Graham, Alexander: Roman Africa: an outline of the history of the Roman occupation of North Africa ; based chiefly upon inscriptions and monumental remains in that country (London [u.a.], 1902)

20

Roman Africa

covering a large tract of land bear testimony to the wealth o
the city in Roman times, even at a period subsequent to the
recognition of Carthage as the metropolis of Africa at the end
of the first century. Under Hadrian it became a colonia. In its
last days it was an important centre of Christianity, and the
bishop of Utica held a conspicuous position among the prelates
of the African Church. One of the chief causes which contri-
buted to its final extinction as a place of renown, and which any
traveller can attest, were the vagaries of the Bagradas (Medjerda)
which once skirted its walls. This remarkable river, which rises
in the beautiful valley of Khamisa in Algeria, and winds in a
devious way across the Medjerda plain for a length of about
fifty miles, has altered its course more than once. After
crossing a marsh it now falls into the sea south of the lake at
Porto-Farina, which is a little to the north of Utica, and about
eighteen miles farther in that direction than at the period when
Carthage was destroyed. The wayward action of the stream,
cutting through the banks at one place and depositing its slime
at another, has been a source of wonderment to many gene-
rations of men inhabiting the Medjerda plains. Legendary
history, or rather tradition, asserts that on the banks of the
Bagradas the great combat between the army of Attilius
Regulus and a monstrous serpent took place, B.C. 225. Pliny
repeats the fable, and tells us that the Romans attacked the
creature with balistce and other weapons of war, laying siege to
it as though it were a city. It was 120 feet long, and the skin
and jaws were preserved in a temple at Rome till the outbreak of
the Numantian war, B.C. 133. To the vagaries of the river may
be attributed this old-world legend :—at one time a sluggish
stream easily traversed at any part, at another time a swollen j
torrent deluging the adjacent country and carrying with I
irresistible force sheep and oxen, houses and trees, and anything
that happens to be on the verge of its troubled waters.1 The
silting up of the Gulf of Utica, which is now four miles inland,
may be assigned as another reason for the decline of the city.
These geographical changes appear to have occurred in the

1 Turbidus arenles lento pede sidcat arenas
Bagrada, non ullo Libycis hi finibtis ar/me
Vtclus limosas extendere latins undas
Et stagnante vado patulos involvere canipos.

Silius Italicus, vi. 141 et seq. \

/