Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/412

 390 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. the water and mud which flow into them. Trenches were opened and soundings made at various points by Beule and Count Camillo Borgia, but the latter met his death through the miasmic vapours of the place, and the former had to be content with very partial explorations. 1 By these Beule was led to believe that the inner basin was circular, 2 but the trace he proposed failed under examination ; it was shown that no room could be found on it for the number of slips provided in the military harbour of Carthage ; :! moreover, the notion of a circular basin is implicitly contradicted by the terms in which Appian describes Scipio's attack on the two harbours: "At the beginning of spring Scipio wished to attack Byrsa and the harbour which was called Cothon. During the night Hasdrubal set fire to the quadrangular part of tJic Cothon? believing that it would again be exposed to the assault of the Roman general. . . . but Lelius surprised the opposite part of the Cothon, which was circular, by escalade." 5 From this text it would appear that the harbour was rectilinear on some sides and circular or elliptical on the others, and this in- terpretation of the historian's words is confirmed by the obvious fact that in a circular harbour surrounded by berths for laying up vessels, a great deal of space, would be wasted, each berth would be wider at the end farthest from the quay than it need be (see Figs. 266 and 267). Profiting by his experience at Utica, Daux proposes a restoration which agrees much better with Appian's narrative ; he thinks that the quays were curved at the northern and southern ends of the harbour and straight on the east and west. He arranges the slips along the two straight sides, so that their dividing walls are parallel, which greatly simplifies the whole arrangement. Beule' s thin-walled chambers he believes to have been cisterns. From observations made at Adrumetum and still more at Utica he is led to believe that between the sheds and the dock itself there 1 Upon BORGIA'S excavations see BEULE, Fouilles et dccourertes, vol. ii. p. 47. 2 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage. Les ports, pp. 89-118, and plate iv. 3 See especially the very close reasoning of JAL in his article on Carthage in the Dictionnaire de biographie et d* histoire. Beule' failed to perceive that the walls, a foot thick, which he found under the water, could not have been those against which the Ionic columns mentioned by Appian were placed, because they were far too thin. DAUX arrives at the same conclusion (Rechenhes, &c., pp. 181-189 and 300). 4 To /xe'pos TOU Ko^wvos TO TtTpaycuvov. 5 *EAa#e AaiXios orl Odrepa. TOV Ka0a)vos es TO Trepi^epes avrov fiepos dveAtftiv. APPIAN, viiL 127.