceless ; 
 for no place was safe from attack unless it was able 
 to resist it. To be even moderately secure from con- 
 tinual forays, the whole country had to be studded 
 with fortresses ; and this was done. It is hard to 
 find the remains of any considerable town or village 
 without its Byzantine fortress. Many of these strong- 
 holds exist still ; a few are to-day in use for their 
 original purposes. The Arab towns of Tebessa and 
 Mila, and the French camps at Guelma and Setif, are 
 still sheltered by the old Greek walls. Strong, stem, 
 and business-like, hardly injured by their life of fifteen 
 centuries, they give an exalted opinion of the military 
 skill of their architects and of the thoroughness of 
 their work. 
 
 Where it was possible, existing buildings were 
 
 i8i
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 utilised and adapted to their new uses. At Sufetula 
 (Sbeitla) the vast enceinte of the Capitol was made 
 the nucleus of the defences of the city ; little was 
 needed here except to block up the openings in the 
 walls, and make embrasures. Other buildings in the 
 neighbourhood of the great temple were turned into 
 subsidiary redoubts. In the same way the smaller 
 Capitol at Dougga became the keep of an enceinte 
 which shut in the town. At Tebessa a large part* 
 of the city was re-walled, and a great monastery 
 close by was converted into a cavalry barrack. At 
 Ammoedara (Haidra), in addition to a very important 
 fortress, a splendid triumphal arch was enclosed with 
 walls and made a detached keep. Elsewhere, as at 
 Thubursicum Bure (Teboursouk), although the fortress 
 was new, two triumphal arches were incorporated in 
 the walls. 
 
 For the most part, the buildings were very much 
 on the same plan : a quadrangle, more or less ex- 
 tended and regular, with lofty towers at the angles, 
 projecting outwards, not inwards, as with the Roman 
 work at Lambaesis (Lambessa). Other towns pro- 
 tected the walls at intervals, and flanked the gates ; 
 the walls were thick enough to allow of a path- 
 way protected by battlements, and approached by 
 staircases leaning against the wall, being carried 
 along the top. The interior was occupied with the 
 various buildings needed by the soldiers, especially a 
 church, without which no Byzantine fortress was 
 complete. 
 
 One other thing'^they all have in common : they 
 were built of old materials. The Byzantines had 
 neither time nor money to quarry new. Nor was 
 it necessary. The stones were there ready to be used. 
 There was no need to imitate the Barberini, worse 
 than the Barbari, and many another Roman Pope 
 
 * Probably about one-third. 
 182

 
 A BYZANTINE FORTRESS 
 
 or noble, and destroy temple or colosseum in order 
 to steal the stones or marbles. The old Pagan 
 temples were in ruins, the Donatists had wrecked 
 the Christian churches, the Vandals had pulled down 
 the city walls — all the necessary materials were there, 
 ready at hand. 
 
 The most perfect detached fortress, for the defence 
 of an un walled city, is that at Ammoedara (Haidra). It 
 stands on the southern slope of a steep hill, and rests 
 upon the bank of a perennial stream, the Oued Haidra. 
 The river was crossed by a bridge of a single arch of 
 a hundred feet span. The river wall was restored 
 m the nineteenth century. The form of the fortress 
 was a very irregular quadrangle of about one hundred 
 and twenty yards by two hundred and twenty. The 
 wall was strengthened with ten towers, all square 
 except one, which was round. There were several 
 gates : the most important, namely, the great 
 entrance from the north, and the water-gate to 
 the south, were protected with towers ; others were 
 mere unprotected posterns. As usual, a pathway ran 
 along the whole circuit of the walls, as at Chester. 
 Against the western wall stood the church ; it con- 
 sisted of a nave and aisles. The porch was flanked 
 by a lofty tower. A large space on the north-east 
 comer, the only angle where there was no tower, 
 was partly, if not entirely, roofed in, and served as 
 the Pretorium or Forum or market — possibly as all 
 three. 
 
 The fortress which defended Timgad, though not 
 so large, is almost equally perfect, and much more 
 accessible. 
 
 More important and perfect still, a testimony 
 to its strategical value, is the walled city of Theveste 
 (Tebessa) on the southern slope of the Aures. It 
 was the first place fortified by the Third Legion, to 
 protect the line of communication between the Hodra 
 
 183
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 and the sea. Rebuilt in a.d. 535 by the eunuch 
 Solomon, it is still strongly garrisoned by the French. 
 On this point all the great roads converge, from 
 Lambaesis and Mascula (Khenchela) to the west, 
 from the desert to the south, from Haidra and Central 
 Tunisia to the east, from Carthage and Cirta through 
 Thagaste (South Ahras) and Madauros (Mdaourouch) 
 to the north. 
 
 From the very first, even after the headquarters 
 of the Legion had been moved to Lambsesis, its im- 
 portance has remained but little impaired. Standing 
 at a height of 3,000 feet above the sea on the gentle 
 slopes of the still wooded mountains of the Aures, 
 it commands a vast upland plain, once of great 
 fertility, which stretches in a great semicircle to the 
 north-east and north-west. To-day its chief exports 
 are half a (esparto grass) and phosphates, immense 
 deposits of which have been discovered in the hills 
 between it and Haidra. 
 
 The journey by the light railway which runs from 
 Thagaste (South Ahras) to Tebessa is interesting 
 and, in parts, beautiful. For the first few miles the 
 little train winds on and up through the gorge of 
 the Medjerba, between lofty rocks clothed with oaks, 
 elms, and cork trees, with occasional grassy hollows, 
 a pleasant change from the arid, treeless wastes to 
 which the traveller is accustomed. A run, or saunter, 
 of twenty miles brings us to Mdaourouch, and the open 
 plain begins. To the left, at a distance of about 
 three miles, lie the important ruins of Madauros, 
 the birthplace of the satirist Apuleius ; a beautiful 
 Roman mausoleum, the remains of vast thermae, 
 and of a great Byzantine fortress, still mark the spot. 
 Here the river dwindles to a rivulet, and the rivulet 
 to a trickle, and at last vanishes. We have reached 
 the watershed, and soon another trickle tells us that 
 we are by the source of the Mellegue. Then the 
 184
 
 A BYZANTINE FORTRESS 
 
 line, after passing the considerable ruins of another 
 town, not yet identified, runs round the base of some 
 strange splintered mountain crags which rise abruptly 
 from the plain. The summit of one of them is pierced 
 by a curious circular hole, like that at Torghatten, in 
 Norway. 
 
 At last, at the foot of the wooded range of the 
 Aures, Tebessa comes in sight, lonely and forsaken 
 in its great circle of walls, like the desolate little 
 town of Aigues Mortes from which St. Louis sailed 
 on his last crusade, to die at Tunis. 
 
 The town itself is a shabby little place, but its 
 monuments are of profound interest. Chief amongst 
 them are the great encircling walls which Solomon 
 erected for its defence. The part enclosed, like 
 Timgad, which is of almost the same size, is nearly 
 a square, three hundred and sixty yards by three 
 hundred and ten. The walls, which average thirty 
 to thirty-three feet in height and seven feet in thick- 
 ness, are strengthened by fourteen towers of an 
 average height of fifty-live to sixty feet ; the pro- 
 tected footway which runs along the top is reached, 
 as usual, by staircases built against the wall. The 
 south wall has, in part, been built upon the scena 
 of the theatre. The pulpitum still remains almost 
 uninjured ; upon it are heaped huge drums of the 
 marble columns. 
 
 There are three gates. That in the north wall, 
 known as the Old Gate, the Bab-el-Khedima, is 
 formed by the splendid arch of Caracalla. Over 
 our heads as we pass through it into the town is an 
 inscription which relates how Solomon, " the most 
 glorious and very excellent Master of the Soldiers, 
 Praefect of Libya and Patrician," built the wall and 
 fortified the city. He was himself kiUed in battle 
 in the neighbourhood. Another inscription in the 
 interior of the arch records that it was erected in 
 
 185
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 accordance with the will of Cornelius Egrilianus, 
 at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces 
 (£2,680). In the east wall a curiously narrow machico- 
 lated gateway, flanked by two boldly projecting 
 towers, bears the name of Solomon. To the west the 
 Constantine Gate led to the circus. The main thorough- 
 fare lay between these gates. The south wall has 
 no opening. It has been calculated that the work of 
 erecting the wall and towers would occupy eight 
 hundred men for two years. 
 
 There is no trace of any fosse or moat. Evidently 
 the builders considered that such walls were a suffi- 
 cient defence against any attack that the wild tribes 
 might be able to make upon the town. 
 
 Just inside the walls, and close to the Old Gate, 
 is the Temple of Minerva — so called. The Naos, 
 resting on a lofty podium, and approached by a 
 flight of twenty steps, is very perfect. In date and 
 beauty it lies between the austere little Temple 
 of Fortuna Virilis at Rome and the lovely Maison 
 Carrie at Nimes, to which it is frequently compared. 
 In style it is tetrastyle pseudo-pteripteral stylobate ; 
 that is, it rests upon a platform, and has four pillars 
 in front, which are not contiimed round the cella 
 except as engaged pilasters. Round the Naos runs 
 an architrave, divided into square panels and decorated 
 with ox-heads and eagles with outstretched wings 
 holding serpents in their claws. The attic is somewhat 
 heavily carved with garlands, cornucopias, trophies, 
 masks, images of gods. Victories, and so on. The 
 pediment and roof, if they ever existed, have perished. 
 The building has been put to strange uses. In turns 
 a soap manufactory, an office of the engineers, a 
 tribunal for the Moslems (now installed in the neigh- 
 bouring buildings), a canteen, a mihtary club, and a 
 church, it is now a museum. 
 
 Leaving the town by the Old Gate, a long, straight, 
 
 1 86
 
 ARCH UF CARACALLA, TEBPISSA.
 
 A BYZANTINE FORTRESS 
 
 dusty road, lined with trees, seems to stretch out into 
 inlinity. Following it for some six hundred yards, 
 we come to the ruins of the great monastery, the most 
 important ecclesiastical monument in North Africa. 
 The day was hot and the sky cloudless. The natives 
 whom we met coming into the town with their laden 
 donkeys, or passed sitting in the sun at the door of 
 their gourbis, regarded us with the solemn, silent 
 scrutiny which is all they commonly vouchsafe to 
 infidels, unless there is money to be made. Happily 
 for us, they were too lazy or too distrustful of their 
 French, to press their services upon us as guides, and 
 so, in a peace which was as delightful as it was unusual, 
 we reached the vast mass of grey ruins which we had 
 come so far to see.* 
 
 It lay to the left of the road, surrounded by a 
 desolate plain stretching to the desolate mountains, 
 itself more desolate even than they. 
 
 What must have been once a grand monumental 
 gateway opens upon a broad terrace about sixty 
 yards long ; to the left hes the cloister, to the right 
 the church. The terrace is closed by a second gate- 
 way ; passing through this, we find to our left the 
 refectory, to our right the other monastic buildings. 
 The whole was enclosed by a wall, strengthened by seven 
 towers, projecting inwards. Against the wall, as well as 
 against the church, were built the cells of the monks. 
 
 The cloister ran round three sides of a square, 
 at a height of about six feet above the ground ; along 
 the fourth side ran the terrace and the facade of the 
 church. The garth, as we should call it in England, 
 was divided into four by two paths which intersected 
 in the middle. It appears that these four squares 
 
 * After careful examination of the ruins, the account given in 
 the text seems to be the most satisfactory. Some writers, however, 
 are of opinion that the " Cloister " was a market, the four " squares " 
 pens for cattle, and the " Refectory " always and only a stable. 
 
 187
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 were basins which could be flooded, at any rate during 
 the great heats of the summer. 
 
 On the other side of the terrace, a flight of fourteen 
 steps led up to the pillared portico of the great 
 church. Through this we pass into the atrium, 
 surrounded by a colonnade. In the centre was a 
 quatrefoil fountain with pillars supporting a dome. 
 To the right a doorway leads into the baptistery. 
 Elsewhere, especially at Timgad, the baptistery forms 
 a very important and beautiful feature of the church. 
 Here it has been reduced, by exigencies of space, 
 to little more than a passage, with a tiny circular 
 font not more than five feet in diameter. 
 
 From the atrium three gateways open into the 
 church, which is of grand proportions. The nave is 
 separated from its aisles by an arcade of ten arches 
 resting upon square piers in front of which were 
 marble columns. Above this a similar arcade opened 
 upon a gallery, as at St. Agnese at Rome. Above 
 this rose the clerestory. 
 
 The last three bays of the nave, enclosed by a 
 cancellus, or screen, formed the sanctuary, in the 
 middle of which, resting on a step or platform which 
 still remains, stood the altar, probably of wood. 
 Beyond the nave, two lateral flights of three steps 
 led to the semicircular apse or presbytery. Round 
 this were ranged the seats for the chapter, with the 
 throne for the bishop in the centre. It is the usual 
 basilican arrangement, similar to that at Torcello, 
 so nobly pictured by Ruskin in his Stones of Venice. 
 Other even more familiar examples are to be found 
 in St. Ambrogio at Milan or St. Clemente at Rome. 
 
 The mosaic floor of the church, though, now, terribly 
 damaged, must have been of very great beauty, and 
 if, as M. Alb. Ballu believes, the walls and vaulting 
 were also enriched with marble panelling and mosaics, 
 the effect must have been extremely rich.
 
 A BYZANTINE FORTRESS 
 
 On the right-hand side, on entering the church, a 
 broad flight of twelve steps led down into a beautiful 
 trefoiled chapel or trichonim similar to that in the 
 Damous-el-Karita at Carthage. Many tombs have 
 been found in it, some below, others several feet 
 above, the original mosaic floor of the chapel. One 
 of these, a fine sarcophagus of marble, now forms the 
 high altar of the modem church ; another, as the 
 inscription tells us, was the tomb of Bishop Palladius, 
 who died a.d. 488. As at Carthage, the name of 
 the saint to whom this beautiful chapel was dedi- 
 cated is unknown. Doubtless he was buried in the 
 centre, beneath the altar. 
 
 To the right a large room or sacristy runs parallel 
 to the atrium, leaving, as already said, a very narrow 
 space between the two for the baptistery. 
 
 All these buildings belong to the fourth century. 
 At the close of that century, Augustine, who had 
 become acquainted with the monastic life at Milan, 
 built a little cell for himself and his friends Alypius 
 and Evodius on an estate of his own at Thagaste 
 (Souk Ahras). Afterwards he founded the first 
 monastery in Africa at Hippo ; and at about the 
 same time — that is, early in the fifth century — mon- 
 astic buildings began to gather round the basilica 
 at Theveste. Cells for the monks were built against 
 the walls of the church, as in the Temple of Solomon, 
 and then was built also the great hall or refectory 
 which ran by the side of the cloister. 
 
 If, on entering the monastery through the great 
 gateway, instead of turning to the left into the 
 cloister, or to the right into the church, we pass on 
 through the second gateway beyond, we find on 
 our left a vast and very splendid hall extending the 
 whole length of the cloister — that is, about one 
 hundred and eighty feet. Two rows of arches resting 
 on square piers divided it into three equal aisles. From 
 
 189
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 each of the sides, ten walls ran out to a distance of 
 six feet, thus dividing this part of the hall into cubicles 
 or cells. All this suggests that the building was a 
 refectory or library or conversorium — perhaps all three. 
 
 Down the middle of each of the side aisles runs 
 a low wall about three feet high, divided into par- 
 titions of about three feet by upright stones of the 
 same height : these were kept in their places by a 
 course of stones resting upon the top, and stretching 
 from one to the other. The space between these 
 uprights is hollowed out into a trough or manger ; 
 and through the edge of the uprights, sometimes 
 through the mangers also, holes have been pierced, 
 worn smooth on the inside by the friction of the 
 ropes or halters. There are eighty of these stalls ; 
 forty on each side. 
 
 That these are stalls for horses is clear : a pre- 
 cisely similar arrangement is to be found in a house 
 at Timgad. But it is hard to believe that the hall 
 was built as a stable. If it was not, when and by 
 whom were the alterations made ? Everything seems 
 to support the view that it was the work of the 
 Byzantines. Tebessa, like Timgad, was a stronghold 
 of the Donatists, and when Solomon came in a.d. 535 
 he doubtless found the monastery deserted and in 
 ruins. As he rebuilt the walls of the town, and made 
 it once more a fortress, so he turned the ruined 
 monastery into a cavalry barrack. The basilica he 
 respected, and, as it was too ruinous to use, and too 
 large to restore, he erected a small church by the side 
 of the trefoiled chapel. The refectory he utilised as 
 a stable, the cells of the monks as barracks for his 
 soldiers. 
 
