An Arab of Tadjmout
The street now leads into the Decumanus Maximus, the main thoroughfare. Graceful columns line either side, leading into what must have been large houses. The paving-stones, placed diagonally to prevent their being worn away by the chariots, are nevertheless deeply rutted. Between the chinks can be seen the drain which ran beneath the middle of the way. Immediately opposite this intersection are the steps leading up to the forum: a white-paved court with many pillars, some fifty yards long, with at one end a tribunal where sat the judge. There must have been many statues, but they are no more.
Just below the forum, on the north side, are the public latrines which, with their carved hand-rests, are interesting and worth examining.
On the south side of the forum there is a charming inscription: “Veneri, lavari, ludere, ridere—occe est vita!” “Hunting, bathing, gambling, laughing—this is life!”
Climbing out on an eminence above the forum, we come to the theater. The auditorium is hollowed out of the hill and is in a fine state of preservation. The seating accommodation makes the modern play-goer think, as from every stall the stage is fully visible and the acoustic properties are faultless. Looking across from the theater can be seen the tall pillars we first espied from the road; they are the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter on the capitol. The pillars are immense, fifty feet high, with each capitol three feet, making a total of fifty-six feet. In the middle was a gigantic statue of Jupiter, now in the Louvre in Paris. There is nothing so drearily desolate, so terribly silent, as the two pillars of this temple. It seems as if they stood there to warn the people who pass of the vanity of human things.
Near by are some interesting villas of a more luxurious conception than those we saw before. The rooms are more numerous and spacious, and there is a reservoir for keeping fish.
On the hill behind the capitol, stand the remains of a Christian church, with a baptistery of which the mosaics are in a perfect state of preservation. Leaving this Christian church, we now retrace our steps, leaving the capitol on the right, and make for the triumphal arch of which we have already caught a glimpse from the Decumanus Maximus. Before reaching it there is an interesting market-place. The large court is surrounded by a colonnade, and the stone counters of the shops are just as they were at the time. Opposite the market-place is a small temple, but what strikes the attention at once is the triumphal arch of Trajan. It has three openings, and niches for statues, and is certainly the most imposing monument of Algeria.
Hence we can wander back through narrow streets to the gate by which we entered, and near which stands the museum which is well worth a visit. In addition to all sorts of curiosities such as hair-pins, needles and implements for dentistry of the time, it contains some of the fine mosaics which have been unearthed from the houses and pieced together. If we look at them for a moment and imagine what they looked like up there near the capitol, we can get a small idea of how charming the residences must have been. There are also drawings of what it is supposed Timgad was like in the days of its glory, and certainly, if the artist was not carried away by his imagination— and there is no reason to suppose this—it must have been indeed a noble city. And yet its aspect now leaves the traveler with a feeling of sorrow. The silence is, first of all, appalling; the atmosphere of desolation is impossible to convey in words, and, as one sits in the forum or on the stone steps of the theater and tries to conjure up the gay figures who once frequented these now silent spaces, one is filled with an unspeakable awe. All this luxury, all this amusement, all these habitations—for what? For the future planned by Imperial Rome, since it is evident that no nation would have built the great town, with all in it, as a mere pastime. They intended to stay; they believed in their unshakable greatness; they believed in the power of the sword.
But Rome fell, as had fallen other empires, and as others will also fall. And Timgad is left to the jackals and to the hyenas, to a few intelligent excavators, and to the host of chattering tourists who rush through these ruins of a glorious past without a thought for the cultured race who once lived there.
“Vanity, vanity—all is vanity!”