This must have been a general view from the summit of Jebel Khawi, at the distance of about four miles. Venus bids Æneas and his companion proceed straight forward :— Following this direction, they mount another eminence, from the slope of which they obtain a view of the whole scene of busy work: "They climb the next ascent, and, looking down, Now at a nearer distance view the town. The prince with wonder sees the stately towers, "The height Virgil now alludes to," says Dr. Davis, "is that called Sidi Bousaid, or Cape Carthage. It is the most prominent eminence on the whole of the peninsula, being 393 feet above the level of the sea, and strictly overhangs the city.' It is only one mile from the Byrsa, the citadel, whose towers were directly opposite to it. From its heights the Trojans could clearly distinguish the gates and the various edifices. The din and noise of the workmen were perfectly audible, particularly as it is more than probable that stones from the very hill on which they stood were then actually being quarried for building some of the public edifices of the rising city. There are plain indications which prove that the hill of Sidi Bousaid was anciently quarried, and this is corroborated by the affinity between the formation of this vast rock and some of the stones dug up at our excavations. Besides, the city actually extended towards this hill, and the wall was scarcely half a mile from it, as is amply apparent from the remains of the sea-gate, which is almost at its foot." From the point thus defined, that part of Carthage which may be called the city proper, lay to the S.W., along the south-eastern shore of the peninsula, with the principal public buildings upon the heights behind, which form the prolongation of Cape Carthage. The extent of this city, as determined partly by the few remains of the walls, and partly by the great cisterns, which are known to Perge modò, et, quà te ducit via, dirige gressum." -v. 401. + 66 Corripuere viam interea quà semita monstrat. Jamque ascendebant collem, qui plurimus urbi Imminet, adversasque aspectat desuper arces. Miratur molem Æneas, magalia quondam ; Miratur portas, strepitumque, et strata viarum. -Vv. 418–422. It is now established, by most convincing proofs, that Roman Carthage was built THE TOPOGRAPHY OF CARTHAGE. 369 have been outside of them, was only about two miles long by one broad, the original limits having doubtless been sacredly preserved;* but to the north-west lay the suburb of Megara or Magalia, covering almost the whole surface of the peninsula (the circuit of which is twenty-four miles), and defended by a triple line of walls drawn right across the isthmus, which is three miles wide. † These gigantic fortifications rose to the height of thirty cubits, with towers four stories high at intervals of 200 feet. Behind each line of wall were two stories of vaulted casemates, the lower containing stabling for 300 elephants, and the upper for 4000 horses, with ample space for their food. Between the walls were barracks for 20,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry, with magazines and stores. Thus there was a complete fortified camp upon the isthmus. A line of wall ran along the margin of the lake of Tunis, to the S.W. angle of the city proper, where a long narrow tongue of land, called the Tania (that is, fillet) jutted out between the lagoon and the sea. By establishing themselves on this spit, the Romans, in the Third Punic War, were able to attack the S. W. angle of the wall, where it was low and weak; and the possession of this point gave Scipio the opportunity of making his celebrated mole to block up the entrance to the harbours, which opened from a small bay outside the base of the Tænia. These harbours, which can still be traced with tolerable clearness close behind and parallel to the sea-shore, were two in on the exact site of the Punic City, as indeed Pliny expressly says-"in vestigiis Magna Carthaginis." Falbe discovered that the straight Roman roads, which are totally different from the crooked lanes used by the Mohammedans, divide the space occupied by the suburb of Megara into exactly 30 rectangles, each containing 100 allotments (heredia) of two jugera, the precise quantity for the 3000 colonists with whom Augustus peopled his new city. This, then, was the land (ager) belonging to the Roman city, and lying outside its walls. * In the story of Dido, a circuit of twenty-two stadia, or above two miles and a half, is assigned to the city, probably the measurement of the land side. + This, the least width of the isthmus, agrees with the length of the blockading wall which Scipio drew across it; but Strabo makes the whole circuit of the fortifications thirty-six geographical miles, of which he assigns six to the wall towards the land, extending-as he expressly says-from sea to sea. The only explanation at all satisfactory that has been proposed to explain this excess of the land wall over the width of the isthmus seems to be that it was thrown back further within the peninsula, and also that allowance has to be made for deviations from the straight line. The second hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that Strabo's length for the whole circuit of the walls is just fifty per cent. above that of the peninsula; and perhaps he may take in the inner wall of the city proper. A careful examination of the contours of the ground, with the aid of the able constructor of our map, has suggested the probability that the triple wall ran along the edge of the declivity by which the higher land of the peninsula falls down to the plain. (See the map.) VOL. II. B B number: the outer for merchant vessels, the inner for men-of-war. The former was a basin of an oblong shape, 1160 feet by 420, approached by a channel 850 feet long by about 70 wide, with a second narrow channel 175 feet long, leading to the inner or naval harbour. This was of an oval shape, with an island in the middle, raised to a considerable height, so as at once to mask the view of the inner part of the harbour from the sea, and to afford a commanding station for the port-admiral, whose house was built upon it. The island was called Cothon, a name which was transferred to the harbour itself. It occupied just half the diameter of the whole basin, which now measures 960 feet across. Both sides of the ring were lined with quays and docks, for 220 ships of war. There was originally no separate entrance to the inner harbour from the sea; but when Scipio drew his mole across the mouth of the merchant harbour, the Carthaginians cut a new channel direct from the naval harbour, whence they sailed out with their fleet. It was only their own want of decision that prevented the surprise from being most disastrous to the Romans.* Besides these harbours, there was a spacious quay on the sea-shore, beyond the city walls, where merchant ships could receive or discharge their cargoes under the shelter of C. Carthage. The existence of such a quay is proved by substructions similar to the clearer remains at Leptis Magna. Besides, the lagoon supplied a vast enclosed roadstead for vessels of small draught.