 190
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH, A.D. 622-I453 
 
 It is said that Schiller once thought of taking 
 Mohammed as the subject of a tragedy, treating 
 him, as Browning did Paracelsus, and George Eliot 
 Savonarola, as a man who began with an honest 
 enthusiasm and faith in himself and in his mission, 
 but was driven on, step by step, by the force of 
 circumstances and the pressure of unwise followers, 
 into extremes which he never contemplated, and 
 which make it hard to decide whether he deceived 
 others only or himself also. 
 
 In any case, it is clear that the idea of a universal 
 religion, and of a world evangelised by fire and sword, 
 was never dreamt of by Mohammed. He began 
 simply as a reformer. There was nothing new about 
 him, except his enthusiasm for the old. His heart 
 was stirred when he saw his people given up to 
 idolatry. His rejection at Mecca em.bittered him, and 
 the weapons used against him, to drive him out, were 
 the only ones by which he could secure his return. 
 Far from receiving the new evangel with enthusiasm, 
 the Arabs yielded reluctantly, and under compulsion, 
 and, on the death of the Prophet in A.D. 632, rose 
 at once in revolt against his successor. 
 
 Mohammed left no son, and the people of Medina 
 elected Abou Bekr, father of his favourite wife, 
 Ayishah, to fill the vacant post, under the title of 
 Khalifah or Successor. To combat the rebellious 
 tribes, Abou Bekr formed his followers into a regular 
 army, and crushed the insurrection. Realising that 
 
 191
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the simplest and surest way of ensuring the supremacy 
 of Islam was to employ the wild, unruly warriors 
 elsewhere, he launched them upon the decaying 
 empires of Constantinople and Persia, " torn to pieces 
 by war, enervated by luxury, and gangrened with 
 corruption." The congenial employment of fighting, 
 and the prospect of booty in this world and paradise 
 in the next, repaid the Arabs for their submission to 
 the Law and Prophet of Mecca. 
 
 On August 22, A.D. 634, the day of the fall of 
 Damascus, Abou Bekr died. Oinar ibn al Khattab, 
 father of the Prophet's third wife, Hafsah, succeeded 
 him. He was the first to offer prayers openly at 
 the Kaaba, and to collect the Prophet's scattered 
 writings into the Koran. His declaration of policy 
 on his election deserves to be repeated. " By God, 
 he that is weakest among you shall be in my sight 
 the strongest until I have vindicated for him his 
 rights, but him that is strongest will I treat as weakest 
 until he complies with the laws." To him was due 
 the great spread of Islamism. His generals drove 
 the Greeks out of Syria and Phoenicia, and by the 
 conquest of al-Iragan, completed the overthrow of 
 the Empire of Persia. At the same time Amr ibn al 
 Asi conquered Egypt, with the aid of the Coptic 
 Christians, and signahsed his victory by the destruc- 
 tion of the priceless library at Alexandria. " If these 
 books contradict the Koran, they are false ; if they 
 agree with it, they are useless." The argument was 
 unanswerable, and books were burnt. 
 
 Omar was murdered in a.h. 23 (a.d, 644). His 
 dying words are his best epitaph : "It had gone hard 
 with my soul if I had not been a Moslem." 
 
 Masters of Egypt, with an appetite which grew 
 by eating, the wild hordes pressed on triumphantly 
 to the Maghreb with a zeal in which religion had 
 but little place. Their forays were conducted with 
 192
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 the savagery which came naturally to them, but 
 there was none of that fanatical hatred of Christianity 
 which the bigotry of the Turks has taught us to 
 associate with Islamism ; each tribe they attacked 
 was perfectly free to resist, or to adopt Islamism, or 
 to pay tribute. 
 
 The Berbers, as they now began to be called, had 
 never been remarkable for the strength of their re- 
 ligious convictions, though they occasionally showed 
 themselves capable of an exalted enthusiasm for some 
 congenial heresy or schism. Perhaps it would be 
 more true to say that they were willing to adopt 
 any religion outwardly, as long as, under its shield, 
 they were able to preserve the traditional faith, and, 
 in part at least, the traditional rites of their fore- 
 fathers. The religion of Rome had been easily 
 absorbed. Hammon became Saturn, and Tanith 
 Coelestis. Then had come Christianity with its 
 alluring doctrine that within the fold there was to 
 be " neither barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free," and 
 its supreme attraction that it was considered to 
 represent disloyalty to the Emperor. But the quite 
 sobriety of the Catholic faith had never possessed 
 such charms for them as the violent extremes of 
 Montanism, and the wild extravagances of Donatism 
 and of the Circumcelliones. Then had appeared the 
 Vandals, and their easy Arianism was a welcome 
 change from what had become the official religion 
 of their Roman masters. Finally the Byzantine in- 
 vaders had brought back orthodoxy and striven to 
 enforce it with most unwise severity. 
 
 Paganism, Catholicism, Montanism, Donatism, 
 Arianism, Orthodoxy — each in turn had been taught 
 as final and complete truth. What wonder if, be- 
 wildered and perplexed, the Berbers bowed to each 
 just so far as necessary, and clung quietly and faith- 
 fully to their old beliefs — as they cling still. 
 
 N 193
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 In the seventli century, the Arianisni of the 
 Vandals, on the whole, held the ground, and between 
 this and Islam the differences were not vital. Both 
 agreed in the first half of the great confession of 
 faith : "La ilaha ill Allah," " There is no God, or 
 Divinity, but God." The second half was of secondary 
 importance : " Mohammed Rassoul Allah," " Mo- 
 hammed is the prophet or apostle of God." With 
 regard to the first half, the way was made very easy. 
 In the Koran composed by the King-Prophet, Calih' 
 ben T'arif, for the use of the Borghouata Berbers, the 
 name of God appears, not as Allah, but as lakouch, 
 or Bakouch. Thus, " In the name of Allah," appears 
 as " Bism en lakouch," and the great formula, " Allah 
 Akbar," " God is great," is rendered " Mok'k'ah 
 lakouch," and so on. And this continued until the 
 destruction of the tribe in the eleventh century. 
 
 Nor was this all. Islamism practised the great 
 doctrine of the equality of all men within the fold, 
 which Christianity had contented itself with teaching. 
 Every Moslem was a free man, could hold property, 
 and was exempt from taxation. Race privileges, 
 class distinctions, alien landlordism, government by 
 foreigners, imperial taxation, all were swept away ; 
 while unlimited booty and glory were offered freely 
 to all who, under the Prophet's banner, would march 
 to the pillage of Europe. 
 
 Still, tlie resistance of the Berbers to the Arab 
 invasion was desperate and prolonged, and we are 
 told that " they apostatised twelve times." Even now 
 the Mohammedanism of the mountaineers of the Aures 
 and Djurdjura is of a very free and unorthodox type, 
 and they have always dealt with the civil regulations 
 of the Koran exactly as they have chosen. 
 
 On the murder of Omar, Othman ibn Affan, the 
 husband of two of the Prophet's daughters, was 
 elected Khalifah, against the vehement protest of 
 194
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 Ali, the Prophet's adopted son, and the husband of 
 his daughter Fatimah, one of the four perfect women, 
 and the only one through whom the direct descent 
 from the Prophet was maintained. But Othman had 
 been elected by the six emigrants appointed for the 
 purpose by Omar, and all opposition was in vain ; but the 
 dissensions between the two led eventually to the division 
 of Islam into the two great sects of " Sunnis," or " Those 
 of the Path," and " Shi'ahs," or " Followers " of AH. 
 
 In the year of Othman's succession, a.d. 644, Amr 
 ibn el Asi seized Tripoli. Three years later, a.d. 647, 
 under the command of Abd Allah ibn ez Zobeir, the 
 Arab host poured into Ifrikya, through the south of 
 Tunisia. The Prefect Gregory, or Djoredjir, as the 
 Arabs called him — much as the Spaniards called 
 Hawkins Achines, or Drake Draco — had declared his 
 independence of Constantinople, and assumed the 
 purple.* 
 
 The battle which practically ended the Byzantine 
 rule was fought near Sufetula (Sbeitla) ; Gregory 
 was completely defeated and killed, and Sbeitla was 
 taken and sacked. " The daughter of Djoredjir had 
 accompanied him, and was amongst the prisoners : 
 she fell to the lot of a man of Medina. ' For the 
 future,' said he, as he lifted her on a camel, ' you will 
 have to walk a-foot, and wait on other women.' 
 ' What is the dog saying ? ' she asked. When she 
 was told, she threw herself from the camel and was 
 killed."! The natives took no part in the battle, 
 but stood beholding. 
 
 The surrounding towns purchased immunity with 
 a heavy ransom : no surer way could have been 
 
 * At least so we may assume, since the historian Theophanes 
 gives him the title of " Turannos." 
 
 t The sentences printed in inverted commas in this chapter are, 
 for the most part, condensed from the summaries of the chronicles 
 given by Victor Piquet in his Civilisations de I'Afrique du Nord.
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 devised of inviting fresh inroads than this of pro- 
 claiming that they were rich enough to pay, but too 
 cowardly to fight. However, for the moment it 
 succeeded, Abd Allah retired with his booty, and 
 the land had peace for thirty years. The causes of 
 this interval of rest are not far to seek. 
 
 Things were not going well at headquarters ; the 
 cause of the trouble seems to have been the intrigues 
 of a woman. 
 
 In his old age Mohammed had fallen completely 
 under the influence of his favourite wife, Ayishah, 
 daughter of Abou Bekr, whom he had married 
 when she was only nine years old. An " injiista 
 noverca," with a childless woman's unreasoning 
 jealousy of the more fortunate Fatimah, she seems 
 to have set herself at every turn to exclude Ali and 
 his sons Hassan and Husein from the Khalifate. 
 Hitherto she had succeeded, but when, in due 
 course, a.d. 655, Othman also was murdered by her 
 own brother Mohammed, Ali became the obvious, 
 if not the only, candidate, and was duly elected at 
 ]\Iedina. In furious anger Ayishah fled to Damascus, 
 taking with her the blood-stained cloak of Othman, 
 to which she fastened the fingers of his wife, the 
 daughter of the Prophet, who had been murdered 
 with him. Boldly, and not without some reason, 
 accusing Ali of, at least, complicity in the double 
 murder, she stirred up the Governor of Damascus, 
 Othman ben Mu'awiyah, of the family of Omaiyah, 
 to revolt and proclaim himself Khalifah. Othman 
 needed little pressing. After some inconclusive arbi- 
 tration, war was declared, and AH was defeated and 
 murdered, a.d. 661. His son Hassan, elected as his 
 successor, had the wisdom to decline the dangerous 
 honour, and retired to Medina.* This, however, did 
 
 * It is for this reason that, in the picture of the Perfect KhaUfahs, 
 Hassan is represented on foot, and with no title of " Sidi " like 
 the rest. 
 
 196
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 not save hiin from being also murdered by Yazed, son 
 of Mu'awiyah ; as was also his brother Hiisein. 
 
 In twenty-eight years four out of five Khalifahs 
 had been murdered, the authentic line of Perfect 
 Khalifahs was extinguished, and the direct line of 
 descent from the Prophet cut short. Damascus became 
 the capital instead of Mecca, and Mu'awiyah founded 
 there the hereditary dynasty of the Omeiades. His 
 followers adopted and practically usurped the name 
 of Sunnites, leaving to the followers of Ali the name 
 of Shi'ahs. It has been computed that now the 
 Snnnites numiber one hundred and forty-five millions, 
 and the Shi'ahs fifteen. 
 
 From this period date some of the main trunk 
 schisms of Islam : — 
 
 The Sunnites, " They of the Path," or Orthodox, 
 a name identified with the Om.eiades. They took their 
 name from Othman ibn Affan, of the family of Beni 
 Omeia : it was to this family that the Khalifahs of 
 Damascus belonged. 
 
 Shi'ahs, or " Followers," of AH. These rejected 
 aU Imams (they do not use the word Khalifah) except 
 the direct descendants of Mohammed through Ali 
 and Fatimah. 
 
 They acknowledged twelve Imams. The last, 
 Mohammed, son of Al Hasan al Askari, disappeared 
 mysteriously down a well in the courtyard of a house 
 at Hillah near Baghdad, whence he will return again 
 to be the Mahdi or Guide, who, as the Prophet fore- 
 told, will appear before the Day of Judgment. 
 
 Kharedjites, or Dissenters. These were the sol- 
 diers of Ali who deserted him when he submitted 
 his claim to arbitration. They recognised only the 
 first three Khalifahs. The Berbers adopted this form 
 of schism in a body. 
 
 OuAHBiTES, a name of the Kharedjites, from the 
 chief Abd Allah ben Ouahb. 
 
 197
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 These were divided into two other sects — 
 
 Ibadites, from their founder, Abd Allah ben 
 Ibad ; and 
 
 SoFRiTES, from their founder, Abd Allah ben Sofar. 
 
 Other sects will emerge as we go on. Amongst 
 the seventy-three sects of Islam, thirty-two are 
 assigned to the Shi'ahs, 
 
 Now that these domestic differences had been 
 adjusted, the attack on North Africa began again. 
 In A.D. 678 (a.h. 46), Okba ibn Nafi, the fiercest 
 of all Moslem fighters, was launched against the 
 Byzacene. " Marching against the country of the 
 Ouezzan, Okba cut off an ear of their chief, saying 
 to him, ' It is a reminder ; when you put your hand 
 to your ear you will remember that it is not well to 
 fight against Arabs.' Then Okba overran the Fezzan, 
 and reached the country of the Harouar ; he cut off a 
 finger of their chief, as a reminder, and imposed a 
 tribute of 360 slaves." Stopped in his advance to the 
 west by the sand, " he returned to the country of the 
 Harouar, whom he found sleeping in their underground 
 dwellings. He cat the throats of all the men of war, 
 seized their children and riches, and went his way." 
 
 Another swarm of Arabs under the command of 
 Maouia ben Hadaidj advanced north, and attacked 
 Djohera (Hadrumetmn or Sousse). " The Emperor 
 of the East sent thirty thousand soldiers to defend 
 the country ; they landed at Djohera. Maouia 
 marched against the place, and, when he arrived 
 in sight of the ramparts, alighted from his horse, 
 and offered certain prayers before his troops. The 
 Byzantines were at first filled with astonishment, 
 then they advanced against the Moslems. Maouia 
 was still prostrate on the ground when the first 
 infidels approached ; then he mounted his horse 
 and charged the enemy, whom he cut to pieces. The 
 soldiers of Byzantium then re-embarked." 
 198
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 Okba was invested by the Khalifah with the 
 government of the new province ; he conquered 
 Byzacene, and founded Kairouan on the spot where 
 Sidi Sahab, one of the " Associates " of the Prophet, 
 had been buried ; thus for the first time the Arabs 
 had a settlement in the new country. 
 
 But as yet their foothold was very insecure. The 
 Byzantines were conquered, and the Berbers had, 
 as usual, watched the conflict with a benevolent 
 aloofness and unconcern. Now their turn was coming, 
 and they at once prepared for a desperate resistance. 
 Okba had been recalled by the Khahfah and replaced 
 by one of his rivals, El Mohadjer, who began his 
 work by destroying Okba's resting-place or Caravan. 
 In A.D. 680, Okba was reinstated by Yezid, son of 
 Mu'awiyah, returned, rebuilt Kairouan, and started 
 on a wild marauding foray to the west ; dragging 
 with him El Mohadjer in chains. Against the fortified 
 towns, Tabessa, Timgad, and the rest, his fury was 
 spent in vain, but he fell upon the great tribe of the 
 Aoureba and exterminated it, and carried away captive 
 in his train the King, Koceila. Contrary to the advice 
 of El Mohadjer, he treated him with characteristic 
 insolence. One day he set him to kill a sheep. Seeing 
 him wipe his bloody hand on his beard, he demanded 
 what he meant. " Nothing," was the answer ; " it is 
 good for the hair." At last, " arriving on the shore of 
 the ocean, he raised the standard of the Prophet, and, 
 making it follow the course of the sun from its rising 
 to its setting, he dashed into the waves up to his 
 horse's chest, crying, ' God of Mohammed, if I were 
 not stopped by the waves of this sea, I would go even 
 to the most distant land, to bear the glory of Thy 
 Name, to fight for Thy religion, and to destroy all 
 who will not believe on Thee." 
 
 Then he turned, to fight his way back again as 
 best he might. He reached the Hodna in safety. 
 
 199
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 There he divided his forces. The main body, with the 
 booty, he sent forward by the road which ran through 
 the still fertile plains to the north of the Aures. He 
 himself, with three hundred men, followed the track 
 through the Ziban and the oases which fringe the 
 southern slopes of the mountains. Koceila seized 
 the opportunity, made his escape, and raised the 
 country — the Greek inhabitants of the towns making, 
 for the first time in history, common cause with the 
 natives. 
 
