CHAPTER X
The "lower city" of Carthage extended northward to the harbor, westward to the suburb of Aklas, the Numidian, and eastward to the Tripolitan suburb. Directly beyond its southern gate, covering a space more than two leagues long and a league wide, lay the oft-mentioned "Grove of Venus" or "Grove of the Holy Virgin." From the most ancient pagan times this grove was the scene of the sumptuous, sensual revels which were proverbial throughout the Roman Empire. "African" was the word used to express the acme of such orgies.
The whole coast of the bay in this neighborhood, kept moist by the damp sea-air, had originally been covered with dense woods. The larger portion had long since yielded to the growth of the city; but, by the Emperor's order, a considerable part was retained and transformed into a magnificent park, adorned with all the skill and the lavish expenditure which characterized the time of the Cæsars.
The main portion of this grove consisted of date palms. These were introduced by the Phoenicians. The palm, say the Arabs, gladly sets her feet as queen of the desert into damp sand, but lifts her head into the glow of the sun. It thrived magnificently here, and in centuries of growth the slender columns of the trunks attained a height of fifty feet; no sunbeam could penetrate vertically through the roof of drooping leaves of those thick crowns, which rustled and nodded dreamily in the wind, wooing, inviting to sleep, to unresisting indolence, to drowsy thoughts.
But they stood sufficiently far apart to allow the light and air to enter from the sides and to permit smaller trees (dwarf palms), bushes, and flowers to grow luxuriantly beneath the shelter of the lofty crowns. Besides the palms, other noble trees had been first planted and fostered by human hands, then had increased through the peerless fertility of nature: the plane-tree, with its lustrous light bark; the pine, the cypress, and the laurel; the olive, which loves the salt breath of the sea; the pomegranate, so naturalized here that its fruit was called "the Carthaginian apple"; while figs, citrus-trees, apricots, peaches, almonds, chestnuts, pistachios, terebinths, oleanders, and myrtles,--sometimes as large trees, sometimes as shrubs,--formed, as it were, the undergrowth of the glorious palm forest.
And the skill in gardening of the Roman imperial days, which has scarcely been equalled since, aided by irrigation from the immense aqueducts, had created here, on the edge of the desert, marvels of beauty. "Desert" was a misnomer; the real desert lay much farther in the interior. First there was a thick luxuriant green turf, which, even in the hottest days of the year, had hardly a single sunburnt patch. The wind had borne the flower-seeds from the numerous beds, and now everywhere amid the grass blossoms shone in the vivid, glowing hues with which the African sun loves to paint.
The parterres of flowers which were scattered through the entire grove suffered, it is true, from a certain monotony. The variety that now adorns our gardens was absent: the rose, the narcissus, the violet, and the anemone stood almost alone; but these appeared in countless varieties, in colors artificially produced, and were often made to blossom before or after their regular season.
In this world of trees, bushes, and flowers the lavishness of the emperors (who had formerly often resided here), the munificence of the governors, and still more the endowments of wealthy citizens of Carthage had erected an immense number of buildings of every variety. For centuries patriotism, a certain sense of honor, and often vanity, boastfulness, and a desire to perpetuate a name, had induced wealthy citizens to keep themselves in remembrance by erecting structures for the public benefit, laying out pleasure-grounds, and putting up monuments. This local patriotism of the former citizens, both in its praiseworthy and its petty motives, had by no means died out. Solemn tombs separated by very narrow spaces lined both sides of the broad Street of Legions, which ran straight through the grove from north to south. Besides these there were buildings of every description, and also baths, ponds, little lakes with waterworks, marble quays, and dainty harbors for the light pleasure-boats, circus buildings, amphitheatres, stages, stadia for athletic sports, hippodromes, open colonnades, temples with all their numerous and extensive outbuildings scattered everywhere through the grounds of the whole park.
The grove had originally been dedicated to Aphrodite (Venus), therefore statues of this goddess and of Eros (Cupid) appeared most frequently in the wide grounds, though Christian zeal had shattered the heads, breasts, and noses of many such figures and broken the bow of many a Cupid. Since the reign of Constantine, most of the pagan temples had been converted into Christian oratories and churches, but by no means all; and those that had been withdrawn from the service of the pagan religion and not used for the Christian one had now for two centuries, with their special gardens, arbors, and grottoes, been the scenes of much vice, gambling, drunkenness, and matters even worse. The gods had been driven out; the demons had entered.
Among more than a hundred buildings in the grove, two near the Southern Gate of the city were specially conspicuous: the Old Circus and the Amphitheatre of Theodosius.
The Old Circus had been erected in the period of the greatest prosperity of Carthage, the whole spacious structure, with its eighty thousand seats, was planned to accommodate its great population. Now most of the rows stood empty; many of the Roman families, since the Vandal conquest, had moved away, been driven forth, exiled. The rich bronze ornaments of numerous single seats, rows, and boxes had been broken off. This was done not by the Vandals, who did not concern themselves about such trifles, but by the Roman inhabitants of the city and by the neighboring peasants; they even wrenched off and carried away the marble blocks from the buildings in the grove. The granite lower story, a double row of arches, supported the rows of marble seats, which rose from within like an amphitheatre. Outside, the Circus was surrounded by numerous entrances and outside staircases, besides niches occupied as shops, especially workshops, cookshops, taverns, and fruit booths. Here, by night and day, many evil-minded people were always lounging; from the larger ones, hidden by curtains from the eyes of the passing throng, cymbals and drums clashed, in token that, within, Syrian and Egyptian girls were performing their voluptuous dances for a few copper coins. South of the Circus was a large lake, fed with sea-water from the "Stagnum," whose whole contents could be turned into the amphitheatre directly adjoining it.