Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/276

 236 Recent Excavations at Carthage. to light in digging the foundations of the Chapel of St. Louis, which stands on higher ground, seems to shew that the chapel occupies the site of that building. It was probably the temple of ./Esculapius, which is mentioned as placed in a commanding position on the Byrsa. Two minor discoveries deserve notice. About half way between the Punic walls and the Roman chambers were found traces of a building. In excavating there a fragment of a bas-relief was brought to light, representing, according to M. Beul6, part of an oak-wreath and a portion of a temple of the Ionic order.' The oak being sacred to Jupiter, he considers the fragment part of a votive dedication to that god, and the building to be his temple at Carthage. I have already expressed my doubts whether there was a separate temple to this divinity in Punic Carthage ; and the evidence of such a temple having existed in Roman times is slight ; the only authority, so far as I am aware, being a passage in one of the writers on the Donatist Schism, who tells us that in A.D. .'{11 Csreilianus, Bishop of Carthage, appeared to give evidence before Aurelius Bidymus Spereeius, Duumvir of Cartilage, who is described as " Sacerdos Jovis Optimi Maximi.'" Moreover, the foliage seems to me part of an oak tree, rather than a wreath, and the building is more like an h croon than a temple; so that the whole may have been a portion of one of the bas-reliefs, treated in a pictorial manner, which are frequently found in Roman art of Imperial times. At the south-west corner of the plateau M. Beule noticed the remains of a mosaic, which he describes as representing the twelve months, by figures of rather less than life-size, in Byzantine costumes, with their names inscribed in Latin. It would be interesting to compare the subjects of this pavement with those in the mosaic above described. Archaeologists are greatly indebted to M. Beule for the zeal that led him to make these excavations, which he did solely in a spirit of antiquarian investiga- tion, neither counting the cost nor looking to be rewarded by the discovery of ancient works of art, but simply to obtain a satisfactory solution of some of the numerous doubts which beset the topography of Carthage. Journal dcs Savants, Nov. 1859, pi. ii. fig. 6. " Mou. Vet. ad Donatist. Hist., appended to Optatus, de Schism. Donatist. ed. Dupin. 1702, p. 163.