 With such forces as he could thus hastily muster, 
 Koceila dashed south, probably through the great 
 gorge of El Kantara, came upon his enemy at Tahouda 
 near Biskra, and overwhelmed him and all his little 
 band, Okba's end was a worthy one. It is said that 
 when he found himself faced by the alternative of flight 
 or death, he struck with his own hands the fetters off 
 the limbs of El Mohadjer, and bade him escape. He 
 refused, and the two rivals, drawing their scimitars 
 and breaking the scabbards, fell side by side. This 
 was in the year a.d. 682. A typical Moslem apostle 
 and saint, he still lies near the spot where he fell, in 
 the mosque of the little town which bears his name, 
 and which his holiness has made ever since a place 
 of pilgrimage only less important than Kairouan 
 itself. His epitaph can still be read. It is written 
 in early Kufic characters, and is probably the oldest 
 Arabic inscription in the world. " This is the tomb 
 of Okba, son of Nafi — may God have mercy on him." 
 
 His death marks the recovery of Berber inde- 
 pendence. Koceila made himself master of the whole 
 country, and again destroyed Kairouan. 
 
 In A.D. 698 Kairouan was rebuilt by the Governor 
 of Egypt. However, he was driven back and killed, 
 and Ifrikya was once more clear of the Arabs. 
 
 It was not until the year a.d. 720 (a.h. 98), that 
 " the Lord strengthened the hands of Hassan, 
 200
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 Governor of Egypt," to finally subdue the country. 
 For the fourth time Kairouan was rebuilt, and Hassan 
 marched against Carthage. By a dashing attack, 
 the walls were scaled, and the city taken and sacked ; 
 on the approach, however, of the Byzantine fleet, 
 under the command of John the Patrician, the Arabs 
 evacuated the city and returned to Kairouan, where 
 they wintered. Next year they received strong 
 reinforcements and advanced again. This time John 
 found himself overmatched. He withdrew to Utica, 
 whence, after sustaining a severe defeat, he re- 
 embarked for Constantinople. This time Hassan made 
 sure of his prey, and for a second time Carthage 
 was levelled to the ground. Tunis was built with 
 its stones and adorned with its marble pillars. What- 
 ever was left above ground was carried away in after 
 years ; it is said that the cathedral at Pisa was built 
 with some of the stones. The great harbours were filled 
 up and completely obliterated ; until a few years ago 
 their very position was a matter of guess-work and 
 tradition. So ended European rule in North Africa. 
 But the real work had still to be done. Koceila, the 
 Berber Caractacus, had fallen in battle on the Medjerba, 
 but an African Boadicea arose to take his place. The 
 name of this famous heroine is unknown ; she is always 
 described by her titles, Dahiah or Queen, and Kahenah 
 or Priestess.* The chronicler, Ibn Khaldoun, tells us 
 that she belonged to the Jewish tribe of Djoraouah, 
 but she was certainly a Berber, though probably 
 her tribe had been converted to Judaism. She was 
 an example of what would now be termed a Mara- 
 bouta, half prophet like Deborah, half sorceress, she 
 wielded a power which was all the stronger because 
 its foundations were mysterious and rested on the 
 supernatural. 
 
 * She is described as daughter of Tabeta, son of Enfale. She was 
 Queen of the Djoraouah, a Zenete tribe of the Aures. 
 
 201
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 In a battle fought at the foot of the Aures, Hassan 
 was completely routed and driven back upon Gabes. 
 Eighty of his body-guard were taken prisoners ; with 
 one exception the Kahenah sent them back without 
 ransom. The name of the exception was " Khaled, 
 son of lezid, of the tribe of Cais, and he was young 
 and beautiful. ' I have never seen,' said she to him, 
 ' so goodly a youth as you. I wish to give you suck, 
 that you may become the son of the Kahenah, and 
 the brother of her children.' And this ceremony, 
 which amongst the Berbers constitutes adoption, 
 took place " 
 
 Convinced that the Arabs were fighting only for 
 booty, she then laid desolate the whole country 
 between Sfax and El Djem, where she fortified herself 
 in the vast amphitheatre, razed the cities, destroyed 
 the cisterns and barrages, and burnt the forests and 
 groves of olives, At last, a.d. 703, after five years of 
 desolating warfare, she realised that further resistance 
 was impossible. Determined herself to die a queen, she 
 had prepared her sons for submission, and sent them, 
 with Khaled, into the camp of Hassan, before the final 
 battle. Next day she was defeated and killed, and 
 her head was sent to the KhaHfah, Abd-el-Melek.* 
 " Thus the freedom of Barbary descended into its 
 grave, not to rise again on the third morning, or the 
 third week, or the third year." Whether this pre- 
 diction was fulfilled remains to be seen. 
 
 Her sons passed into the service of Hassan, and 
 when, following in the steps of Tarif, who has given 
 Gibraltar its name, Mousa ibn Noceir passed over 
 into Spain, they marched under his banner, at the 
 head of twelve thousand Berbers, and helped to found 
 the Omeiade kingdoms of Seville and Granada. Thus, 
 
 * The battle in which the Kahenah was killed, was fought near 
 Mitoussa, between Lambessa and Tebessa. The enemy were guided 
 and commanded by Khaled. According to another account, her 
 head was thrown into a well. 
 
 202
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 at the expense of Spain, an interval of comparative 
 peace was secured for Africa. 
 
 The rule of the four Perfect Khalifahs had been 
 unostentatious and cheap ; that of the Omeiades 
 was brilHant and costly, and had to be paid for. 
 Imperial taxes began once more to weigh heavily 
 on Africa, and in a.d. 720 Yezed, the governor, en- 
 forced upon the Moslem taxes which, like the Kharadj, 
 or poll tax, were due from infidels only. In the 
 midst of the discontent which this caused, came 
 the Kharedjite missionaries, and were received with 
 enthusiasm-. It was sufficient that, as their name 
 implied, they were dissenters, and that, in the eyes 
 of the Berbers, the rejection of the orthodoxy of the 
 rulers at Kairouan was a sufficient excuse for re- 
 belHon against their authority. In addition to this, 
 their doctrines were as acceptable as their schism, 
 for they united the harsh morality of TertuHian 
 with the separatism of the Donatists and the wild 
 extravagances of the CircumceUiones. Revolt began, 
 and soon spread over the whole country. In a.d, 740 
 it required the whole army of Egypt, and a massacre, 
 in which it is said that one hundred and eighty 
 thousand Berbers fell, to reduce the east to some- 
 thing like submission ; in the west, the two principal 
 sects of Kharedjites succeeded in founding independent 
 states, the Ibadites at Tiaret, in the Central Maghreb 
 " el Aougot," and the Sofrites at Sidgilmassa (Tafilah), 
 in the south of the Western Maghreb " el Acsa." * 
 
 At last, his patience exhausted by these continual 
 excursions and alarms, the Khalifah of Baghdad,! 
 Haroun-al-Raschid, gave the whole of the Maghreb 
 as a fief to a chief of Ifrikya, Ibrahim ibn Aghled. 
 
 * "Maghreb" means "west." Roughly speaking, the Maghreb 
 " el Acsa " corresponds with Morocco, the Maghreb " el Aou^ot " 
 with Algeria, and " Ifrikya " with Tunisia. 
 
 t Baghdad was founded by the KhaUfah Abd er Rahman, and 
 made his capital a.d. 754 (a,h. 136). 
 
 ao3
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Thus was founded the practically independent dynasty 
 of the Aghlebites at Kairouan, which was able to 
 maintain itself for a hundred years (a.d. 800-908), 
 sometimes with splendour, always with success. 
 Charlemagne sent ambassadors to Ibrahim, and they 
 were received at Kairouan with great magnificence, 
 and to his successors the city owes its finest buildings ; 
 they kept a standing army and fleet, with which 
 they not only kept the peace in Ifrikya, but were 
 able also to conquer Sicily. In their home policy 
 they made a serious attempt to secure justice for the 
 poor, and to save them from oppression, by appointing 
 in every town an officer whose special duty was to 
 protect the common people from the tyranny of the 
 great. 
 
 In the Western Maghreb they were powerless 
 either to subdue the two Kharedjite kingdoms or to 
 prevent the foundations of another at Fez by the 
 Edrissites, a sect of " legitimists," who recognised 
 as Khalifahs only the direct descendants of the Prophet 
 through Edrei, the only son of Ali and Fatimah, so 
 they pretended, who escaped the massacre which, in 
 the ordinary course, followed the murder of Ali himself. 
 
 To make confusion worse confounded, there appeared 
 towards the close of the ninth century another dis- 
 turbing element. The Shi'ahs raised the banner of a 
 new Mahdi, Obeid Allah ; and his lieutenant, Abou 
 Abd Allah, succeeded without much difficulty in 
 converting, or at least raising, the whole of the powerful 
 Ketana tribe, which occupied the country between the 
 Aures and the sea. They were soon joined by the 
 Zouaoua of the Djurdjura mountains, and the San- 
 hadja from Southern Tunisia. In a.d. 908, Abou 
 Abd Allah, at the head of a hundred thousand men, 
 marched upon Kairouan and defeated and put to 
 flight Ziadet Allah, the last of the Aghlebites. Once 
 seated on the throne which Abou Abd Allah had won 
 
 204
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 for him, Obeid Allah soon changed the part of an 
 apostle for that of a despot. He inaugurated his reign 
 by murdering Abou Abd Allah, and then, finding the 
 atmosphere of Kairouan too orthodox, built himself 
 a new capital at Mehdia, on the site of an old Roman 
 town whose name is uncertain ; in Froissart it appears 
 as Africa. His followers were known as Fatemites, to 
 emphasise the supposed descent from Fatimah, and 
 thus was founded a dynasty which lasted from a.d. 909 
 to 1171. 
 
 Turning his arms west, he overthrew the two 
 Kharedjite kingdoms at Sidjilniassa and Tiaret, and 
 received the submission to his suzerainty of the 
 Edrissites of Fez. Then he died, leaving an empire 
 which spread from the Syrtes to the very heart of the 
 Maghreb el Acsa, or Morocco. 
 
 The third and last of the Fatemites of Africa proper 
 was Abou Temim Maad el I\Ian9our. Under the name 
 of El ]\Ioezz ed-din Allah, " He who exalts the reHgion 
 of God," he conquered Egypt, and, deserting Africa, 
 established his capital at the new city El Kahira, 
 the Victorious (Cairo), which he had founded, and 
 where the Khotbah, or solemn state prayer offered 
 on Friday for the Commander of the Faithful, was 
 said in the mosques in his name, a.d. 969. 
 
 But the ascendancy of the Katama tribe had not 
 remained unchallenged. The tribe of the Zenetes, 
 who occupied the whole desert fringe of North Africa 
 from Tripoli to the meridian of Algiers, had remained 
 faithful to the old Kharedjite heresy. Under the 
 leadership of a Sofrite, Abou Yezed, known as the 
 Man with the Ass, they overran Ifrikya, sacked 
 Kairouan, and laid siege to Mehdia ; it was by his 
 victory over them that Abou Temin Maad won his 
 title of "El Manyour," " The Victorious." Foiled 
 in the east, they turned their arms towards the west, 
 and one of their chieftains, Ziri ibn Atia, made him- 
 
 205
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 self master of Fez and Sidjilmassa, and established a 
 kingdom there. The rest of North Africa remained 
 faithful to the Shi'ahs. It was divided into two 
 kingdoms, one of the East, the other of Central Africa, 
 with its capital at Bone — all purely Berber. 
 
 At the close of the tenth century El Mangour 
 gave the command of the west to his brother Hammad, 
 who founded an important city. El Kalaa, the Citadel, 
 in the Hodna. It became very prosperous in the 
 eleventh century, and perished in the twelfth ; its 
 ruins, indistinct, but covering a vast space of ground 
 on the south flank of the Djebel Tagarboust,* testify 
 to its former grandeur. 
 
 On the death of El Mangour, Hammad repudiated 
 the authority of the Fatemites, came to terms with 
 the Abbaside Khalifahs of the east, and founded a 
 kingdom of the north, which extended from Tunis 
 to Algiers. After his death the two families made 
 peace and reigned each in his respective capital. 
 
 Thus ended the tenth century. 
 
 At the beginning of the eleventh century it would 
 seem that the Arab invasion had been rolled back, 
 and had left comparatively few traces behind it. 
 In place of a vague monotheistic Christianity the 
 natives professed a vague monotheistic Islamism. 
 Practically they went their own way, accepting what- 
 ever appealed to them, so long as it was not the 
 hated orthodoxy of the Omeiades. The whole country 
 was for the first time since the Romans came, perhaps 
 ever since Carthage was founded, essentially Berber, 
 with all the blessings and disadvantages of Home 
 Rule. We have now to see how the Berbers used the 
 freedom they had won ; to tell of the new flood of 
 Arabs which overflowed the land, not as conquerors, 
 but as settlers ; to trace the rise and fall of the great 
 Berber kingdoms of the Middle Ages, wearing them- 
 
 * Between Bordj bou Areridj and the Chott-el-Hodna. 
 206
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 selves and one another out with ceaseless wars, until 
 the Turks came and destroyed them all. The whole 
 skein is tangled and confused, and it is difficult indeed 
 to be coherent and intelligible without being either 
 diffuse or incomplete. 
 
 The course of history now takes us far to the east. 
 In the Hedjaz, a desert tract of Arabia, dwelt two 
 wild marauding nomad tribes, known as the Beni 
 Hillal and the Beni Soleim, who lived by pillaging 
 the neighbouring districts of Mecca and Medina. 
 Unable to reduce them to order, the Khalifah of 
 Baghdad expelled them altogether and drove them 
 bodily into Egypt. Experiencing the same difficulties, 
 the Fatemite Khalifah of Cairo drove them into Upper 
 Egypt. 
 
 Ihen came the final rupture with Africa and El 
 Moezz ibn Badis, who ruled in Kairouan. Exasperated 
 at an outrage, which he was unable himself to punish, 
 the Vizier of the Khalifah, El Mostancer, sent for 
 the chiefs of the Beni Hillal, and said : "I make you 
 a present of the Maghreb, the kingdom of El Moezz 
 ibn Badis the Sanhadjite, a slave who had rejected 
 the authority of his master. For the future you will 
 want for nothing." The Arabs started west, a mixed 
 multitude of men, women, and children ; nomad 
 brigands gathered round them as they went ; at last 
 a mob, two hundred thousand strong, of whom forty- 
 five thousand were warriors, poured into Africa. 
 They advanced like a swarm of locusts ; " the land 
 was as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind 
 them a desolate wilderness." At Gabes, El Moezz 
 met them, and tried in vain to bar the way. Sweeping 
 him before them, the invaders pressed on. Kairouan 
 was taken and sacked, and they poured into the 
 Maghreb. They were not conquerors, be it remembered, 
 but a swarm of miserable hungry creatures, who had 
 been driven from one desert to another ; they took 
 
 207
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 what they could get and squatted where they could. 
 Leaving the mountamous districts untouched, they 
 mixed with and degraded the prosperous dwellers on 
 the plains, devastating the lands and destroying the 
 cities wherever they went ; and thus Africa, which 
 Roman skill and perseverance had made one of the 
 great granaries of the world, went once more out of 
 tillage, and fell back into prairie and desert. For the 
 first time North Africa could with some truth be called 
 Arab, a " Garden of Allah " — that is, a desert. 
 
 From the north came a new trouble for the dis- 
 tracted Berbers. In the year a.d. iioi died Roger 
 d'Hauteville, the Norman King of Sicily, brother of 
 Robert Guiscard. In a.d. 1143 his son, Roger II., 
 descended upon Djidjelli and destroyed it. In a.d, 
 1 146 he seized Tripoli. It was a time of terrible 
 distress and famine in East Africa — the legacy of 
 the Arabs. " Many left the country to take refuge 
 in Sicily ; a multitude of unfortunates died of famine ; 
 others were driven to eat human flesh." The oppor- 
 tunity was not to be lost. Roger sailed for ]\Iehdia, 
 which the Khalifah evacuated, retiring to Bougie ; 
 Sousse was taken without resistance, Sfax was carried 
 by assault, and " soon the infidels were masters of 
 all the country from Tripoli to Tunis, and from the 
 sea to Kairouan " 
 
 We have travelled from east to north, from the 
 Hallal of Arabia to the Normans of France. Now 
 we have to travel south. At the sources of the Niger, 
 or, as they thought, of the Nile, dwelt certain tribes 
 of the " Sanhadja of the Veil " * (Likam), who have 
 given their name to Senegal. Moslems only in name, 
 they had been converted to Sunnite orthodoxy by 
 one of their chiefs, who had himself been instructed 
 by a learned doctor at Kairouan. Spreading their 
 
 * For some interesting details concerning the Veiled Touaregs, 
 vide Across the Sahara, by Hanns Vischer, p. i66. 
 
