The headline is actually the title of a terrific jazz number composed in the 1940s by Dizzy Gillespie. I spent several days and nights in Tunisia in late March and early April, in search of the ruins of Roman Africa that remain in Northern Tunisia. My companions were two college friends who shared a similar enthusiasm to follow the steps of the Romans. Our first stop was Tunis, the national capital, from which the remains of the City of Carthage can be accessed by a light-rail line near downtown.
Carthage
There are extensive ruins on the several sites of ancient Carthage, but the substantial majority of those are remnants of the complexes built by the Romans following Rome’s complete destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. This was the city of the fabled Hannibal and the capital of a vibrant, extremely prosperous empire. Its setting is spectacular, overlooking the Mediterranean (about 100 miles south of Sicily), and little imagination is needed to visualize hundreds of vessels laden with men, animals and supplies sailing north against the forces of Rome; and later the Roman fleets bringing the forces that ultimately engulfed Carthage. The Romans subsequently established their own administrative and military headquarters for the Africa Province on the former site of their vanquished foe.
As in our 21st Century world, there was little likelihood that two closely situated regional superpowers could exist in harmony, or even détente. Many of you will remember that Marcus Cato (The Elder) ended all of his speeches — on every and whatever subject — with the phrase: “Cartago delenda est!”, i.e., “Carthage must be destroyed.” Ultimately, it was.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the ostensible justification for the Third Punic War was the resistance by Carthage to armed aggression by Rome’s ally (and former Carthagian ally), Numidian Prince Massinissa. However, the true motive was Rome’s envy of and apprehension about a revival of the Carthagenian economic engine, which would pose a serious threat to the business interests of Rome.
If you are interested in what of Carthage can be seen today and wonder if it’s worth the trip to view it, in my opinion, it is. Carthage is an accumulation of several locations with lots of rewards for the visitor. They can all be visited in a full day, through a combination of light rail, short cab rides and shoe leather.
I recommend that you not skip the Punic Ports, although the prime attractions now are the models of naval structures that used to exist there and which are displayed in a small building on the site. The Carthaginians’ remarkable maritime and seafaring skills enabled them to construct, maintain and repair their warships with extraordinary efficiency. This once-grand harbor is worth seeing, as is the Punic cemetery about a kilometer away.
Roman Africa
The Bardo Museum, located just outside of Tunis, rewards the visitor with an eye-popping accumulation of large Roman mosaics that were found on some of the principal historic sites. The Romans in North Africa made use of mosaic floors not unlike our contemporary patterned rugs or Oriental carpets. A considerable number of these have been removed to three national museums, including the Bardo. They are complete, with borders, and retain their colors after 17 or 18 centuries. Some are mounted on walls and others are laid out on the floors of the museum.
There is a substantial risk of art overload from the sheer concentration of these magnificent works, but a deliberate pace rewards the eye and frees the mind to attempt to absorb them. Common topics are the gods, local commerce and even whimsical or bawdy themes. They provide insight into the lifestyle of the middle-class merchants and government and military officials who “lived large” nearly 2,000 years ago.
We visited three sites away from Tunis, viz., Bulla Regia, Dougga and El Jem. Each was itself a former Carthaginian city, but the later Roman habitations now predominate. A snippet of my personal observations fails to do any of them justice, but may give some perspective about the extent and grandeur of the Roman presence in North Africa. The first two of these were accessed by train and are located approximately 150 kilometers to the southwest of Tunis.
Bulla Regia. For independent travelers, a short taxi ride is required from the rail station at the rail town of Jendouba. Quite surprising to us, we three were the only tourists on the entire site. It was a prosperous locale and, in its heyday, apparently quite fun-loving and pleasure-seeking. This quote from St. Augustine, the bishop of fairly nearby Hippo, appears in one of our guidebooks: “What have you come for? Theatrical folk? Women of easy virtue? You can find them all in Bulla.” I can attest that whatever its transgressions, the city was not turned into a pillar of salt!
In the first week of April, the weather was quite chilly, just above being downright cold; however, the North African summer heat caused the Romans at Bulla to place their living quarters (bedrooms and dining areas) below ground level. Several existing villas are easily accessed by stairs leading to the lower levels of the structures. Some of these maintain their stunning full-floor mosaics. We were surprised to find them, still complete and vibrant, and were almost remorseful to walk over them in order to proceed to another room. This is a far different experience from visiting the Forum in Rome, for example, where other tourists seem to multiply before your eyes and can overwhelm the ruins.
