Travels in the footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis

by Sir R. Lambert Playfair

Leaving the Oued Melian the road follows the line of aqueduct, but our object being to visit the ruins of Oudena before proceeding to Zaghouan, we kept rather to the east of the usual track and arrived there after a drive which occupied us about three hours and a half.

The ancient city of Uthina is mentioned by Ptolemy[104] and Pliny;[105] and in the tables of Peutinger it is indicated, evidently by a typographical error, as Uthica. In Morcelli’s ‘Africa Christiana,’[106] a city of Utina, or Uthina, is mentioned as situated on the Bagradas, which in spite of this error is no doubt the same, celebrated, he says, not only in the records of the Church, but in the works of profane writers. Its bishop, Felix, attended the Council of Carthage in A.D. 258; another, Lampadius, went to the Council of Arles in A.D. 314; Isaac assisted at Carthage in 411; and Felicissimus was its bishop during the Vandal invasion, when the place was probably destroyed by Genseric.

The present condition of the ruins proves it to have been a place of very considerable importance; they cover an area of several miles, and it must certainly have contained a very large population.

Pelissier[107] imagines this to have been the Tricamaron where Belisarius overcame Gilimer, and where all the hoarded treasure of the Vandals and the piratical spoil of Genseric fell into the hands of the Byzantines. The position of that city has never been satisfactorily determined; all that we know of it is, that it was 140 stadia from Carthage, and on the banks of a river which never dried, but so small that the natives attached no name to it. They must have had very different customs then to what prevail at the present day, as there is hardly a stream in the country that does not bear at least three names, in different parts of its course. In fact, in a country like this, where most of the rivers are dry during a portion of the year, it is not so much the water itself as its bed to which a name is attached, and that varies with the locality in which it occurs; thus a stream passing Sbeitla and Sbiba is called in part of its course the River of Sbeitla, and further down the River of Sbiba.

The central and highest point in the city was crowned by a citadel covering an area of about sixty-six yards long and thirty-three wide. The entrance-gate was on the north-west front, facing the amphitheatre. The walls were of great thickness and constructed of large blocks of cut stone.

The upper terrace was surrounded by a parapet; below were several chambers with strong vaulted roofs, still nearly entire. The largest of these measures sixty-six feet long by thirty-three wide. The vaults are supported on square piers, with a very bold and massive cornice, each stone being twenty-four inches in breadth, thirty in height, and three feet in depth. On the northern side is a large arch twenty-three feet in diameter, loosely filled up with squared stones. From the centre of this a passage about three feet in width runs perpendicular to it, and after a distance of about sixteen feet the passage bifurcates to the right and left, and descends at an angle of 45° till it reaches a vast subterranean apartment, which encircles the whole building, and was no doubt intended to serve as a reservoir. The descent is very difficult, owing to the accumulation of débris; but the chamber appears to have been about fifteen or twenty feet high, and nearly the same width, occupying three sides of a square, of which the passages before-mentioned formed the fourth side. We found some human bones and fragments of old pottery, but time did not permit of our making a thorough exploration of it.

To the north-west of this building is a very perfect amphitheatre, with an elliptical arena; the major axis is about seventy-seven yards in length, and the minor one fifty-five. Four principal entrances led into it, and these, together with many of the upper arches, are still in a very perfect condition. No doubt, in the construction of this, advantage was taken of a natural depression on the top of a mamelon in which it is sunk.

Behind this monument, towards the north, may be seen a small bridge of three arches, spanning the bed of a watercourse.

To the south-west of the citadel are the remains of a theatre, and to the south-east of it two very magnificent reservoirs, the northern one intended to contain rain-water, but that to the south was supplied from a well at some little distance, between which and the reservoir are the remains of a solidly constructed aqueduct.

Perhaps the most remarkable of the ruins is one due east of the citadel; it must have been a building of immense size, but it is impossible from its present appearance to form any conjecture as to its original destination. The walls, which were built of rubble masonry, of great thickness, have been rent asunder into huge masses, too large to have been moved by any mere mechanical power likely to have been employed, and yet they lie scattered about, without any apparent order, in every direction. In the midst of these huge masses, confusedly hurled together, we observed a small opening, through which it was just possible to crawl, giving entrance to a series of reservoirs of immense height and size, separated by partitions, yet connected together by arched passages. The cistern by which we entered was about thirteen feet square, beyond it were two larger ones, 79 feet long by 13 broad. There were at least six others, deserving of a much closer examination than we had time to give to them. Semicircular recesses were made in the walls here and there to enable the water to be drawn easily from above. The masonry throughout was quite perfect, not a trace visible of any great convulsion of nature, which alone, one would think, could have effected the ruin of the superincumbent building.