 208
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 new faith with and by their arms, they started for 
 the north. They preached an austere doctrine, 
 destroying as they went all instruments of music, 
 and everything wliich could distract a ]\Ioslem from 
 the thought of the salvation of his soul. Pressing 
 on, they seized Tafilet and its capital Sidjilmassa. 
 Then they attacked the Zenetes, then the Masmouda 
 of the Upper Atlas (Deren). Descending the mountains, 
 they fell upon the Zenetes of the Tell ; lastly, they 
 met the Borghouata of the western littoral, heretics 
 who had a Koran* of their own, written in the Berber 
 tongue. These they destroyed, and they vanish from 
 history, a.d. 1059. 
 
 Under the command of Youssof ibn Tachefin, the 
 Almoravides (El Morabethin, the Marabouts) pushed 
 north, seized Fez, and massacred the inhabitants. 
 " In the mosques alone he slew three thousand men," 
 A.D. 1063. Crossing the Straits, he dethroned the 
 Andalusian Emirs, and made himself master of 
 all Moslem Spain, a.d. 1090. After dividing the 
 Maghreb el Acsa into governments which he com- 
 mitted to his chiefs, Youssof, under his new title of 
 Prince of the Faithful, Emir el-Moumenim, attacked 
 the Hammadites in the Central Maghreb. About 
 the year a.d. 1120, the Almoravides reached the 
 zenith of their power, and the Abbassite Khalifahs 
 recognised them as Lords of Spain and of the Maghreb. 
 Then came the end, for few of these kingdoms outlived 
 their founder, or, at any rate, maintained much 
 practical coherence and strength, after the death of 
 the man whose genius and enthusiasm called them 
 into being. 
 
 Early in the twelfth century a new sect appeared 
 under a new Mahdi. Ibn Toumert, of the tribe of 
 the Masmouda, was born in the Atlas Mountains. 
 After studying at Cordova, a.d. 1105, he travelled to 
 
 * The Koran of Calih' ben T'arif. 
 
 o 209
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 the east, where, in the centre of fanaticism and blind 
 exaltation, he was trained to be the warrior apostle 
 of the Sofrites. He returned on foot to the west. 
 At Mehdia he was well received ; at Bougie his zeal 
 in breaking wine- jars and instruments of music was 
 so little to the liking of the people that he was 
 forced to fly for his life. It was then that he was 
 joined by a young Berber, Abd-el-Moumen, who 
 became his favourite disciple, and in time his suc- 
 cessor — perhaps the greatest man the Berber race 
 has ever produced. Ibn Toumert, with his disciple, 
 made his way back to the mountains of the Masmouda. 
 There he declared himself to be the Mahdi, the twelfth 
 Imam predicted by Mohammed. Establishing himself 
 in the mountains of Tini Mellel (the White Wells), in 
 the south of Morocco, he organised his forces for an 
 onslaught on the Almoravides (a.d. 1112). 
 
 His methods, as related by Ibn Khaldoun, had 
 all the simple directness of genius. During a time 
 of famine, certain of his followers were tempted to 
 forsake him and return to their allegiance to the 
 Almoravides. Something had to be done to stop 
 the rot. " God Most High," he proclaimed, " has 
 given me a light by which I may separate the men 
 predestined to paradise from the lost who are doomed 
 to hell ; to prove this He has sent certain angels 
 into the wells, who shall bear witness to my truth- 
 fulness." So all the people, shedding tears of 
 penitence, came to the wells. " Angels of God," 
 cried the Mahdi, " is this man speaking the truth ?" 
 Then certain men whom he had hidden in the wells 
 replied, " Yes, he is speaking truth." Then said 
 Ibn Toumert to the people, " These wells are holy, 
 for the Angels of God have dwelt in them. Let us 
 fill them up quickly, lest they be defiled." So they 
 were filled up, and the Mahdi was relieved from any 
 fear of exposure. Then the Inspired of God placed 
 
 2 JO
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 the lost upon his left hand ; the elect upon his right 
 hand ; with these he fell upon his enemies, and cast 
 them down a precipice. Thus Ibn Toumert estab- 
 lished his power, and rid himself in one day of seven 
 thousand adversaries. A little after this Ibn Toumert 
 died, and Abd-el-Moumen reigned in his stead. 
 
 No agitator has ever wanted for followers in Africa. 
 The conquests of Abd-el-Moumen were rapid. The 
 V/estern Maghreb " el Acsa " was subdued. After 
 a terrible siege of eleven months, during which more 
 than a hundred thousand perished, the capital was 
 taken and the inhabitants put to the sword. " We 
 may presume that God permitted this because Youssof 
 had treated the King of Seville with indignity after 
 he had dethroned him. Such are the changes of 
 mortal life. Out, then, on the world ! and blessed 
 be the Lord, whose kingdom shall never pass away." 
 Thus was founded the " Traditionist," or Almohade 
 kingdom of the west. 
 
 At the invitation of the Moslems of the east, Abd- 
 el-Moumen turned his arms towards Ifrikya. All was 
 anarchy there. The Hillal Arabs were supreme in the 
 Central Maghreb, and the Normans held all the sea- 
 board of Ifrikya. In March 1169 El Moumen took 
 Bougie, and put an end to the dynasty of the Ham- 
 madites. On July 14, Tunis submitted, and the 
 bishopric of Carthage was suppressed ; then Mehdia 
 was besieged and taken, the Normans were expelled, 
 the troublesome Arabs were drafted into the army, 
 and once more, from the Syrtes to the Atlantic, Africa 
 owned a single sway. An amazing conquest, followed 
 by a yet more amazing reform. 
 
 Abd-el-Moumen was not merely a fighter — he was a 
 man of grand ideas, and an organiser and adminis- 
 trator of the first rank. He founded universities to 
 which students from Europe had to come to learn the 
 sciences ; the whole country was surveyed for fiscal 
 
 211
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 purposes and divided into square miles ; one-third of 
 the whole surface ranked as mountain land ; on this 
 basis each tribe was taxed, and was required to pay in 
 silver ; a tax on property replaced the old taxes on 
 commodities ; he struck coins with the words " Allah 
 is our God," " Mohammed is our Prophet," " The 
 Mahdi is our Imam." He maintained a fleet and an 
 army ; and the country was so well policed that 
 caravans could move throughout it without fear. 
 Never had Africa enjoyed such discipline and such 
 security. At last he died, in a.d. 1163, full of years 
 and honour. 
 
 It was not in the nature of things that a condition 
 of such peace and prosperity should last long in Africa. 
 Tunis, which had been created a capital city by Abd- 
 el-Moumen, under the charge of Abou Mohammed, son 
 of Abou Hafs, declared itself independent, under the 
 Hafside dynasty. In the west, Tlemcen rose to a 
 position of immense prosperity and magnificence under 
 the power of the Beni Zian Zenata, while the Beni 
 Nerin Zenata, hitherto nomads, took possession of 
 Fez. On the death of the last Almohade in battle 
 in A.D. 1269, a bitter and obstinate war broke out be- 
 tween these two which fatally weakened the Berber 
 rule, while the baleful influence of the Arabs was 
 always present as a disturbing influence to hinder the 
 Berbers of all Maghreb from advancing or developing 
 normally. 
 
 Three dynasties emerged out of all this confusion — 
 the Hafside at Tunis, the Ouabite at Tlemcen, and the 
 Merinide at Fez ; but decay, rapid and certain, set in, 
 which destroyed both civilisation and power. By the 
 end of the fifteenth century, the Merinide kingdom was 
 broken up, Tunis was divided, Fez had neither influ- 
 ence nor strength. Portugal held Tangiers and Cintra ; 
 Spain seized Oran, Bougie, and Tripoli, and fortified 
 the island of Pefion, off Algiers. The little helpless 
 
 212
 
 RASSOUL ALLAH 
 
 states recognised the suzerainty of the kings of 
 Castile, paid tribute, and received garrisons. The 
 Berber kingdoms and dynasties had died down to the 
 roots. Anarchy, complete and hopeless, reigned every- 
 where. Once more the country waited only, and not 
 in vain, for some invader from without to come and 
 seize it. 
 
 213 
 
 /
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 an african mecca 
 
 Kairouan 
 
 What Cirta was to the Natives ; what Carthage was 
 to the Foreigners, whether Punic or Roman ; what 
 Algiers was destined to be to the Turks, that, and 
 more, Kairouan has been to the Arabs. Cirta was a 
 strong natural fortress, besieged eighty times and taken 
 only twice ; Carthage was a seaport ; Kairouan was 
 neither. It is indeed difficult to find any adequate 
 reason for the selection of the place as the site of a 
 great capital city. Very different and contradictory 
 explanations have been given by various writers. One 
 says that, being near the mountains and near the sea, 
 so as to be in touch with both, yet safe from either, it 
 was both strategically and commercially of vast im- 
 portance. In reply it may be pointed out that it 
 never stood a siege successfully, and that this alone is 
 sufficient to condemn it commercially also. Another 
 tells us that, being the most unattractive spot he could 
 find, with no natural resources, and little or no water, 
 Okba chose it as an act of faith in the protecting and 
 providing goodness of Allah. 
 
 The account given by En Noweiri is delightfully 
 vague : " Okba had been entrusted by the Khalifah 
 with the government of the new province of Ifrikya. 
 From Sousse he marched out, and at a distance of 
 thirteen miles he happed upon a citadel held by the 
 Berbers ; they refused to let him pass, so he took it, 
 and went on his way, until he came to a valley filled 
 
 214
 
 AN AFRICAN MECCA 
 
 with trees and scrub, a habitation of wild beasts and 
 owls. So he prayed to God, and said to the beasts, 
 ' Inhabitants of this valley, begone, and may God 
 have mercy upon you ; we intend to abide here.' 
 When he had thus proclaimed three times, the serpents 
 and scorpions and other unknown beasts began to 
 depart before the very eyes of the spectators. Thus 
 was Kairouan founded." 
 
 The valley and trees have vanished with the 
 scorpions, and Kairouan lies on a dreary, waterless ex- 
 panse, on the road to nowhere. Destroyed over and 
 over again, its sanctity as the foundation of Sidi Okba, 
 the darling hero-martyr of the Arabs, and as the rest- 
 ing-place of Sidi Sahab,* Friend of the Prophet, has 
 always ensured its restoration ; but peace and safety 
 came to it only with loss of importance, when the 
 capital was moved to Tunis. 
 
 To the south of the city a little French town has 
 sprung up, and on the west it is enclosed by the great 
 suburb of the Zlass,f which is almost as large as the 
 town itself. But the Arab town has been religiously 
 respected. Within the circle of its battlemented 
 walls, with their strong towers and gates intact, the 
 domes and minarets of its mosques and zaouias, all 
 dominated by the enormous tower of the Great Mosque, 
 it has preserved, more even than Tunis, its picturesque 
 character as the African Mecca. 
 
 Due north and south from the Bab-et-Tunis, near 
 the Kasbah, to the Bab Djelladin (Skinners), runs the 
 principal street, now called the Rue Saussier, lined on 
 each side with little shops and stalls, and bright with 
 the varied colours of the dresses of the natives and 
 pilgrims from all parts of Africa ; to the right of the 
 
 * Probably it was the fact that Sidi Sahab had been buried there 
 which made Okba select it as the site of his caravan. It had a 
 Roman predecessor, Vicus AttgusH. 
 
 t A tribe of nomads, who form the best customers of Kairouan. 
 
 215
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 street lie the Souks, which deserve a visit, though they 
 are neither so large nor so interesting as those of 
 Tunis. 
 
 But it is to see the mosques and azouias of Kairouan 
 that people come, even more than to see Kairouan itself. 
 So, without longer preface, let us turn to these. 
 
 The Djama Kebira, or Djama Sidi Okba, occupies 
 the eastern extremity of the city, just inside the walls. 
 The building of the first mosque by Sidi Okba himself 
 was accompanied, as was only right, by great and 
 notable miracles. The stones took their appointed 
 places of their own accord, and a voice from heaven 
 determined the exact position of the Kibba, or Mihrab, 
 the niche which, in every mosque, shows the direction 
 of Mecca, towards which prayer must be offered. 
 
 But even these divine interpositions were insuffi- 
 cient to preserve the mosque. Twenty-five years 
 later it was pulled down, with the exception of the 
 Kibba, by Hassan ibn Noman, who brought from 
 Carthage, and perhaps Sousse, the pillars with which 
 his new building was adorned. Prominent amongst 
 these are the two splendid columns of red and yellow 
 marble which stand on either side of the Mihrab ; it is 
 said that they came from a Christian church, and that 
 the Emperor of Constantinople offered to buy them for 
 their weight in gold. This second mosque was re- 
 placed by a larger in a.d. 624, and this by a larger still 
 in A.D. 772. Finally, in a.d. 821, Ziadet Allah, the 
 second prince of the House of Aghleb, razed it to the 
 ground, including the Mihrab of Sidi Okba, and built 
 the mosque which we now see. 
 
 The outer court is impressive from its great size, 
 but is not architecturally successful. It is surrounded 
 by a very splendid double colonnade. The arches of 
 the colonnade are pointed, and show hardly any trace 
 of the horse-shoe form ; they rest on clustered pillars 
 of marble. In the court are four handsome bases of 
 
 216
 
 AN AFRICAN MECCA 
 
 pillars, hollowed out for the ritual ablutions of the 
 faithful ; the water is drawn from four cisterns under 
 the edifice. In the centre is a sundial, a tall stone 
 crowned with a vertical stick and string, each of which 
 tells the hour by the shadows cast on two separate dials. 
 It is mounted high up on steps and is enclosed by a 
 railing. Here, as the hour for midday prayer 
 approached, an old white-robed attendant of the 
 mosque was standing watching intently for the shadow 
 to reach the appointed spot. From the top of the 
 square tower of the minaret another man was watching 
 him. When the creeping shadows reached the places 
 upon the dials, he raised his hand. Immediately a 
 white flag floated out from the minaret and the 
 musical droning cry of the muezzin was taken up from 
 tower to tower throughout the town. 
 
 It is natural, almost inevitable, to compare this, the 
 greatest mosque of Africa, with that of Cordova, iDuilt 
 only a few years before. 
 
 Happily the Moslem builders were seldom led astray 
 by that fatal megalomania which has been the curse, 
 architecturally as well as in other ways, of pagan and 
 papal Rome. Beautiful as the horseshoe arch is, it is 
 structurally false, and, if used on a scale large enough 
 to be impressive from its size, it weakens and destroys 
 the general effect by reveahng its own untruthfulness. 
 To produce the effect of size, the architects were there- 
 fore driven to the multiplication table ; and, if we are 
 to say that the Cordova building is grander than that 
 at Kairouan, it will not be because each pillar is more 
 precious, or each arch more lovely, but because in the 
 one case the pillars number nearly twelve hundred, and 
 in the other hardly two. 
 
 Of course the Cordova Mezquita has undergone 
 disastrous mutilations. Its size has been doubled — 
 that fatal multiplication — an alien and inharmonious 
 cathedral has been dropped into the middle of it, its 
 
 217
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 splendid ceiling of wood has been largely replaced with 
 vulgar whitewashed vaults, its windows have been 
 fitted with incredibly bad glass, the delicate curves of 
 its arches have been emphasised and outraged by being 
 cut up into alternate wedges of red and white paint. 
 Such calamities as these the sister mosque of Kairouan 
 has mercifully been spared. Large enough to be 
 mysterious without being bewildering, with little hght 
 but such as pours in when its vast doors are opened, its 
 vistas of pillared aisles have all the solemnity and 
 dignity which we associate with the holders of the 
 creed. 
 
 From the central door, a nave, loftier, richer in 
 decoration and nobler in form than the others, leads to 
 a Mihrab as beautiful as that at Tlemcen, and hardly 
 suffering by comparison with that miracle of form and 
 colour, the Mihrab at Cordova. 
 
 The story goes that, in a fit of drunken madness, 
 Ibrahim-el- Aghlab made his wives offer him worship as 
 a god. Next morning, full of remorse, he sent for the 
 Grand Mufti, confessed, and implored penance and 
 absolution. The Mufti replied that, as the sin had 
 been against God, the atonement must be made to God, 
 and directed that some marvellous tiles, brought from 
 Baghdad to decorate his palace, and some carved wood 
 destined to make instruments of music, should be given 
 to the adornment of the House of God, which he was 
 then building. Ibrahim obeyed, and the metallic 
 lustre of the tiles now shines out of the gloom on the 
 walls of the Mihrab, while the wood carvings, quaintly 
 fitted together,* form the magnificent mimbar or 
 pulpit. 
 
 One other marvel the mosque possesses ; it is the 
 splendid maksoura, or enclosure for women, surrounded 
 by screens of exquisitely carved wood, which Abou 
 
 * Every panel is different, and every one deserves separate and 
 detailed description. 
 
