Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/569

 sula) sbowB at least a probability that they ooold contain the 220 vessels; while, for the general traffic, the Lagoon of Tmit coQld be used as a roadstead: and ths^ it was so nsed in later times is proved by the &ct that MJsna, on its opposite shore, was the port of Carthage under the Vandals. (Procop. B. V, i. 16.) Farther, we know that extra accommodation was provided, at some early period, fw the merchantmen, in the shape of a spacious qnay on the sea-shore (not that of the lagoon) outnde of the city walls (Appisn. Pun, 123), ^ wMch the fbondaticms are still visible; the ancient purpose of the existing substructions bemg confirmed by their resemblance to those at Leptis Magna.

But what, then, has beocnne of all the masooiy of the quays and docks and colonnades which surrounded the Cothon and its isUmd, but of which the present inner basin exhibits no remains ? The doubt is easily removed. Carthage, like Rome, has been the quarry of successive nations, but for a nmch koger period, for doubtless even the Roman city was built in great measure frnn the remains of the Punic one; and the masonry of the docks, lying in the very midst of the city, and at the part which would be the first rebuilt to ibrm a port, would naturally be among the first used. The sabetmctions-on the sea-coast, on the contrary, have been preserved, and afterwards in part uncovered, by the waves of the Mediterranean.

The manner in which the harbours ran up dose along the SE. shore of the peninsula enables us to nndentand the resource adopted by the Carthaginians when Scipio, in the Third Punio War, shut up the common outer entrance of their harbours by a mole thrown across firom the Taenia to the isthmu: they cnt a new channel from the Cothon into the deep sea, where such a mode of blockade was impracticable, and put out to sea with theur newly constructed fleet (Appian. Am. 121, 122; Strab. xvii p. 833.) Whether, after the restoration of the city, Scipio's mole was removed, and the ancient entrance of the port restored, we are not informed. Pnibably it was so: but the new mouth cut by the Carthaginians would naturally remain open, and this, with the part of the Cothon to which it gave immediate access, seems to be the Mandraeion or Portut Ma/ttdroxxm^ of later times. (Procop. B, V. L 20, iL 8.)

4. Byrsa. — This name is used in a double sense, for the roost ancient part of the city, adjoining to the harboun, and for the citadel or Byrta^ in the stricter sense. When Appian {Ptm, 95) speaks of the triple land wall on the S., as vokere the Byrta vas upon the itthmnu (&Ax «rcd if Bvpva ^¥ M rov aiix^os)^ it may be doubted in which sense he uses the term; but, when he comes to describe the storming of the city (c 127, folL), he gives us a minute dracdption of tlw locality of the citadel.

Close to the haifoourB stood the Forum, from which three narrow streets of houses six stories high ascoided to the Byrsa, which was by far the strongest position in the whole city. (Appian. Ptm, 128.) There can be little doubt of its identity with the BUI ofS, Louis f an eminence rising to the height of 188 Paris feet (about 200 English), and having its •ommit in the form of an almost regular plateau, sloping a little towards the sea. Its regularity suggests the probability of its being an artificial mounid (probably about a natural core) formed of the earth dug up in excavating the harboun; a kind of work which we know to have been common among the oU Semitic nations. (Barth, pp. 94, 123; comp.Strab. ix. p. 512.) The obvious objection, that it could not then be the post first occupied by the Phoenician colonists, Barth boldly and ingeniously meets by replying that it was not; that they would naturally establish themselves first on the lofty eminence of C. Carthage; and that, when they descended to the lower ground, there built their city, and excavated their port, and made a new citadel in its ndghboarhood, they still applied to it the ancient name. The sammit of the hill is now occupied by a chapel to the memory of S. Louis, the royal crusader who died in his expedition against Tunis f and, in the mutations of time, the citadel of Carthage has become a possession of the French I The chambera which surround the chapel contain an interesting museum of objects found at Carthage and among other ruins of Africa.

On the sides of the hill there are still traces of the ancient walls which enclosed the Byrsa and made it a distinct fortress, and which seem to have risen, terrace above terrace, like those of the citadel ofEcbatana. (Herod. 1 98.) Orosius (iv. 22) gives 2 M. P. for the circuit of Uie Byrsa, meaning, it is to be presumed, the base of the hill.

On the summit stood the temple of Aesculapius (Esmun), by far the richest in the city (Appan. Pun. 130), raised on aplatfonn which was ascended by sixty steps, and probably resembling in its structuxe the temple of Belus at Babylon. (Herod. L 181; Barth, p. 95). It was in this temple that the senate held in secret their most important meetings. The Byrsa remained the citadel of Carthage in its later existence; and the temple of Aesculapius was restored by the Romans. (AppuL Florida^ pp. 36 1, foil.) On it was the pra^orium of the proconsul of Africa, which became successively the pahu» of the Vandal kings and of the Byzantine governors. (Possio Cyprkmi^ ap. Buinart, Acta Martgrum, pp. 205, foil.; Barth, p. 96.)

5. Forum and Streets, — As we have just seen, the forum lay at the S. foot of the hill of Byrsa, adjacent to Uie harbours. It contained the senate house, the tribunal, and the temple of the god whom the Greeks and Romans call Apollo, whose golden image stood in a chapel overlaid with gold to the weight of 1000 talents. (Appian. im. 127). The three streets already mentioned as ascending from the forum to the Byrsa formed an important outwork to its fiutifications; and Scipio had to storm them house by house. The centre street, which probably led straight up to the temple of Aesculapius, was called, in Roman Carthage, Via Salukaris, The other streets of the city seem to have been for the most part straight and regularly disposed at right angles. (Mai, AucL Class, vol. iii. p. 387.)

6. Other Temples. — On the N. side of the Byrsa, on lower terraces of the hill, are the remains of two temples, which some take for those of Coelestis and Saturn; but the localities arc doubtful. We know that the worship of both these deities was continued in the Roman city. (Barth, pp. 96 — 98.)

7. On the W. and SW. side of the Byna are ruins of Baths, probably the Thermae GargiUanae, a locality &mous in the ecclesiastical history of Carthage; of a spacious Ctrcw, and of an Amphitheatre. (Barth, pp. 98^99.)

8. Aqueduct and Reservoirs — The great aqueduct, fifty miles long, by which Carthage was supplied with water from Jebel Zaghwan (see Map, p. 532), is supposed by some to be a work of the Punic age; but Barth believes it to be Roman. It