Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/410

 388 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. cities in Africa provided themselves with harbours after the same fashion as Carthage some of them even before her. An examina- tion of the ground has brought traces of such works to light at Adrumetum, Thapsus, and Utica. 1 Hut if not the oldest, the harbours of Carthage were by far the most famous of all. The following short but fairly precise account of them is due, no doubt, to Polybius : " The harbours of Carthage," says Appian, " were so arranged that ships had to pass through one to reach the other ; on the side towards the sea there was but one entrance, seventy feet wide, which was closed with iron chains. The outer harbour, intended for merchant-ships, was provided with numerous and varied means of making them fast. In the middle of the second harbour there was an island, around which, as well as round the harbour itself, were wide quays. These quays presented a series of slips in which 220 vessels could be accommodated. Above the slips were store-rooms for rigging and other equipment. In front of each slip rose two Ionic columns, which gave to the circum- ference of harbour and island the look of a portico. On the island a pavilion was built for the admiral, whence signals were given by trumpet, orders sent by messengers, and a general surveillance kept up. The island was near the entrance ; its surface was raised considerably above the level of the water, so that the admiral had a wide view over the sea outside, while those who passed along the coast could not see into the harbours. Even the merchants in the outer port could not see into the military basin ; a double wall separated them from it, and they had a gate of their own communicating with the town, into which they could pass without going through the inner harbour." There were, then, two harbours, an outer one communicating directly with the sea, and an inner basin which could only be reached through the first. The outer basin was the commercial, the inner one the naval, harbour. The military pride of the Carthaginians led them to decorate the latter with some richness ; the expressions used by the historian permit us to guess that the portico of which he speaks was not a real portico but only had the 1 BAKTH, Wanderungen durch die Kiislenliinder dcs Mitfclmccrs, vol. i. p. 150; DAUX, Recherches sur les emporia phcniricns, pp. 169-171. 2 APPIAN, viii. 96.