 2l8
 
 AN AFRICAN MECCA 
 
 Temmim el Moezz ibn Bades erected to the right of 
 the mimbar. It remains intact, and kiminous with 
 the coloured light which pours through its stained 
 windows, fitted with delicate tracery of perforated 
 marble ; it helps us to picture what the splendour of 
 the mosque must have been in the days of its glory. 
 
 Such an architecture as we have described, so little 
 susceptible of grandeur of treatment, but so beautiful 
 in detail of form and colour, lends itself admirably to a 
 series of small courts or rooms, such as are suitable in 
 houses or in the midas, or places for ablutions, which 
 we find at the entrance of mosques. 
 
 A very perfect example of such a building is found 
 in the Zaouia of Sidi Sahab, commonly called the 
 Mosque of the Barber, which stands just outside 
 Kairouan near the great basin or tank of the Aghlabites. 
 
 Far from being a barber, Abou-Zoumat Obeid 
 Allah ibn Adam el Beloui was a mighty man of valour. 
 He earned his title of Sidi Sahab (the Companion), by 
 being one of the ten earliest disciples who took the 
 oath of fidehty to the Prophet under the lote tree. 
 After the death of his master, he took part in the con- 
 quest of Egypt, and in the expedition led into Ifrikya 
 by Moouia ibn Koudiedj in the year a.d. 655 (a.h. 34). 
 Mortally wounded in the attack on Sbeitla in the 
 following year, he died and was buried at Kairouan. 
 At the last solemn interview when Mohammed bade 
 farewell to his Sahabs — his Knights of the Round 
 Table — he gave El Beloui three hairs from his beard, 
 that by them he might be recognised at the Day of 
 Judgment. El Beloui directed that the precious relics 
 should be buried with him, one being laid on his lips, 
 one on his heart, and one under his right arm, in token 
 that his eloquence, his love, and his might had all been 
 given to the service of the master he loved. A touch- 
 ing legend which deserved to bear better fruit than 
 simply to win for El Beloui the title of Barber ! 
 
 219
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 The mosque, which is the loveHest in Kairouan, 
 comprises a Medersa or college, a Zaouia or hostel, as 
 well as the Kouba or shrine of the saint, and place of 
 pilgrimage. It is in just such a cluster of buildings 
 as this, as in the Alhambra at Granada, that Arab* 
 builders are at their best. 
 
 The principal entrance opens on a large, bare court- 
 yard. To the left, hidden by a lofty wall, lie the 
 collegiate buildings of the Zaouia and its mosque ; 
 in front is the entrance to the shrine. In the angle 
 between the two rises the fine square minaret. 
 
 Under a lofty archway, we pass into a vestibule 
 of great beauty ; its panelled and recessed ceiling is 
 richly painted and its walls glow with the colours of 
 ancient tiles. Thence a door opens into the atrium. 
 
 This is small, being, indeed, little more than a flight 
 of half-a-dozen steps, with tiled risers, and a passage- 
 way into the next chamber. It is open to the air, but 
 on each side is an arcade of slender pillars bearing 
 horseshoe arches, and forming a little cloister with 
 carved benches for the weary pilgrims to rest on. The 
 walls are covered with a high dado of exquisite old 
 lustred tiles ; above these are vases of flowers alter- 
 nating with these strange spear-head or flame-like 
 ornaments which every Arab uses, but none can 
 explain. The whole is tiny, but the grace of the 
 pillars and arches, the glowing colours of the rich old 
 tiles, the inlaid marble of the floor, the white marble 
 entrance to the room beyond, all seen in the dazzling 
 sunshine which pours down from above through the 
 open roof, make this little passage one of the most 
 lovely things in North Africa. The sun, indeed, is 
 necessary, for the builders loved bright lights and deep 
 shadows, but when half the walls are seen in a living 
 
 * Better, perhaps, " Berber " or " Moorish." It is very doubtful 
 whether the Arabs deserve the credit of any of the great buildings 
 in either Spain or Africa. 
 
 -2 20
 
 AN AFRICAN MECCA 
 
 blaze of light, and the rest is shrouded in the coolness 
 of the shadows, the eye, half dazzled, half rested, is 
 wholly satisfied. It is with Arab art as with Arab 
 dress. It is the glory of the sunshine on which the 
 Arab counts and which enables him to wear or use 
 colours and contrasts which would be garish, if not 
 impossible, without it. 
 
 From the atrium we pass into a square-domed 
 chamber in which no colour has been employed. The 
 white walls are richly covered with the deeply incised 
 patterns in plaster to which we give the name of 
 arabesques ; above these rise a series of windows, 
 filled with coloured glass, framed in intricate patterns 
 of pierced stucco. Higher still rises the white dome, 
 divided into twenty-four segments, each of which 
 contains a palm leaf, differently treated. Nothing 
 could be more delightful than this little white shadowy 
 room, between the glow of the atrium we have just 
 left, and the glare of the central court of the mosque 
 which we are about to enter. 
 
 Thus we reach the innermost court of the sanctuary. 
 Like so much that we have passed already, it is richly 
 decorated with ancient tiles, on which rests a frieze of 
 beautiful incised plaster ; it is surrounded by a graceful 
 arcade resting in slender white marble columns, and 
 it is paved with white marble. On three sides the 
 arcade has a fiat, timbered ceiling. On the fourth a 
 second storey, resting on the arcade, affords space on 
 the outside for more tiles, set in square conventional 
 patterns, like windows, and also enables the ceihng to 
 be carried higher, and elaborated with rich recessed 
 coffers and little domes. For now we come to the 
 centre of all this lovehness, the Kouba of the saint 
 himself. At the far end of the arcade, a handsome door 
 between two windows of white and coloured marbles 
 — all of elaborate Italian rococo work, incongruous 
 yet not inharmonious — opens into the shrine. 
 
 221
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 A story attaches to these ItaHan carvings. In the 
 eighteenth century a rich merchant of Kairouan had 
 an ItaUan doctor amongst his slaves. Nursed through 
 a severe illness, and his life practically saved by his 
 skill and care, the master set the slave free, and sent 
 him home a rich man. Not to be outdone in gene- 
 rosity, the doctor sent these carvings to his former 
 master for use in this mosque and Zaouia, of which he 
 was the administrator. 
 
 The shrine is of the usual type, a square, domed 
 room with stalactite roof. Its tiles and the coloured 
 designs on the walls are rich but modern, and, at 
 present, somewhat staring. In the centre is the tomb 
 or catafalque, covered with rich tapestries and sur- 
 rounded by a wooden grille on which are hung glass 
 balls, decorated ostrich eggs, lamps, and little bags of 
 holy earth brought by the faithful from Mecca ; above 
 it are draped flags and banners presented by various 
 benefactors ; one of the richest was given by Mustapha 
 ibn Ismael, Prime Minister of the Bey es Sadok, in 
 hopes of ensuring the defeat of the French by the 
 intervention of the saint. 
 
 Before leaving we pause a minute or two to drink 
 in all the quiet beauty of this dream of peaceful loveli- 
 ness. The mosque is deserted, and hitherto we have 
 been left to wander as we pleased ; now an old care 
 taker comes up and speaks ; he is afraid we have not 
 noticed sufficiently the magnificence of the carpets, 
 all made in Kairouan, with which the floor of the 
 Kouba is covered. An aged widow — only widows are 
 allowed in mosques or expected to pray — has been 
 telling her beads in the shrine ; now she leaves it and 
 visits the other subordinate shrines, saying prayers in 
 each. She and the caretaker are evidently friends, 
 and exchange a kindly greeting as they pass. And so we 
 leave this home — as we saw it— of ancient peace, and 
 go out into the glare and dust of the road to Kairouan. 
 
 322
 
 AN AFRICAN MECCA 
 
 A few words must suffice for the other buildings of 
 Kairouan. The Djama Zitouna (Mosque of the OHve 
 Tree) is interesting in that it was founded by Rouifa 
 ibn Tsabit, one of the Ansars or Friends who welcomed 
 the Prophet at Medina after his flight from Mecca, the 
 Hejira. This and the dedication of the mosque of 
 Sidi Sahab would seem to show that the site was 
 sacred before Okba founded his Caravan here. The 
 Djama Sidi bou Djafour is called the Djama Tleta 
 Biban from its three handsome doors, very Byzantine 
 in character. They are set in a curious fa9ade en- 
 riched with long Cufic inscriptions, in four retreating 
 lines, surmounted by a bold cornice. Many of the 
 Zaouias are beautiful, notably that of Sidi Abid el 
 Gahriani. The vast basin of the Aghlabites helps to 
 recall the perished glories of the city. 
 
 Very imposing, too, is the vast Mosque and Zaouia 
 of Si Amor Abbada ; its group of five great domes 
 shows the influence of Turkish over Arab art. The 
 little mosque and marabout of the saint are bare and 
 undecorated ; all round them stand huge decaying 
 panels of wood, carved with the sayings and prophecies 
 of the marabout. It is said that one of them foretold 
 the coming of the French. 
 
 Amor Abbada was a blacksmith, and could neither 
 read nor write. After he became a marabout he prac- 
 tised his art only in making huge, clumsy sabres in 
 wooden scabbards ; from these the mosque takes its 
 name. One of these is shown in the mosque, also a 
 huge wooden pipe five feet long, which, we are assured, 
 the saint was wont to use. If we ask how that could 
 be, we are told that he was a giant. He obtained com- 
 plete ascendency over the Bey Ahmed Pacha, who 
 presented him with a duplicate of the pipe in silver ; 
 this unaccountably vanished at the death of the 
 saint. Amor Abbada himself collected the money 
 to erect the huge pile, in the course of three years. 
 
 223
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 All this is interesting, as illustrating the power and 
 influence of the marabouts, and the rapidity with 
 which legend gathers round them ; for Amor Abbada 
 died in 1856. 
 
 At last, tired head, eyes and feet, we left the town 
 by the western gate, Bab-el-Djedid, to watch the 
 solemn pageant of the sunset. Passing through the 
 quarter of the Zlass, we climbed the steep little hill on 
 which stands the Moslem cemetery. Enclosed in its 
 white wall, the white Kouba watches over the white 
 graves which lie thick around. Above it hung the 
 crescent moon. To the west ran the heights of the 
 Djebel Trozza, pale, grey, and shrouded in the rising 
 mist of the evening. Between us and them lay the 
 plain, purple and green — dark in the distance under 
 the mountains, but fading into a dull green under the 
 cemetery hill. 
 
 All was quiet, save for the barking of a dog in the 
 city and the low droning cry of the muezzins calling 
 the faithful to prayer. Close by passed a string of 
 tired camels coming out of the desert to rest in the 
 Fondouk of the Zlass ; others wandered to and fro, 
 searching for " camel salad " in the rough scrub which 
 covered the ground. A shepherd, leading his flock 
 home from pasture, stopped at the call of the muezzin 
 to bow to the earth in prayer. Some belated Arabs 
 were leaving the town with their laden asses and 
 passed and vanished in the distance. 
 
 Close by lay Kairouan, shut up within its walls. 
 Above them rose a forest of white domes and minarets, 
 nearest of all the five great domes of the Djama Amor 
 Abbada ; far off, across the flat white roofs, the huge 
 mass of the Tower of the Djama Kebira ; all glowing 
 in dazzling light, their outlines seeming to quiver in 
 the translucent bath of sunny air. 
 
 Then a cool breeze sprang up ; the shadows length- 
 ened, the white changed to pink, the pink to crimson, 
 224
 
 AN AFRICAN MECCA 
 
 and the shadows of the hills began to rise, as the 
 sun sank one glorious blood-red, behind them. 
 The light and colour faded and died out, and ever 
 clearer and clearer grew the cold rays of the crescent 
 moon, showing a darkness it could not dispel ; and 
 the domes and minarets stood out hard, white, and 
 dead against a black sky. 
 
 A fitting picture of the long tragedy we have been 
 following, of the sea of blood in which the sun of 
 Roman and Christian civilisation set, and of the 
 chill, dark desolation of Islam which has settled down 
 on Africa. 
 
 225
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS, A.D. I453-183O 
 
 In North Africa, as in Europe, the sixteenth century 
 was a time of profound change. Old forces had 
 spent themselves, old fires had burnt themselves 
 out. North of the Mediterranean it witnessed the 
 Renaissance, and the apogee and decline of the great 
 kingdoms of Spain and Portugal ; in Africa it saw 
 the coming of the Turks and the final establishment 
 of Islamism. 
 
 The streams of Arab invasion, which had swept 
 over the land as far as the borders of Morocco, had 
 ceased to flow, and the balance between the natives 
 and the invaders had reached an equilibrium. Roughly 
 speaking, the Berbers, hardly touched or affected by 
 the Arab deluge which had submerged the lowlands, 
 held Morocco and the mountainous districts such as 
 the Aures and the Djurdjura. The Arabs occupied 
 the south, including Southern Tunisia and the Oases ; 
 and a mixed population of Berberised Arabs or Arabised 
 Berbers held the valleys and the plateaux. 
 
 The influence of Islamism is rather difficult to 
 estimate. Nominally it was universally accepted. 
 Practically the popular form was what we might call a 
 vague form of nonconformity. Certainly there was 
 little or none of that violent antipathy to Christianity 
 which we now associate with Mohammedanism. The 
 intercourse with Christian Europe was, on the whole, 
 friendly. Treaties were made and observed. At 
 Tunis, Cirta, and elsewhere, there were Christian 
 
 226
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 quarters. At Tunis there was a Christian church 
 until A.D. 1530. Above all, neither the Arabs nor 
 the Berbers were maritime folk ; there was no aggres- 
 sion, and the Mediterranean was a Christian lake. 
 
 But a new force was appearing on the scene, which 
 was to bring all this to an end. 
 
 On May 29th, a.d. 1453, Constantinople fell before 
 the conquering sword of Mohammed II., and the 
 capital of the Christian Empire of the East became 
 the seat of the Turkish Sultan. Unhke the Arabs, 
 the Turks, and especially the Greek islanders, whom 
 they conquered and absorbed, were seamen, and their 
 half pirate and wholly savage navies soon swept the 
 Midland Sea. Making their strongholds in the islands 
 of the iEgean, especially at Mitylene (Lesbos), they 
 spread far and wide. They had reached North Africa, 
 and occupied Mehidia, on the east coast of Tunis, 
 as early as a.d, 1390 ; and the Enghsh, under John 
 de Beaufort, the natural son of the Duke of Lancaster, 
 had tried in vain to dislodge them. 
 
 In A.D. 1492 Granada fell, and with it the Moorish 
 kingdom in Spain. The Moors, who were driven 
 back into Africa and settled largely in the seaport 
 cities, were also experienced seamen and knew the 
 coast of Spain well. Exasperated by their banish- 
 ment, they not only sought for any opportunity of 
 revenging themselves upon Spain, but extended their 
 animosity to all Christian powers, and so there was 
 imported into their warfare that spirit of bigoted 
 and malignant hatred which had hitherto been absent. 
 
 Three things had come to pass, which were to bear 
 terrible fruit during the next three hundred years. 
 The war was to be waged on the sea, and not on the 
 land ; Christian Europe was to be for the future 
 the object of attack ; and war was to be merciless, 
 and waged with savage and implacable hatred against 
 Christians as Christians. 
 
 227
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA • 
 
 The year of the fall of Granada saw the appoint- 
 ment of Gonzales Ximenes di Cisneros as confessor 
 to Isabella. Three years later, a.d. 1495, she secured 
 his appointment as Archbishop of Toledo ; the power 
 which he thus obtained was used unsparingly against 
 the Moselms. In a.d. 1499, he felt himself strong 
 enough to offer the Moors, who still formed the most 
 cultured portion of the population of Granada, the 
 option of baptism or banishment. It was his action, 
 especially after his appointment (a.d. 1507) as Grand 
 Inquisitor, far more than the victory of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, which ruined the south of Spain. 
 
 Events moved rapidly. In a.d. 1504 Isabella died, 
 and Ferdinand resigned in favour of his son-in-law, 
 Philip. Two years later, in September a.d. 1506, 
 Phihp also died suddenly, leaving the throne to his 
 son Charles, a boy of six years old. The shock of 
 her husband's death entirely upset the always feeble 
 intellect of his wife, the unhappy Jane, and Fer- 
 dinand became Regent. In a.d. 1505 Ximenes, 
 who had conceived the idea of a Christian and Spanish 
 empire in North Africa, despatched a squadron which 
 succeeded in capturing the port of Mers-el-Kebir, 
 five miles from Oran, on October 23rd, and Diego 
 Fernandez de Cordova, Marquis de Comares, who 
 was in command, was appointed Governor. In a.d. 
 1509 Ximenes, now become Cardinal and Grand 
 Inquisitor, fitted out another expedition, which he 
 commanded in person. On May 17th he reached 
 Mers-el-Kebir ; on the following day Oran was taken 
 and Ximenes returned to Spain. In the same year 
 Pedro Navarro seized and garrisoned Bougie. Be- 
 tween Oran and his new acquisition he found a small 
 town, walled indeed, but with no effective fortifica- 
 tions, and no considerable harbour. The town he 
 left untouched, but he seized and fortified strongly 
 a rocky island known as the Peilon or Rock, which 
 
 228
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 lay off it, at a distance of less than three hundred 
 yards. It was from this island, and others which 
 have now disappeared, that the town received its 
 name of El-Djezair, Algiers. 
 