Dougga. This city is only approximately 60 kilometers from Bulla Regia on a straight line, but the circuitous routes and modes of travel in Western Tunisia required that we visit on a separate day. We traveled there by louage1 and taxi.
Dougga was a large city of about 10,000 residents. It is a very extensive site, and even after four hours of walking about and through it — visiting temples, dwellings, a marvelous theatre, etc. — we had not set foot around the entire perimeter.
It is a UNESCO site and some restoration work is being done, but Dougga is largely left to the visitor, free from construction noise or tour groups. As with Bulla, there is no nearby Tunisian town; arrangements had to be made with a taxi to pick us up at a predetermined time. The relative isolation of these cities from 21st Century bustle assists significantly in their preservation.
Like Bulla Regia, Dougga is not located near the Mediterranean; both of these cities based their prosperity on agricultural production and trade. This part of Tunisia is not barren by any means. There are lush, rolling green hills around Bulla and quite a verdant landscape around Dougga. Harvests of grains and olives must have been plentiful for millennia. Unfortunately, there is little information at the sites to educate the visitor about the historic reasons for the particular locations, but each was situated on a well-used trade route.
El Jem. This small city is located a good 200 kilometers southeast of Bulla and Dougga, and required travel by louage. El Jem is a true “gem,” both for a spectacular coliseum (the third largest in the Roman empire with a capacity of more than 30,000) and also for its national museum,2 which is also filled with magnificent mosaics taken from Roman houses in the area.
The so-called House of Africa, a restored and relocated upper middle-class merchant’s residence, is located on the museum grounds. Even a modern-day plutocrat would be proud to call that his or her home. There was even a water recycling system to save the precious rainfall.
The coliseum is particularly intriguing, because of its high state of preservation, and also for the fact that the visitor can go beneath the field level. You can see the architectural supports and the remains of internal systems required for operation of the structure (such as cisterns), and the visitor can stand in the very spots where animals, gladiators and those to-be-sacrificed for the mob (e.g., prisoners or Christians) awaited their emergence onto the field above — and their destiny.
This attraction does get a lot of attention. During our visit to the coliseum, a few international tourist groups wandered by. Like Wrigley Field, which sits in a residential area of Chicago, the coliseum at El Jem is also in the center of town. However, this is a quiet locale overall and its civic setting does not detract from the magnificence of the structure.
We found Tunisia to be an under-touristed country, which is an advantage for the traveler who seeks exposure to an ancient culture without being besieged by tour guides, souvenir sellers and other hawkers.3 The paucity of other tourists, particularly at Bulla Regia and Dougga, permitted a degree of personal reflection that I have not experienced at other historic venues.
I am struck by the often-quoted phrase from the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana: “Those who ignore the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.” That caution is inescapable to the visitor at an ancient site, where the physical remnants are not Hollywood sets, but vestiges of past civilizations that in their ascendancy ruled much of the world. The Past remains Prologue.
Dan Caine is an attorney with Ryan, Swanson & Cleveland, PLLC.
1 A louage is a minivan (always painted white), which goes from a central station in one town to the louage station in the destination city or town. It has room for eight passengers. When there are eight passengers seated, the vehicle departs — but not before. We waited various lengths of time for our louage departures, from only a few minutes to more than 2¼ hours on one occasion. The fare is very reasonable and the system serves the purpose of moving Tunisians around the country; however, it is far different from the U.S. emphasis on and expectation of rapid point-to-point transport.
2 The third of the trio of national museums devoted to Roman African culture and art, located at Sousse on the eastern coast, is closed for a two-year renovation.
3 Tunisia has a stable (somewhat say quietly repressive) secular government. Police and other security are frequently in evidence and our vehicles were stopped on a few occasions by police who checked the identity cards of the Tunisian citizens. On one occasion, even our passports were examined by the highway police at a checkpoint. We felt safe and were frequently welcomed to their country by passersby. No one seemed upset (at least overtly) with having three American tourists in their midst, even in the small towns.
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