Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/418

 306 HISTORY OF ART i PIKP.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. in time of peace the merchandise carried from place to place along the length of those fertile shores could find its way into the great maritime city through many inlets. Utica was the oldest of the Phoenician settlements in this part of Africa. It was built at the head of a well-sheltered bay, and rather nearer Sicily than Carthage. The Bagrada, which once fell into the sea between the two cities, ended by changing its course and depositing its mud and sand in the bay of Utica, which it in time filled up. 1 The remains of the ancient city are now little short of six miles from the sea (Fig. 27o). 2 The site of Utica, as marked by the remains of several im- portant buildings, corresponds very well with what we are told by classic writers. 3 There is an elongated hill whose north-western extremity, formerly washed by the waves, is now surrounded by reedy marshes. Further on in the same direction and just above the swamp there is a platform of some height, separated from the chief mass of the hill by an artificial channel in the rock about 132 feet wide and 1,000 yards long. This platform re- presents the seaward end of the promontory. It is an artificial island, rendered so by the cutting of the channel just mentioned, and must have been the original Utica, the seat of those primitive Phoenician colonists who thought thus to protect themselves against any sudden attack by the Libyan tribes about them. And this channel formed an excellent dock as well as a defence ; it was the commercial harbour as long as the town lasted. In the same island there is a second artificial harbour ; it is rect- angular in shape, and measures about 330 feet by no (7 on Fig. 270). This is supposed to have been the earliest of the harbours of Utica. rapidly carried to the seat of action, which may have been somewhere to the west of Megalia. 1 On the course of this river and the successive displacements of its mouth see CH. TISSOT, Le Bassin du Bagrada tt la vote romaine dc Carthage a Hippone par Bulla Regia (410, 1884, in the M'emoires presences par divers savants A I' Academic des Inscriptions). 2 The topographical sketch which we borrow from M. TISSOT {Le Bassin du Bagrada, pi. vi.) is nothing but plate ix. of the work of Daux ( Vue a" Utiqite restauree telle qifelle etait en Pan 46 arant notre ere) transcribed into a plan._ All the details are due to the researches of Daux. Several of the buildings indicated, such as the theatre, the amphitheatre, the circus, date only from the Roman occupation. 3 STRABO, xvii. iii. 13 ; LIVY, xxix. 35 ; C/ESAR, De Bello Civili, ii. 37 ; APPIAX, viii. 75. The last-named tells us that Utica had several harbours all easy of access.