 Seven years later, a.d. 15 i6, Ferdinand died, and 
 the opportunity seemed to the Algerines a favourable 
 one for trying to free themselves from the " thorn " 
 which the Spaniards had driven " into their heart." 
 Unable to effect their own deliverance, they called 
 to their aid Salem et Teumi, the Arab Sheik of Blidah, 
 to whom they offered the sovereignty of the town. 
 He accepted the proffered dignity, but entirely failed 
 to capture the Pefion. His failure brought upon 
 the scene two men, who, like the Hautevilles of 
 Normandy, were destined to change the whole course 
 of North African, and, in a measure, European history. 
 
 In the year a.d. 1462, when Mohammed II. cap- 
 tured Mitylene, he left behind a Romanean Sipahi 
 called Yacub, who seems to have settled down as a 
 potter and adopted Islamism. He had four sons, 
 Elias, Ishac, Aroudj, and Khisr, better known as 
 Kheir-ed-Din. Aroudj, or, as he is commonly called, 
 Father Aroudj (Baba Aroudj, Barbarossa), and Khisr, 
 perhaps the others also, forsook their father's humble 
 trade for the more profitable business of piracy. 
 Aroudj soon acquired fame as a Reis, but unfortunately 
 was captured by the Knights of Rhodes, and had to 
 pull an oar in their galleys. Finally he escaped and 
 landed in Ifrikya. He placed his services at the dis- 
 posal of the Hafside Sultan of Tunis, on the under- 
 standing that the port was to be open to him on 
 payment of one-iifth of whatever booty he might secure. 
 He soon justified the arrangement by bringing in 
 two royal galleys of Pope Julius II., which he had 
 captured off Elba with two galleots.* Soon Tunis was 
 too strait for the great Reis, and he established 
 
 * Vide p. 236. 
 
 229
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 himself in a port of his own in Djerba, the island of the 
 Lotus-eaters. There he was joined by his brother, 
 Kheir-ed-Din. 
 
 In A.D. 15 12 he was invited to assist in turning the 
 Spaniards out of Bougie, but the attempts ended in 
 total failure. He was repulsed, with the loss of an 
 arm, and Doria, the famous Spanish Admiral, pursued 
 him to Tunis, took and sacked the fortress and town, 
 and destroyed half the fleet. Aroudj escaped to 
 Djerba, and set to work to build another fleet. In 
 A.D. 15 14 he again attacked Bougie, and was again 
 beaten off. Frantic with rage, he burnt his ships to 
 save them from falling into the hands of the Spaniards. 
 
 Something had to be done, for both Tunis and 
 Djerba were now too hot to hold him. Happily the 
 people of Djidjelli came to the rescue, and elected him 
 as their Sultan. This was the turning-point of his 
 career. 
 
 Utterly unable to capture the Peiion from the 
 Spaniards, Salam invited the celebrated condottiero to 
 come to his assistance. Aroudj advanced at once with 
 five thousand men and set to work in true corsair 
 fashion. Salam he strangled with his own hands ; his 
 wife he forced to commit suicide ; the rest of the harem 
 he slaughtered ; the town he delivered up to be sacked ; 
 thus he made himself master of everything except the 
 Pefion, which he left alone. Such enterprise naturally 
 endeared him to the heart of the Berbers, and with 
 their assistance he pushed farther west and seized 
 Tenes, leaving his brother Kheir-ed-Din to hold Algiers. 
 
 Such a man as Aroudj was not likely to remain idle 
 for long. At Tenes he received another invitation to 
 help in replacing the aged King, Abou Zian, on the 
 throne of Tlemcen. This call he also obeyed, and pro- 
 ceeded to carry out his new duties in his usual way. 
 He cut the throats of the King, his seven sons, and some 
 thousands of the inhabitants, and made himself master 
 
 230
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 of the place. But this was the last of his exploits. 
 The Marquis of Comares, the Spanish Governor of 
 Oran, received orders to deal with the matter. He 
 advanced against Tlemcen, drove Aroudj out, pursued 
 him, and, after a desperate resistance, killed him at Rio 
 Salado. This was in the year a.d. 15 i8. Aroudj was 
 forty-four years old. 
 
 Kheir-ed-din, who was holding Algiers, inherited 
 his brother's sovereignty and name, for he is always 
 known as Barbarossa. He was not merely a buccaneer 
 like Aroudj, but a statesman, wise in counsel, prudent 
 in action, as well as furious in attack. His first step 
 was a masterpiece of statesmanlike diplomacy ; he 
 made submission to the Sultan of Turkey, and thus 
 passed at once from the position of a mere marauding 
 freebooter to that of the accredited subject and officer 
 of a great empire. The Sultan Selim created him 
 Pacha, sent him a contingent of two thousand men, 
 and proclaimed that all who served in the war in North 
 Africa should enjoy the pay and privileges of Janis- 
 saries. Thus reinforced, Kheir-ed-din was able to cap- 
 ture the Penon, a.d. 1529. The gallant commander, 
 Don Martin de Vargas, he killed, the garrison was en- 
 slaved, the fort destroyed, and with the materials, the 
 island was connected with the mainland by a mole. 
 Thus was formed the harbour of Algiers, which for the 
 next three hundred years was to be the scourge of the 
 Mediterranean and the disgrace of Christendom — the 
 home and stronghold of the terrible Barbary corsairs. 
 The really great abihties of Kheir-ed-din marked him 
 for promotion. The Sultan Soliman summoned him to 
 Constantinople and made him Admiral*-in-Chief of 
 his fleets, with the title of Captain Pacha. In a.d. 1534 
 
 * "Admiral," or " Amiral," is derived from "Emir." It is 
 strange that, of the three chief titles in the navy, no one is English. 
 " Admiral " is Arabic, " Captain " Latin, and " Lieutenant " 
 French.
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 he dethroned Mulai Hassan, King of Tunis, but was 
 eventually driven out again by the Spaniards under 
 Charles V. in person. At last, in a.d. 1547, he died at 
 the age of nearly ninety years, and was buried at 
 Beshiktash. 
 
 Meanwhile the appointment of Charles V. as 
 Emperor had diverted his attention from the south to 
 the north, and the command of the sea in the Medi- 
 terranean was rapidly passing out of Christian hands. 
 In A.D. 1541 a great crusade was launched against 
 Algiers, but, aided by an opportune storm, Hassan 
 Agha was able to repulse it, and the town gained the 
 character of being impregnable. In a.d. 1554 the 
 Sultan Salat Reis drove the Spaniards from Bougie ; 
 in the following year the Knights of St. John were 
 forced to evacuate Tripoli. Tunis, taken and retaken, 
 was from a.d, 1574 governed by a Bey appointed by 
 the Sultan. To the west the Turks made themselves 
 masters of Tlemcen and Mostaganem ; and the 
 Spaniards, though not expelled, were closely blockaded 
 in Oran, Lastly, the Cherifs of Fez drove the Portu- 
 guese from the coasts of Morocco, 
 
 The position of the Turks in Africa was more akin 
 to that of the Carthaginians than to that of the 
 Romans ; it was not a conquest and occupation of the 
 country generally, but of the seaboard, and of the 
 country only so far as was necessary. The natives 
 were profoundly influenced and leavened by the new- 
 comers, but not conquered or seriously interfered with. 
 Even in Algiers men are spoken of as natives, or 
 Berbers, or Kabyles, or Arabs, but not as Turks. The 
 business of the Turks was on the sea, not on the land. 
 The Poeni were traders, the Turks were pirates ; the 
 business was different, but the scene was the same. 
 
 The influence of the Turks upon North Africa, so far 
 as it affected the country at large, was wholly bad. 
 Agriculture was ruined by the general anarchy which 
 
 232
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 prevailed, the oppressive taxes laid upon it, the irregu- 
 larity and violence with which they were raised, and the 
 practical prohibition of exportation ; even the Metidja, 
 one of the most fertile spots upon the face of the earth, 
 was reduced to a desert, uncultivated and without in- 
 habitants. No effort was made to restore order, rather 
 the unrest was encouraged and welcomed, as enabling 
 the Turks to hold sway with but little trouble and an 
 incredibly small army. 
 
 Their domination rested upon the support of the 
 Maghzen* warlike tribes whom they had been unable to 
 subdue, and so had attached them to themselves by 
 exempting them from taxation, and entrusting to them 
 the very profitable privilege of collecting tribute from 
 the other tribes, known as Raias. This tribute was 
 raised when convenient and possible, and at the point 
 of the sword, for the natives were in a state of continual 
 rebellion. But it had to pass through many greedy 
 hands on its way to the treasury at Algiers, and but 
 little of it reached its destination. 
 
 For administrative purposes the country was 
 divided into three Beyliks ; one of el Titteri, south of 
 Algiers, another of Constantine to the east, the third of 
 Oran to the west ; but the Beys were appointed by the 
 Deys, and rose and fell with them, so that here also 
 there was no security of tenure, and consequently no 
 stability or continuity of policy or rule. 
 
 The nucleus and backbone of the standing army, or 
 Olidjak, were the Yoldash, or infantry. These were 
 pure Turks, all others being jealously excluded ; they 
 constituted or elected the Divan, and were the real 
 masters of Algiers, making and unmaking Deys at their 
 will ; the only check upon their power was the influence 
 exerted by the Taiffe, the strong Corporation of the 
 Reis or Captains of the Corsairs. They were not kept 
 
 * " Maghzen " — our " magazine " — meant originally a military 
 store. " Raias " or " Rayahs," means " tributary." 
 
 233
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 continually with the colours, but after a year's active 
 service under canvas [Mehalla], they spent a year in 
 garrison work {Nourba), followed by a year's leave or 
 rest (Krezour). The cavalry consisted of native horse- 
 men {Spahis), and Conloiiglis — the sons of Turks by 
 native women, for the Turks did not bring their wives 
 with them to Algiers, In active warfare they were re- 
 inforced by the tribesmen of the Maghzen, the Zben- 
 touts, a picked corps of the most infamous pirates of the 
 Mediterranean, and the Zemala, or outlaws from other 
 countries, who had settled and been given land in 
 Algeria. 
 
 Practically, however, Kheir-ed-din's fame rests 
 upon the fact that he was the founder of Algiers as 
 a corsair stronghold, the chosen home of the worst 
 desperadoes in the world. Yet at first the rulers of 
 Algiers were not, in the full sense of the word, pirates. 
 They fought the Holy War against infidels, but they 
 did it as subjects of Turkey ; they respected Powers 
 which were at peace with their suzerain, and the 
 government was, nominally at least, in the hands of a 
 Pacha appointed by the Sultan. But it was a far cry 
 to Constantinople ; the links with Turkey rapidly grew 
 weaker and weaker, and the real power passed into 
 the hands of the soldiery, who revived the glories 
 of the old Praetorian Guard of Rome, making and 
 unmaking rulers at their pleasure, removing any un- 
 popular Pacha by assassination, and keeping the real 
 power in the hands of their own commander or Agha. 
 At first he was given only the title of Dey, or Pro- 
 tector, but soon the two offices were united, and he 
 became in name, what he had long been in fact, the 
 Pacha.* 
 
 Algiers had neither trade nor commerce ; she had 
 no business, no occupation, no adequate source of 
 
 * 1547-1587, Beylerbeys ; 1587-1659, Pachas, appointed tri- 
 ennially ; 1659-1671, Aghas ; 1671-1830, Deys. 
 
 234
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 income, save piracy. It is little wonder that piracy 
 was soon raised to the level of an exact science. 
 Soldiers, sailors, officials, from the Dey downwards, 
 were paid out of its profits. No prizes meant no pay ; 
 and so the success of the captain, or Reis, was much 
 more important than his methods. All comers were 
 welcome, on the sole condition that they adopted the 
 faith of Islam, a condition which was adequately ful- 
 filled by renouncing every other. As a matter of fact, 
 the great majority of the pirate captains were rene- 
 gades ; in A.D. 1581 this was true of twenty- two out 
 of thirty-six, and seven years later of twenty-four out 
 of thirty-five. Year by year the power of Algiers and 
 the audacity of its rovers increased. They refused to 
 be bound by any treaty longer than suited their con- 
 venience. They declined to be on friendly terms with 
 more than two or three Christian powers at a time, in 
 order that they might plunder the rest. They en- 
 forced humiliating terms of peace and restrictions on 
 commerce ; they interfered with the navigation laws ; 
 they claimed the right to search every vessel they met, 
 and to fix the number of passengers that each might 
 carry. All captives were sold in open market as 
 slaves, the representatives of powerful monarchs were 
 sent to work in the mines, or were blown from guns, on 
 the smallest provocation. And all this, so amazing to 
 us, was possible simply because each Christian Power 
 in turn found it more convenient to use an infamous 
 horde of savages as a scourge for other Powers, than 
 to join with the rest to destroy it. It was not until 
 well on in the nineteenth century, when the Napoleonic 
 wars were over, that Europe was sufficiently united to 
 close this open sore. It was left to France finally to 
 heal it.* 
 
 * For many of the following details I am indebted to The Barbary 
 Corsairs, by Stanley Lanc-Poole, in " The Story of the Nations " 
 Series. 
 
 235
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 The vessels employed by the Barbary corsairs were 
 essentially rowing-boats. Even when they carried a 
 mast and lateen sail, these were used only when the 
 weather was favourable, and in search of prey. Tack- 
 ing or beating up against the wind were little under- 
 stood, and were not much in favour. For business, 
 the corsairs trusted entirely to the oar. The craft 
 used in the Mediterranean were of three classes, the 
 galley, the galleot, and the brigantine. The galley 
 carried a crew of about one hundred and thirty officers 
 and soldiers, and about two hundred and seventy 
 rowers ; these were all Christian slaves. There was a 
 deck in the poop for the officers, the Reis who com- 
 manded the ship, and the Agha who commanded the 
 soldiers, neither of these being subordinate to the 
 other. In the prow there was another deck for the 
 soldiers. The waist, where the rowers sat, was open. 
 Down the middle ran a bridge or gangway, for the use 
 of the sailors when feeding the slaves, and of the boat- 
 swains when plying the whip. Each oar was about 
 fifteen feet long, and required four to six men to 
 pull it. 
 
 The galleot was similar in character, but smaller. 
 It carried about one hundred soldiers and two hundred 
 sailors, two or three to each oar. These were the most 
 popular vessels. Smallest of all was the brigantine. 
 This carried no soldiers, and no crew except the rowers, 
 who were therefore Moslems, not slaves. Only one 
 man was required for each oar. 
 
 The Algerines prided themselves upon the sharp run 
 of their vessels, and this meant that but very little 
 room could be allotted to the rowers. Five or six 
 men at a single oar had to live and work in a space 
 about ten feet by four ; this was their home, night 
 and day, for about six months at a stretch. A strong 
 man would pull an oar for about twenty years. 
 
 The slaves were chained to the benches, on which 
 236
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 they sat when not at work ; for rowing they had to 
 stand. In rowing the arms were stretched straight 
 out, and the head held low, to escape the backs of the 
 men in front, and the oar of the men behind. When 
 at full reach forward, the handle of the oar was raised 
 to catch the water, and the rowers, with one foot on the 
 stretcher and one on the bench in front, so as to get 
 their full weight on. flung themselves back, with all 
 their might, upon the bench behind them. In the case 
 of a stern chase, proverbially a long one, this tremen- 
 dous, heart-breaking work had to be kept up for ten, 
 twelve, or even twenty hours without intermission or 
 relaxation. Sailors walked up and down the gangway 
 and put bits of bread dipped in wine into the rowers' 
 mouths, but it was considered that the slaves worked 
 better on an empty stomach, and the boatswains pre- 
 ferred to trust to the whip. If the men were working 
 well, they were scourged to encourage them ; if a man 
 flagged, he was scourged harder ; if he sank down, he 
 was scourged until he got up and set to work again ; if, 
 finally, he could not rise, he was thrown overboard.* 
 When a Christian vessel was captured, the rowers 
 were set free, and the crew, soldiers, gentlemen ad- 
 venturers. Knights of Rhodes or Malta, as the case 
 might be, were chained to the benches in their places, 
 and the ship, in charge of a prize crew, was sent straight 
 to Algiers. There she was at once boarded by the 
 port officials, the liberated slaves were landed, and the 
 oars were dropped into the water and towed ashore to 
 prevent all fear of escape. The cargo was sold ; the 
 Government claimed one-fifth to one-eighth of the 
 value, and the hulks. The rest was divided between 
 the owners and the crew, who received no regular pay. 
 The captives were carefully examined and divided into 
 two categories, those who should be sold for work, and 
 
 * Derniers Jours de la Marine d Rames, Jarien de la Graviere. CJ. 
 Barbary Corsairs, p. 215. 
 
