TIMGAD: ARCH OF TRAJAN
But perhaps even with the disquieting possibility of a foreign raid on our shores, denied by our politicians with such emphasis that we are led to believe in its existence, it is not necessary for us to base the plan of our towns on the arrangements of a camp. Such was the underlying plan of Timgad. It was divided, as was the conventional Roman camp, into four parts by two main intersecting streets. That which led from east to west was called decumanus, that which pointed north and south cardo. The former was a portion of the main road from Lambessa to Tebessa, and was doubtless the most used in the town. Its solid pavement shows the wear of wheels, as do the streets of Pompeii. It was naturally at the junction of these streets that the chief buildings were situate. Here is the Forum, with the Theatre behind it and the Municipal Library in front. Looking east from the Forum along the decumanus we see the magnificent Triumphal Arch, the most impressive monument in the town. It is also the best preserved, and thanks to its existence the attention of scholars was called to Timgad in the first instance. With the aid of the excellent and well-illustrated handbook prepared by M. Albert Ballu, Architecte en chef des Monuments historiques de l’Algerie, the visitor will be able to identify and study the whole of the works excavated and restored. Probably most visitors to Timgad will have previously seen Pompeii, and will have some general acquaintance with the arrangements of a Roman town and the nature of its public buildings. Timgad will introduce them to some new features; of its Public Library and the romance of its discovery I shall speak later; it has a remarkably complete series of markets; and the public conveniences behind the Forum will interest those who are concerned about sanitary matters.
However satiated with the wonders of the town itself the visitor should not omit to visit the Museum. Here amid the usual assemblage of mediocre Roman antiquities he will find some mosaic pavements of the highest excellence.
Perhaps we are most of us disposed to be more interested in comparatively trivial matters of decoration and so forth than in the structure and disposal of important edifices. We are not all architects and town-planners. And here we may take especial delight in a little piece of evidence that even in this frontier city life was not all strenuous. On a stone of the Forum are graven the following words:—
| VENARI | LAVARI |
| LUDERE | RIDERE |
| OCCEST | VIVERE |
“Hunting, bathing, play and laughter,—such is life.” This symmetrical arrangement of letters is divided by a device consisting of a vase of flowers surmounted by a bird. It speaks to us across the ages a pleasant message; in such happy human touches Timgad is less rich than Pompeii. And perhaps neither town has anything so delightful as the mosaics found in a bath and a stable at Oued Atmenia between Constantine and Sétif, on the site of a considerable Roman country house. The mosaics in the baths depict various incidents of rural life;—hunting scenes in which huntsmen and hounds are named, a garden scene with a lady spinning under a palm tree. One mosaic represents six favourite horses with inscriptions recording their names and qualities;—with Pullentianus is stabled Altus, “unus es ut mons exultas”—"you have no peer, you leap mountain-high"; Delicatus, “the gentle one,” stands alone; Titas, “the giant,” shares a manger with Polydoxus, “the glorious”; “vincas non vincas te amamus Polydoxe,”—"win or lose we love you, Polydoxus." In a corner by himself stands Scholasticus, “the Scholar.” In the scene representing a stag-hunt, the master himself appears with his hounds, Fidelis and Castus. Other mosaics represent the farm, the fish-ponds with aquatic plants, the quarters of the huntsmen and the mansion-house itself. This is a large building with several storeys and numerous windows, surmounted by a balcony or awning. The buildings are roofed with square red tiles, and chimneys appear below the ridge. “This remarkable series of mosaics gives some insight into Roman life and customs in North Africa at the close of the fourth century, and bears striking testimony to the peaceful condition of the country in the declining years of the Empire. Sixteen centuries have passed since Pompeianus presided over this lordly retreat, as a patron of the turf and a lover of sport in all its aspects. A few years after his decease the disturbing influence of the invading Vandals must have rendered the maintenance of such an establishment an absolute impossibility, and one can picture the life work of this distinguished Roman neglected, abandoned, and finally becoming a mere hunting-ground for Vandal or Byzantine, Arab or Moor.”[[10]]
[10]. Graham, “Roman Africa,” 1902, p. 294.
It has often been suggested that the great prosperity of this region under the Empire was due to a climate superior to that of to-day; that there was in fact a more abundant rainfall and a more equable temperature. The Romans left us no weather statistics (an essentially modern passion), and such evidence as we have appears to be against the theory. The lakes in the province of Constantine were no greater than they are to-day; Roman ruins on their banks attest this. Roman bridges exist here and there throughout the country, and they were not designed to span wider rivers or to resist heavier floods. But this does not settle the matter. It is certain that there was far more timber; the Arab has continually destroyed and he does not plant. The rainfall of to-day is probably less continuous and more uncertain. Yet we cannot believe that the climate is seriously changed. Sallust complains that in Africa both sky and earth have too little water. But the Romans made the best of what there was. The remains of their canals and cisterns are everywhere. In the country to the south of Sétif they dug hundreds of wells, many of which still exist. They barred the course of rivers and created reservoirs. Their extensive works of irrigation are described by Procopius, and appear to be exactly similar to those now in use. Elaborate water-rights existed. A monument found at Lambasba sets forth the number of olives and fruit trees which every farmer possessed and the number of hours of running water to which he was entitled. This system of reckoning a right to water-supply by hours is still in vogue in the island of Madeira, and probably elsewhere. Every effort was made to encourage planting. Exemptions from taxation for a certain number of years were granted to cultivators who planted vines or olives, or grafted the wild olive. Olive oil was exported to Rome in enormous quantities; fragments of jars found in the Tiber bear the mark of Tubusuctu, a town near Bougie. Such facts go to show that the great prosperity of North Africa was rather due to intelligent use of its resources than to any superiority of those resources. This prosperity seems to have reached its culminating point under the dynasty of Septimius Severus, himself a native of Africa. The fact that he died at York illustrates the extent of his empire. He and his son Caracalla showered favours on their compatriots, as numerous inscriptions attest.
Arab writers of the seventh century bear ample testimony to the fertility of the territory which had fallen so easily into their hands. From Carthage to Tangier, a thousand miles east and west, the whole country was clothed with olive woods, and it was said that you could walk from village to village beneath a roof of foliage. Therein they have written the condemnation of their successors. A pleasant story is told that the Arab chief who defeated Gregorius expressed his amazement at the richness of the land. “Whence comes this wealth?” he said. A peasant picked up an olive and laid it before the conqueror, saying, “From this.” And he added that the Byzantines who had no olives in their country were Africa’s best customers.