† Between the harbours and the foot of the headland of C. Carthage, and along the heights parallel to the coast-line, which connect that promontory with the isthmus, is the ground once occupied by the buildings both of Punic and Roman Carthage. The present aspect of its surface does but too faithfully testify to those peculiar circumstances in the history of the city which have rendered its topography, like its history, one of the most obscure, though most interesting, questions in the annals of the world. It is in vain that the enquirer regrets the want of a native history of Carthage. When she succumbed to the ruthless sentence Delenda est Carthago, which doomed all her edifices to obliteration, and pronounced a *The fact that Scipio saw from Tunis the Punic fleet sailing out of the new opening is decisive against the opinion of Shaw, Estrup, and Ritter, that the harbour was on the opposite side of the peninsula,-a position, moreover, which the furious north-west winds would have made most dangerous. Avoiding all topographical controversies, we do not stay to expose the error of taking the lagoon itself for the harbour of Carthage; but, as an indication of its subsidiary value, we may mention that Misua, the port of Carthage under the Vandals, was on its shore. PUNIC AND ROMAN CARTHAGE. 371 curse upon him who should attempt to rebuild the city, she left her reputation in the hands of her relentless enemies. The ungenerous animosity of Livy and the confused details of Appian prove how little the Roman and Greek writers cared either for historical impartiality or descriptive fidelity. With an ingenuity far more effectual than that of scattering a victim's ashes to the winds, the Roman conquerors dispersed the precious memorials contained in the libraries of the city, among the Numidian princes, reserving for translation into Latin none but the thirty-two books of Mago on Agriculture, as the only work useful to the republic.* Of the records laid up at Tyre concerning this greatest of her colonies, but one fragment has been preserved for us by Josephus.† Even had the Roman authors, and the Greeks who wrote of Roman affairs, been disposed to do Carthage justice, they only knew her after she had passed her meridian splendour. For the early period of her history, we grievously miss the lively and faithful details of Herodotus, from whose plan Carthage was excluded; but he has incidentally preserved some precious fragments of her history. The Carthaginian constitution attracted the particular attention of Aristotle, whose brief notice of it in his "Politick" serves to show how irreparable is the loss of the fuller discussion in his great work on the ancient polities. Diodorus Siculus is our chief authority for the contests of the Carthaginians and the Greeks in his native island. The historians who have treated of the Punic Wars scarcely extend their notices of Carthaginian history beyond those limits; but we owe a few invaluable facts to Polybius. As the friend of the younger Scipio, and his companion at the taking of Carthage, he enjoyed all the means of information accessible to the Romans, without sharing their political animosity. He is as far above Livy in careful research as in impartial calmness. Appian seems chiefly to follow Polybius, adding details from other sources; but the carelessness of the compiler often makes his fuller particulars a new source of confusion, especially as to the topography of the city. We look in vain to the accurate geographer Strabo to correct these errors, as in his time the city had lain As governor of Africa under Cæsar, the historian Sallust had access to these literary treasures, and the disposition to make use of them. Of the important results we should have obtained from these Punic sources, we may judge by the fragment upon the peopling of North Africa from the East, which Sallust tells us was translated to him from the Punic books of Hiempsal, king of Numidia (Jugurtha, 17). This is the important statement, that Carthage was founded 143 years and 8 months after the building of Solomon's temple, which Josephus expressly says that he derived from Phoenician documents preserved in his time at Tyre. in ruins for a century and a half, and his notices are few and brief. The only author who has attempted a continuous history of Carthage is Justin, the epitomator of Trogus Pompeius, whose statements can only be accepted after careful criticism. When we turn to the ruins of the city, to see what information they can add, we find them in a state that at first seems hopeless. The curse pronounced by the vote of the Roman Senate on the site of Carthage, after its destruction by Scipio (B.c. 146), was rigidly respected for exactly a century, with the exception of the abortive attempt of C. Gracchus to found a colony there under the name of Junonia (B.c. 122). Meanwhile such ruins as remained after the rigour with which the sentence of destruction was carried out, were ransacked and rifled by the people of the surrounding cities, and doubtless by some of the outcast inhabitants themselves. How thoroughly this process was carried on is proved by the fact that the recent excavations have brought to light scarcely any specimens of coined money, and none of those ornaments in the precious metals which are so abundant in the ruins of Assyria and Babylonia. Nothing could have been left but the solid substructions of the more important buildings and of the quays; and these were resorted to as a quarry, when Augustus at length carried out the plan, which Julius Cæsar had formed exactly a century after the destruction of the city (B.c. 46), of building a Roman Carthage on the site of the ancient city. This Roman city, destroyed in its turn by the Arabs (A.D. 647), covered deep below its ruins what remained of Punic Carthage, and furnished a similar quarry to the people of Tunis and the surrounding villages. "Whatever yet remained of Carthage," says Gibbon, "was delivered to the flames, and the colony of Dido and Cæsar lay desolate above two hundred years, till a part, perhaps a twentieth, of the whole circumference. was repeopled by the first of the Fatimite caliphs. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the second capital of the West was represented by a mosque, a college without students, twentyfive or thirty shops, and the huts of five hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed the arrogance of the Punic senators. Even that paltry village was swept away by the Spaniards whom Charles V. had stationed in the fortress of Goletta. The ruins of Carthage have perished; and the place might be unknown if some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps of the inquisitive traveller." Since the great historian wrote these words, the site of Carthage has been adorned with a monument of the most interesting |