 237
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 those who were to be held to ransom. They were at 
 once put up for sale. Of the price offered sixty zequins 
 per head was given to the captors. The rest belonged 
 to the Dey, and was paid into the Khrasne, or 
 Treasury. 
 
 It is said that slaves were treated with tolerable 
 kindness. With regard to those who were held for 
 ransom, this may be accepted as true ; in fact they were 
 hardly treated as slaves at all. In respect to others, 
 the statement requires considerable modification. The 
 life of the galley slaves has been described. All that 
 can be said, at the best, is that the brutality of their 
 treatment was not gratuitous or inflicted merely for 
 the pleasure of giving pain ; and the same was pro- 
 bably true of other slaves. Their owners wanted to 
 get all the work they could out of them, and were 
 absolutely callous as to the means that were used. 
 The lot of the slave, like that of a mule or ox, depended 
 upon the character of his taskmaster and of the work 
 to which he was put. 
 
 As no Mohammedan could be held in slavery by a 
 brother Moslem, it may seem strange that so few pur-- 
 chased their freedom by apostasy. But this possibility 
 had been foreseen and was carefully guarded against 
 by the owners, to whom the bodies of their slaves were 
 of more account than their souls. If any slave showed 
 symptoms of approaching conversion, he was promptly 
 bastinadoed into a better frame of mind. An excep- 
 tion to this rule was, however, sometimes made by a 
 Reis in favour of some particularly strong or active 
 member of his crew. The renegades who commanded 
 the ships had not, as a rule, been slaves. Christian 
 renegades were called ^iloiij — savages or infidels, Jews 
 were known as selanii — a word of doubtful origin and 
 meaning. 
 
 To some, however, no mercy was shown ; these were 
 Moslems who had been converted to Christianity, 
 
 238
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 slaves who had tried to escape, or had struck or 
 injured a Moslem. Women were degraded to the 
 Mohammedan level. 
 
 The story of the martyrdom of Geronimo by the 
 Pacha Ali, a Calabrian renegade, deserves notice, 
 partly as a typical instance of Algerian methods, and 
 partly because of its dramatic sequel. 
 
 It was about the year a.d. 1536 when, amongst the 
 prisoners brought into Oran by the Spaniards, after 
 a raid on some troublesome Arab tribes, was a boy of 
 about four years old. With the others he was put up for 
 sale as a slave. He was bought by the Vicar-General, 
 Juan Caro, brought up as a Christian, and baptized 
 by the name of Geronimo. During an outbreak of 
 plague in a.d. 1542, Geronimo escaped, returned 
 home, and for some years lived as a Mohammedan. 
 In May a.d. 1559, at the age of twenty-five years, he 
 detemiined to leave his home, to return to Oran, and 
 once more to adopt Christianity. He was received by 
 his old master, Juan Caro, married to an Arab girl 
 who was also a Christian, and enrolled in one of the 
 squadrons called " Cuadrillas de Campo." 
 
 In May, 1569, he was sent from Oran with nine 
 conipanions to surprise a village (or Douar on the 
 seashore. On this expedition he was taken prisoner 
 by a couple of Tetuan brigantines, and carried to 
 Algiers, to be once more sold as a slave. When a body 
 of slaves was bror.ght in, the Pacha had a right to 
 choose one in every ten for himself, and thus Geronimo 
 passed into the hands of Ali. Every effort was made 
 to induce him to renounce Christianity once more, and 
 to return to Islam, but in vain. The Pacha was then 
 engaged in building a fort called the Bordj-Setti- 
 Takelilt (named afterwards, for some unknown reason, 
 " Le Fort des Vingt-Quatre Heures "), to protect 
 the water-gate, Bab-el-Oued, of Algiers. On Sep- 
 tember iSth, A.D. 1569, he sent for Geronimo and gave 
 
 ^39
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 him the choice of either at once renouncing Christi- 
 anity, or being buried aUve in one of the great cases 
 in which blocks of concrete were being made for 
 the construction of the fort. It was then half-past 
 twelve o'clock. 
 
 But the faith of Geronimo was not to be shaken. 
 The chains were then struck off his legs, he was bound 
 hand and foot, and thrown into the case of concrete. 
 A Spanish renegade called Tamango, who had become 
 a Moslem under the name of Djafar, leapt in upon him, 
 and with his heavy mallet hammered him down into 
 the concrete. The block was then built up into the 
 north wall of the fort, but its position was noted and 
 remembered by " Michael of Navarre," a Christian 
 and master mason, who was making the concrete. 
 The facts were collected by Don Diego de Haedo, and 
 printed in his Topography of Algiers. 
 
 In A.D. 1853 the French found it necessary to 
 remove the fort. At half-past twelve on December 
 27th of that year, the explosion of a mine split one of 
 the blocks of concrete and revealed the bones of 
 Geronimo, which had lain in their strange tomb for 
 nearly three hundred years. The block containing the 
 bones has been placed in the cathedral, but as the 
 relics have obstinately refused to work a miracle, the 
 title of Geronimo to be a saint has not been made good. 
 " Ossa venerabilis servi Dei Geronimi," so runs the 
 epitaph. 
 
 A plaster cast taken of the cavity shows the arms 
 of Geronimo still bound, but in the awful struggles of 
 suffocation his legs had broken loose. 
 
 In the seventeenth century changes were intro- 
 duced which, though at first they seemed only to 
 develop the trade, by extending the field of its opera- 
 tions, eventually proved its ruin. In A.D. 1601 a 
 Flemish buccaneer named Simon Danser put his 
 services at the disposal of the Pacha, and taught the 
 240
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 Algerian shipwrights to build larger vessels. These 
 were the galliase, which carried seven hundred men 
 and three hundred rowers, and was rigged with three 
 masts, and the galleon, which was larger still, and was 
 decked throughout. It was clear that vessels of this 
 size must trust mainly, if not entirely, to sails ; in 
 fact the galleon carried no rowers at all. Moreover, 
 the Powers began to adopt what may be called standing 
 navies ; and against a fleet, or even a considerable 
 squadron, the dashing tactics of the corsairs were of 
 little avail. The Algerian fleet had never been a large 
 one, or accustomed to work together. At the end of 
 the sixteenth century it numbered only thirty-five or 
 thirty-six galleys, and they seldom attacked more than 
 two or three vessels at a time. Moreover, the expulsion 
 of the last Moors from Spain, in a.d. i6io, robbed them 
 of their last sympathisers and allies in Europe. 
 , On the other hand, the small rowing craft which 
 they had hitherto employed were suitable only for 
 short dashes, and practically confined their operations 
 to the Mediterranean. With the larger vessels, fully 
 rigged, decked, and with a high freeboard, they were 
 able to undertake long voyages and face the storms of 
 the Atlantic. In a.d. 1627 the Reis Mourad pene- 
 trated as far as to Iceland, and brought back eight 
 hundred prisoners. In a.d. 1631 he made a descent 
 on Baltimore, in Ireland, and carried off two hundred 
 and thirty-seven prisoners ; in a.d. 1640 another raid 
 was made near Penzance, when about sixty were 
 captured. There were at this time twenty- five thou- 
 sand Christian slaves in Algiers alone, of whom, as is 
 shown by a petition to the King, dated October 2nd, 
 A.D. 1640, three thousand were English. 
 
 Now and again an effort was made to put an end to 
 these atrocities. In a.d. 1655, Cromwell, who knew 
 his own mind, sent Robert Blake with a squadron to 
 deal with the matter. Blake visited Tunis first, and 
 
 Q 241
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 after vainly endeavouring to get satisfaction from the 
 Bey, sailed to Porto Farina, the winter quarters of the 
 fleet. There he found the Tunisian fleet, hauled close 
 to the shore, and strongly defended by the guns of the 
 forts, by earthworks thrown up for the purpose, as 
 well as by an amiy of several thousand horse and foot. 
 He marked his recognition of the gravity of the occa- 
 sion by having divine service performed with great 
 solemnity on board every vessel of his squadron. 
 Then on April 4th, " very early we entered with the 
 fleet into the harbour, and anchored before their 
 castles, the Lord being pleased to favour us with a 
 gentle gale off the sea, which cast all the smoke upon 
 them, and made our work the more easy ; for after some 
 hours' dispute we set on fire all their ships, which were 
 nine in number, and the same favourable gale still 
 continuing, we retreated out again into the roads." 
 
 Surely never was a heroic action described in more 
 modest words. 
 
 Blake then sailed for Algiers, where he found things 
 much simplified by his victory. His demands were 
 complied with without hesitation, and all British 
 slaves were released on payment of a moderate ransom. 
 
 Nor was this the only instance of vigorous and 
 successful action. On August 12th, a.d. 1670, Sir 
 Thomas Allen sighted and destroyed six of the best 
 vessels of the Algerian fleet ; a few months later, on 
 May 8th, a.d. 1671, his second-in-command, Sir Edward 
 Spragg, drove another squadron into the harbour of 
 Bougie and burnt it there. But such cases were rare 
 and spasmodic. 
 
 At last, in a.d. 1816, a more serious effort was made 
 to put an end to the scandal. Lord Exmouth was sent 
 to Algiers with a sufficient fleet and a free hand. On 
 August 25, the battle of Algiers was fought, in which 
 the Algerian fleet was destroj^ed and the fortifications 
 seriously damaged. But, from the sea, the town was 
 242
 
 THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 
 
 impregnable, no troops were landed to attack it on 
 its vulnerable side. In a word, no sustained elfort was 
 made to capture or to occupy the place ; and so the 
 demonstration ended in nothing ; and it was not until 
 A.D. 1830 that the celebrated " Coup d'Eventail " 
 which the Dey Husein dealt the French Consul, Deval, 
 decided France to take final and determined action. 
 On June 14, an army thirty-seven thousand strong 
 was landed at Sidi Ferrouch under the command of 
 General de Bourmont. On June 19 a decisive battle 
 was fought at Staoueli ; on July 4 the Fort de 
 I'Empereur was blown up by its defenders ; on the 
 following day, July 5, Husein capitulated, the French 
 entered Algiers, and North Africa entered on a new 
 life of civilisation and recovery as a French colony. 
 
 243
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE LAIR OF THE CORSAIRS 
 
 Sir Lambert Playfair used to say that, with the 
 exception of that from the Greek theatre at Taormina, 
 the view from his house at El Biar was the most 
 beautiful on the Mediterranean. The two are so 
 different that it is not easy to compare them. There 
 are no precipices at Algiers like those which drop from 
 Taormina to Giardini, no wooded islands, no back 
 ground of rugged mountain heights — above all, no 
 Etna with its eternal snows and fires. In truth, 
 Algiers is much more like Naples. There is the same 
 wide sweep of bay, the same white town climbing the 
 hill, the same general effects of luxuriant verdure. 
 But even here Algiers suffers by the comparison. It 
 is all on a smaller scale ; we miss the historic Vesuvius ; 
 above all, we miss the lovely islands of Ischia and 
 Capri, which hang like golden clouds on the horizon at 
 the two extremities of the bay. 
 
 It is better to take Algiers as it is, for it is very 
 beautiful ; perhaps more so now that the town has 
 spread far and wide, and the snowy French villas peep 
 through the trees of Mustapha, El Biar, and Bouzarea, 
 than when the hills were bare, and the savage strong- 
 hold of the Turks kept the Christian world at bay. 
 
 The town lies in a bay, which sweeps round from 
 Pointe Pescade to the north-west to Cap Matifou to 
 the east. As we come in from the sea it is still possible 
 to trace the outline of what remains of the Turkish 
 town, but only by the flat roofs, the glaring whiteness, 
 244
 
 THE LAIR OF THE CORSAIRS 
 
 and the apparent absence of streets. The old walls 
 and forts and gates are gone, especially the grim 
 fortifications of the sea front. Indeed, with the ex- 
 ception of a few houses near the Mole, the whole of 
 that part of the town has been swept away to make 
 room for the French Boulevards and open Places. 
 
 Of the Roman Icosium, never a place of much 
 importance, no trace now remains. It is said that 
 the Rue de la Marine follows the line of the old street, 
 and that the Roman pillars which now line the Djama 
 Kebira belonged to it ; but even this is doubtful. 
 
 No trustworthy map or description of Turkish 
 Algiers exists, and we are left to reconstruct it, as best 
 we may, from chance notices in the writings of men like 
 Cervantes, Hsedo, and Venture de Paradis. To do this 
 — in outline, at any rate — is not difficult. 
 
 The town faced due east. In shape it was an 
 almost perfect triangle, each side measuring some 
 half a mile in length. Its population was about fifty 
 thousand, of whom not more than one-tenth were 
 Turks.* 
 
 The apex of the triangle, at the top of the steep 
 hill, was occupied by the Kasbah. If from this we 
 draw two lines, one south-east along the Boulevard 
 Gambetta to the Square de la Republique, and the 
 other through the Boulevard Vallee to the Lyc^e, we 
 have the outline of the city as the French found it in 
 A.D. 1830. 
 
 On its two land sides it was defended by a wall, 
 ten feet thick and thirty-five to forty feet high, streng- 
 thened with towers at irregular intervals ; outside this 
 ran a deep waterless fosse. There were no faubourgs, 
 but, according to Venture de Paradis, there were no 
 fewer than ten thousand villas, each surrounded by a 
 lofty wall on the neighbouring hills. 
 
 * This is the estimate of Venture de Paradis, and is confirmed by 
 Mr. Shaler. 
 
 245
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 The number of gates is given differently by various 
 writers. Probably there were five.* 
 
 On the sea front there were two, one at the head of 
 the Mole of Kheir-ed-Din, the other, called the Fishers' 
 Gate, to the south, near the present Sante. 
 
 In the north wall there was only one, the Bab el 
 Oued, or Water Gate. It stood where the present 
 street of that name passes the Lycee. Outside this 
 gate was the place of execution for Christians and 
 Jews. Christians were either beheaded or strangled. 
 The former sentence was carried out by the Turkish 
 soldiers ; the latter was executed by some passing 
 Christian or Jew who was impressed for the service, 
 for no Mohammedan would hang or strangle a man. 
 Women condemned to death were drowned. Jews 
 were burnt. In addition to this, they were com- 
 pelled to wear a special dress, either black or white ; 
 they were forbidden under any circumstances to resist 
 or resent an injury, to mount a horse, or to carry any 
 weapon, even a stick ; they had to pay double taxes, 
 and were allowed to pass through the gates only on 
 Wednesday and Saturday. After dark every one was 
 obliged to carry a lighted lantern, except a Jew, who 
 had to carry his light bare, and was punished if it went 
 out. They were, however, allowed to buy slaves in 
 the open market, a privilege which was refused to 
 Christians. Outside this gate were the Christian and 
 Jewish cemeteries. 
 
 The Bab el Oued was protected by no fewer than 
 four forts. Close to the waterside stood the Bordj 
 el Djedid, or New Fort. This, however, was never 
 finished, or, at anyrate, never armed. On the site of 
 the modern esplanade stood the Bordj Setti Takelett, 
 or Holy Negress, armed with thirty-four guns. The 
 French gave it the name of the Fort des Vingt-quatre 
 
 * Mr. Shaler says four. The doubt is about the Fishers' Gate. 
 Perhaps this was only a postern. 
 
 246
 
 THE LAIR OF THE CORSAIRS 
 
 Heures. This was the scene of the martyrdom of Gero- 
 nimo. Farther off, between the church of Notre Dame 
 d'Afrique and the sea, stood the Fort des Anglais, 
 armed with twenty-two guns. On Pointe Pescade 
 stood the fourth, known as the Castle of Barbarossa, 
 and armed with twenty-one guns. 
 
 By the Bab el Oued entered the only thoroughfare 
 of the town ; it followed roughly the line of the present 
 Rues Bab el Oued and Bab Azoun. It was called the 
 Souk el Kebir, or Great Market, from the stalls with 
 which it was hned. x\lthough it was the largest and 
 most important highway in all Algiers, it was nowhere 
 more than ten feet wide. 
 
 This road left the town by the Bab Azoun, or Gate 
 of Weeping, which stood on the site of the present 
 Place de la Republique. This was the place of execu- 
 tion for Turks and natives ; from each side projected 
 horrible hooks of iron on which the worst offenders 
 were impaled and left to die by inches.* This gate 
 was protected by the Fort Bab Azoun, and another 
 which stood on Cap Matifou, armed with twenty-two 
 guns. Close to this gate and just inside the wall, stood 
 a Kouba of great sanctity — the tomb of Sidi Dede Well, 
 the marabout who foretold, and, it was believed, 
 caused, the great tempest which destroyed the Spanish 
 fleet in a.d. 1541, and saved Algiers from Doria and 
 the Emperor Charles V. 
 
