in the upper rsnge sUbles for 4000 horses, with ample stores of food for both. In the spaces be- tween the walk (rAwos c[)pvx«^f , Strab. zyii. p. 832), there were barracks for 20,000 infiintiy, and 4000 cavalry, with magazines and stores of pro- portionate magnitude; forming, in foct, a vast for- tified camp between the city and the isthmos. It would seem from Appian (viii. 95) that this de- scription applies onlj to the S. part of the landward wall, behind which lay Bjrsa (rh vphs fiforjaSpuiy h liirtipw, (y$a Ktd ^ B^ffxra ^v M rot wJx*^<'f')^ The N. part of the landward wall, surrounding the suburb of Megan, seems to have been less stronglj fortified, and accOTdinglj we find some of the c&eH attacks of Scipio directed against it. Appian adds to his description of the triple wall, that its comer which bent round towards the harbours, by the Tamiat or tongue of land mentioned above, was tiie only part that was weak and low; and on this point also we find the Bomans directing their attacks. The limits of the Roman city can be defined with greater certainty. It remained, indeed, without a fortified enclosure, down to the fourteenth year of Theodoeios II. (b. c. 424), when the increasing dangers of the African province both from the native and foreign barbarians suggested the policy of forti- fying its capital. The remains of the wall then built can still be traced, and sufficient ruins of the city are visible to indicate its extent; while the limits are still further marked by the position of the great reservoizs, which we know to have been without the walls. But as the dty was fiu: gene in its decline when these walls were built, it might be supposed that the limits indicated by them were narrower than the original boundaries, were it not for a most inter- esting discoveiy made by Falbe, to whose researches during a long residence at Tunis, we owe most of our knowledge «£ Carthaginian topography. Struck by the fact, that the knd W. and NW. of the Ro- man city is divided into regular rectangles by roads utterly difierent from the crooked ways which are common in Mohammedan countries, he suspected that these roads might mark out the divisions of the land among the Roman colonists ; and, upon mea- suring the rectangles, he foimd that they were of equal area, each containing 100 kaerediOf or 200 jugem. Of such plots, 28 are clearly visible, and the land which has been broken up to form the gardens of El-Merta furnishes space for 2 more ; so that we have the land without the walls of the Ro- man city divided into 30 centuries of haerediay pre- dsely tile proper quantity for the 3000 colonists whom Augustus settled in the new dty. (Appian. Pun. 138.) That lioman Carthage stood on the site of the andent Punic dty, and not, as some maintain, on that of the suburb of Megare, seems tolerably clear. Not to lay too much stress on Pliny's phrase (v. 2),
the new dty was supplied from the same aqueduct and reservdrs, and had its dtadel and chief temples on the same sites, as of old. The restored temple of Aesculapius was again the chief sanctuary, and that of the goddess Coelestis became more magnificent than ever. (Barth, p. 83.) 3. Harbours, — In accordance with that view of the topography which we follow, the double harbour of Carthage must be looked for on the S. side of the peninsula, at the angle which it forms with the |
The fact that Sdpio Africanos the elder could see from Tunis the Punic fleet sailing out of the har- bour (Appian. Pun. 24), seems a decisive proof of the position, which is confirmed by many other indica- tions. (Barth, p. 88.) The port consisted of an outer and an inner har- bour, with a passage from the one into the other ; and the outer had an entrance from the sea* 70 feet wide, which was closed with iron chains. The outer harbour was for the merchantaien, and was full of moorings. The inner harbour was reserved for the ships of war. Just within its entrance was an island called Cothon (Kc60wir, whence the harbour itself was called Cothon also), rising to a considerable elevation above the surrounding banks, and tiius sendng the double purpose of a mask to conoeal the harbour from without, and of an observatcnry for the port-adnural {yainipxos)^ who had his tent upon it, whence he gave signals by the trumpet and commands by the voice of a hould. The shores of the island uid of the port were built up with great quays, in which were constructed docks for 220 ships (one, it would seem, for each), with storehooses for all their equipments. The entrance of each dock was adorned with a pur of Ionic columns, which gave the whole circuit of the island and the harbour the appearance of a magnificent colcmnade on each aide.f So jealously was this inner harbour guarded, even from the sight of those frequenting the outer, tiiat, besides a double wall of separation, gates were provided to give access to the city from t^e outer harbour, without pasdng through the docks. (Appian. Pun. 96, 127.) That the inner harbour at least, and probably both, were artificial excavations, seems almost certain firom their position and from the name Cotkon (Geeen. Mom, Phoen. p. 422), to say nothing of Viigil's phraae {Am, L 427) : — "hie portns a^ effodamt^ which, remembering the poet's antiquarian tastes, should hardly be regarded as unmeaning. The remains of two basins still exist, near the base of the tongue of land, the one mora to the S. bdng of an oblong shape, and the other of a rounder form, with a little peninsula in the middle; both divided from the sea <ni the £. by a narrow ridge. These basins would be at once identified as the har- boun of Cartilage, but for thdr apparentiy inade- quate size; an (Ejection which, we tiiink, Barth has successfully removed, (pp. 88 — ^90). Whatever size the bwrboun had at first, was necessarily pie- served, for the adjacent quarter was the most populous in the city. A calculation made by Bartii of the drcuit of the inner basin and island (now a penin-
here uses is not inconsistent with the view that the port opened into the lagoon. f When Appian {Pun. 127) distinguishes the tquare part of the Cothon (rh fUpos rov KAOvfos rb T€Tpdywyotf) from its round (or surrounding') part on the opponte side {jhr dctrcpa rov KA&tewos is rb irtpi^fph abrou), he seems to mean by the former the island, and by the latter the bank on the knd side. The Punic fleet, which had put out to sea by the new mouth (see below), bdng destroyed, Scipio naturally firet storms tiie island in the Cothon; meanwhile Laelius seizes the (^yportunity for a sudden attack upon the other bank, which proves successful, and the Romans, thus possessed of the whole enclosure of the Cothon, are prepared to attack the Byrsa. |
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