 This mosque, with that of Sidi Abd el Kader which 
 stood hard by outside the wall, and that of Sidi Abd er 
 Rahman, were places of sanctuary for criminals. 
 
 Higher up the hill, where the wall joined the 
 Kasbah, was the last of the gates, the Bab el Djedid, 
 or New Gate, by which the French entered on July 5, 
 1830. 
 
 This gate was originally protected by two forts, 
 
 * In 1830 the French found the heads and bodies of many 
 Europeans impaled on this gate. 
 
 247
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 but one of them, the Fort de I'Etoile, had been blown 
 up by a slave, and no longer existed in a.d. 1830. The 
 other was the most important of all, and was, in fact, 
 the key of Algiers. This was the Fort de I'Empereur, 
 begun by Charles V. in a.d. 1541, and completed by 
 Hassan Pacha eight years later. It was armed with 
 seventy-seven guns, and stood a little to the south- 
 west of the Kasbah. Its capture by the French 
 rendered the town untenable and was the signal for 
 its surrender. 
 
 The impregnable fortifications, armed with two 
 hundred and fourteen guns, which protected the sea 
 front, have been entirely destroyed, or lie buried, like 
 the houses of the Baglione at Perugia, under the 
 rampes and quays of the great Boulevard de la Re- 
 publique, which now stretches from the Square de la 
 Republique to the Place du Gouvernement. 
 
 About midway between the Bab Azoun and the 
 Bab el Oued, the shore bends forward into a point, off 
 which, at a distance of some two or three hundred 
 yards, lies the Rock or Pehon, which in a.d, 1509 Pedro 
 Navarro fortified for the Spaniards to overawe the 
 town. It is now the only remaining one of the islands 
 which gave Algiers its name. Twenty years later 
 Kheir-ed-Din took it, and with the materials of the 
 forts which he destroyed, built the mole which con- 
 nects the island with the shore. To the north the 
 rock projects only a little way beyond the mole. At 
 its southern extremity a second mole was constructed, 
 stretching towards the shore, thus forming a tiny 
 harbour, capable of sheltering about fifty vessels. It 
 is hard to believe that this insignificant little nook 
 was once the famous lair of the terrible corsairs. Now 
 it is only the starting-point of the Jetee du Nord of 
 the great French harbour. 
 
 Kheir-ed-Din left but little of the Spanish work 
 standing. A couple of handsome gateways, with coats 
 248
 
 THE LAIR OF THE CORSAIRS 
 
 of arms over them, and probably the core of the 
 massive bastion on which, in a.d. 1544, Hassan Pacha 
 built the lighthouse, are all that now remains of the 
 " Epine plantee au coeur des Algeriens." The fine 
 Arab Gate of the Lions is of white marble and richly 
 coloured. It belonged to the Bordj Ras-el-Moul. 
 The house of the Reis is now occupied by the admiral ; 
 adjoining it is a pretty little marble fountain. The 
 Turkish fortifications of the Pefion mounted one 
 hundred and eighty-nine guns. 
 
 The centre of French life in Algiers is the Place du 
 Gouvernement. Its construction involved the removal 
 of the finest of the sixty mosques in Algiers, and 
 threatened the existence of another. 
 
 The destroyed Mosque es Saida, which stood on the 
 site of the present Hotel de la Regence, replaced, 
 according to tradition, the old Christian church of 
 Icosium. It is said that the seventy-two white marble 
 columns with which it was adorned came either from 
 the church or from the town. That the pillars, which 
 now form the arcade of the Great Mosque, are Roman 
 is certain ; an inscription on one of them to Lucius 
 Coecilius, son of Argilis, puts this beyond doubt ; 
 but, according to Venture de Paradis, they were 
 brought from Genoa ; and as he wrote on the spot soon 
 after the mosque was erected, this is probably the 
 truth. 
 
 The Djama Djedid was also doomed, as its removal 
 was necessary to the completion of the Place. Happily 
 it was saved by the remonstrances of Colonel Lemercier, 
 and the symmetry of the great Place was sacrificed 
 instead. The Mirhab of the Mosque es Saida was 
 brought to it. 
 
 Adjoining the Place, on the west, and between it 
 and the mosque which now forms the cathedral, was 
 another group of buildings which well deserved to be 
 spared. This was the Palace of the Dey, Dar es 
 
 249
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 Sultan, known as the Djenina or Garden. It was here 
 that SeUm et Teumi was strangled in his bath by Baba 
 Aroudj, and it was the seat of government until a.d, 
 1816, when the last Dey but one, AH Khodja, fled from 
 his Janissaries and placed himself and his treasures 
 under the protection of the Berber soldiers in the 
 stronger and safer quarters of the Kasbah. The 
 entrance was marked with a flagstaff bearing a golden 
 apple. In front of it was a little open space — the only 
 one in all Algiers — about twenty-five yards square, 
 and adorned with a marble fountain. One pavilion 
 has been spared ; it was known as the " Dar bent 
 es Sultan," the house of the daughter of the Dey. 
 It is now the archbishop's palace. If the rest was as 
 beautiful as this fragment, the loss is indeed great. 
 The palace occupied the whole of the space now sur- 
 rounded by the Rues du Divan, Bruce, Djenina, and 
 Bab el Oued. 
 
 Of life in Algiers, at the close of the eighteenth and 
 beginning of the nineteenth centuries, a curiously and 
 unexpectedly pleasant picture is drawn by those who 
 knew it. The Turkish garrison was very small, num- 
 bering less than two thousand men, and the fleet 
 which flouted the world was insignificant. In March 
 1825 it consisted of only fourteen vessels, of all ratings, 
 carrying 350 guns. There were three frigates, of 62, 
 50, and 40 guns respectively ; two corvettes, 45 and 
 36 guns ; two brigs, 18 and 16 guns ; five schooners, 
 24, 14, and 14 guns, and two unarmed ; one polacca, 
 20 guns ; and one zebeque, 10 guns. The captains 
 knew little or nothing of navigation, and were obliged 
 to carry Christian or other slaves, to sail their ships 
 for them. In the town itself the Hfe and property of 
 the Turks — that is, of those who took part in political 
 life — were very insecure, but great wealth accumulated 
 in the hands of the non-political natives, where it was 
 perfectly safe. Nor was the position of women so hard 
 250
 
 THE LAIR OF THE CORSAIRS 
 
 as is often thought ; the property of heiresses was 
 secured to them after marriage, and with regard to 
 their seclusion, " they are," says ]\Ir. Shaler, " less 
 slaves to their husbands than to custom and long- 
 received notions of propriety. ' ' After the abandonment 
 of galleys in the seventeenth century and of private 
 cruising in 1816, the number of slaves decreased and 
 their condition became more bearable. Ransom was 
 more easy, and they were often able to make money for 
 themselves — some made a great deal — and purchase 
 their own freedom. Of the town itself, we are assured 
 that, except for casual emeutes on the occasion of the 
 murder of a Dey — and this was usually arranged for a 
 Monday morning, at the close of the Divan — " there is no 
 city in the world where there is a more vigilant police, 
 or where there is better security for life or property." 
 Doubtless, according to our ideas, the streets were 
 filthy, but the houses, numbering from eight to ten 
 thousand, were whitewashed every year, and the 
 streets were provided with a hundred and fifty public 
 fountains, each with a metal cup attached. The rules 
 for drawing water were simple and precise ; Turks took 
 precedence of all comers ; Christians and natives hlled 
 their vessels in turn ; Jews had to wait until the place 
 was absolutely free. 
 
 The Arab town, when once you find your way into 
 it from the Rue Randon, is a perpetual dehght, full of 
 picturesque corners, with lights and shadows which 
 enchant the eye and are the despair of the painter. 
 It is a maze of winding and intricate streets, without 
 the slightest effort at directness or symmetry of 
 arrangement ; so steep that, where not actually stairs, 
 they are for the most part divided into the long sloping 
 steps which the ItaHans call cordonala, and so narrow 
 as to be often impassable for anything larger than a 
 mule — no wheeled vehicle was ever seen in Algiers 
 before the French came. Often they are completely 
 
 251
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 arched over ; even where this is not the case, the 
 windowless houses project forward, step by step, on 
 wooden struts until the upper storeys nearly, touch. 
 The houses are either covered with the eternal white- 
 wash, or are painted blue ; the doorways are fre- 
 quently beautifully carved, and, in the case of mosques, 
 zaouias, hammams, and other buildings of a more or 
 less sacred character, they are richly, or gaudily, 
 painted with the favourite Moslem colours, red and 
 green. The doors open into delightfully tiled entrance 
 halls or skiffa. Beyond these it is of course impossible 
 to penetrate without special invitation. In general 
 arrangement they are all alike, square, built round an 
 oust,* or little court like a Spanish patio. They have 
 fiat roofs, and no windows, or only small, heavily 
 barred openings high up in the wall. In the heat of 
 summer, a curtain is drawn over the open patio. 
 Several of the finest houses have been occupied by the 
 French and are open to inspection. Chief amongst 
 these is the governor's winter palace, Dar Hassan 
 Pacha. It is gaudy and may have been beautiful, 
 but the extensive alterations and additions made by 
 the French have robbed it of much of its charm and 
 interest. Close by is the palace of the archbishop 
 already mentioned. 
 
 Most perfect and beautiful of all is the public 
 library, installed in the private house of Mustapha- 
 Pacha, who built it in a,d, 1779, and was murdered in 
 A.D. 1805. The skiffa is covered with Delft tiles, 
 signed " J.V.M." (J. van Maak) ; passing through it we 
 turn to the left into the oust, or patio ; it is a square 
 court surrounded by two storeys of horseshoe arches, 
 decorated with tiles, and resting on slender spiral 
 columns of marble. Between the columns of the 
 upper storey runs a balustrade of carved cedar wood ; 
 the dwelling- rooms are sacrificed to the books. In 
 
 * The waist or middle. 
 252
 
 THE LAIR OF THE CORSAIRS 
 
 the centre of the patio is a graceful marble fountain, 
 its basin filled with bamboos, and bananas stand in 
 the four corners. To sit there in the shade, reading, on 
 a hot day, with the sun blazing down upon dazzling 
 colours of wood, marble, and tiles, and Ming the air 
 with vibrating light ; to feel the coolness of the little 
 breeze which makes the bamboos tremble and the 
 water drip outside the basin, is as near the perfection 
 of luxurious ease as a student can desire. 
 
 Of the original Kasbah little remains. It was 
 begun by the one Barbarossa and finished by the other, 
 to take the place of the ancient Berber fortress. It 
 did not become a royal residence until a.d. i8i6, when 
 Ali Khodja took sanctuary there, and stood a siege 
 by his own troops. Ultimately they were routed and 
 massacred, but the Dey did not dare to risk a return 
 to the lower town, so he and his successor remained at 
 the Kasbah until finally driven out by the French. 
 
 A broad road has been driven through the fortress, 
 entirely destroying its original character ; on passing 
 through the strong walls there is a disused mosque, 
 now a magazine, on one side of the road and an ancient 
 gateway on the other. The private apartments of the 
 Dey surround a court, in the middle of which is a 
 fountain ; amongst them a little room, hardly more 
 than a recess, is shown as the scene of the " Blow 
 with the Fan " ; the apartments are handsome, but do 
 not require special notice. Some of the ofliccrs are 
 quartered in fine old houses, but these are, of course, 
 private. Not much else of the old fort has been 
 left. 
 
 The mosques are not remarkably fine or interesting. 
 Three of them, however, deserve notice as being good 
 specimens of the three different types of such buildings 
 which we find in North Africa. 
 
 The Djama Kebira, or Great Mosque, stands close 
 to the sea, between the modern Boulevard de France 
 
 253
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 and the ancient Rue de la Marine, at the head of the 
 jetty of Kheir-ed-Din. It is of the ordinary type of 
 Arab mosques, built for the Malekite rite, and dates 
 from the tenth or eleventh century. A fine minaret 
 was added in a.d. 1324 by Abou Tachefin, King of 
 Tlemgen. Its exterior was quite plain, but in a.d. 
 1837 the French adorned the side towards the Rue de 
 la Marine with a handsome arcade of horseshoe arches 
 resting upon the pillars brought from the Djama-es- 
 Saida. 
 
 The interior is divided into eleven aisles by heavy 
 whitewashed arcades of horseshoe arches resting upon 
 square piers. This arrangement, poor and clumsy, 
 reminds us that the great builders of North Africa and 
 Spain were not the Arabs, but the Moors or Berbers ; 
 and that even they very seldom carved a column to 
 beautify the houses of God. If they could not take 
 them from some Roman ruin they did without them. 
 
 The mirhab and the cupboards for the sacred books 
 are fine and the mimbar old and quaint : an inscription 
 upon it gives the date a.h. 409 — that is, a.d. 1018. 
 The adjoining arches are scalloped, but it may be 
 doubted whether this is an improvement. 
 
 Surrounded on three sides by the aisles of the 
 mosque, is the open court, green and shady with trees, 
 and beautified with a lovely fountain for ablutions. 
 This, as usual, consists of a little dome resting on slender 
 pillars and is bright with tiles. Seen from the gloomy 
 shadows of the mosque, the effect of this fight and 
 shade, green leaf of trees and shimmer of marble and 
 burnished tiles, is singularly beautiful, and we leave 
 the mosque with a pleasant recollection of quiet and 
 coolness and of that pecuHar solemnity which the low 
 roofs and numberless aisles never fail to give. 
 
 High up the hill, where its almost precipitous side 
 seems to oft'er the least possible foothold for a building, 
 stands, or rather hangs, the little mosque and zaouia 
 
 254
 
 THE LAIR OF THE CORSAIRS 
 
 of Sidi Abd-er-Rahman et Tsalibi. The marabout 
 round whose grave the buildings have gathered hved 
 in the first half of the fourteenth century, and belonged 
 to the Tsaliba tribe, which dominated the Metidja 
 before the coming of the Turks. In spite of this, the 
 fame of his learning and holiness was so great that he 
 has retained his hold on the affection of the people, 
 Turks and natives, and is still reverenced as the patron 
 saint of Algiers. Whenever a corsair left the harbour 
 below, he saluted first the Dar es Sultan and then this 
 mosque, each with three guns. The mosque was re- 
 built by the Turkish invaders in a.d. i6g6. It is an 
 exquisite little specimen of a style of mosque of which 
 the largest and most perfect example is that of the 
 Djama Sidi Sahab at Kairouan. 
 
 The new mosque, the Djama Djedid, or, as it is now 
 called, from the fish market which surrounds it, the 
 " Mosquee de la Pecherie," was built in a.d. 1660, 
 by the Turkish invaders for their worship according 
 to the Hanefite rite ; for Turks, Arabs, and Berbers 
 dift'er almost as much in religion as in race. 
 
 Its position is remarkable and suggestive, for it 
 stands on the edge of the new Place du Gouvernement, 
 between the Djama Kebira of the Arabs on one side, 
 and Marochetti's theatrical statue of the Due d'Orlcans 
 on the other — the last three conquerors of Africa, 
 Arab, Turkish and French. In itself it is a plain, 
 spacious, unpretentious building enough, which, though 
 it lacks the dignity of the mosques of Constanti- 
 nople or Cairo, and especially their light and graceful 
 minarets, belongs entirely to the Eastern rather than 
 to the Western type of building. 
 
 In form it is a Latin cross, crowned with a central 
 dome surrounded by four smaller ones. Its shape has 
 given rise to the fable that its architect was a Christian 
 slave, who was crucified for thus daring to stamp the 
 symbol of his faith on a Mohammedan mosque. A 
 
 255
 
 STUDIES IN NORTH AFRICA 
 
 somewhat similar story attaches to certain rose win- 
 dows in France and elsewhere, that they were the 
 work of a pupil who was murdered through the jealousy 
 of his master. 
 
 Except for the vulgar decoration of the dome, the 
 interior is very plain, and reminds us more of a church 
 than of a mosque — a lofty nave, choir, and transepts, 
 with a plain barrel vault carried by semicircular 
 arches resting on square piers. Round the building, 
 just above the arches, runs a little wooden triforium ; 
 from the vault hang handsome chandeliers, and in each 
 of the aisles is a wooden gallery. The mimbar, instead 
 of being a flight of steps with standing-room at the 
 top, placed against the wall by the side of the mirhab, 
 stands under the central dome, and the steps, with a 
 door at the bottom and a canopied landing at the top, 
 lead to the large wooden platform from which the 
 service is conducted. The mosque possesses one great 
 treasure, the copy of the Koran presented to the Pacha 
 by the Sultan of Constantinople. 
 
 Such was Algiers in time past, under Turkish rule ; 
 and such is it now. 
 
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