DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18096#0151
Africa under Trajan
101
wnat transpired, and kept the registers. The Chartularii had
charge of the records, the library, and the written judicial ordi-
nances. The Libellensis is supposed to have been a functionary
who had charge of the chest containing papers, summonses,
and other official documents {scrinium libellornvi), and received
appeals and addresses to the Emperor. He does not appear,
from the position he occupies in the inscription, to have been
an officer of importance, his duties being strictly clerical. No
doubt he received ' tips' from persons who frequented the Court
for general information. All these functionaries received allow-
ances of food and wheat in accordance with their rank.
These few inscriptions, selected from a large number which
are fortunately still legible, throw some light on the prosperous
condition of this remote African city during the second and
third centuries, and give some idea of the public spirit which
animated its citizens. Thamugas was essentially a Roman
city, founded by Roman colonists under the auspices of the
greatest of Roman Emperors. The disposition of the city, the
public buildings, the arrangements of dwelling-houses, and the
municipal regulations were all based on the same methods
which prevailed in the metropolis. Many thousands of names
have been brought to light, and they are all Roman names.
Standing amidst this scene of desolation at the end of the
nineteenth century—this wilderness of stone and marble—one
is inclined to ask why such a city, with so large an accumula-
tion of treasure attesting a high degree of prosperity, should
have been erected in this wild and treeless region, where nature
presents so many difficulties to overcome, and offers so little
encouragement to the cultivation of those gentle arts whic
must have flourished here for at least three centuries. You
climb the hill above the forum, and, sitting upon the ruined
wall of the old theatre, the problem is solved. Those ravines,
east and west, where the mountain waters unchecked now rush
wildly into the plains, were once water-conduits. You see how
they were confined by stone walls, where they supplied the
public baths, how they passed under the main streets, and then,
descending into the plain, contributed by a proper system of
irrigation to that fertility which, to the Roman husbandman,
was only another word for abundance. You see the little
forum at your feet, with its pretty colonnade, its ranges of
101
wnat transpired, and kept the registers. The Chartularii had
charge of the records, the library, and the written judicial ordi-
nances. The Libellensis is supposed to have been a functionary
who had charge of the chest containing papers, summonses,
and other official documents {scrinium libellornvi), and received
appeals and addresses to the Emperor. He does not appear,
from the position he occupies in the inscription, to have been
an officer of importance, his duties being strictly clerical. No
doubt he received ' tips' from persons who frequented the Court
for general information. All these functionaries received allow-
ances of food and wheat in accordance with their rank.
These few inscriptions, selected from a large number which
are fortunately still legible, throw some light on the prosperous
condition of this remote African city during the second and
third centuries, and give some idea of the public spirit which
animated its citizens. Thamugas was essentially a Roman
city, founded by Roman colonists under the auspices of the
greatest of Roman Emperors. The disposition of the city, the
public buildings, the arrangements of dwelling-houses, and the
municipal regulations were all based on the same methods
which prevailed in the metropolis. Many thousands of names
have been brought to light, and they are all Roman names.
Standing amidst this scene of desolation at the end of the
nineteenth century—this wilderness of stone and marble—one
is inclined to ask why such a city, with so large an accumula-
tion of treasure attesting a high degree of prosperity, should
have been erected in this wild and treeless region, where nature
presents so many difficulties to overcome, and offers so little
encouragement to the cultivation of those gentle arts whic
must have flourished here for at least three centuries. You
climb the hill above the forum, and, sitting upon the ruined
wall of the old theatre, the problem is solved. Those ravines,
east and west, where the mountain waters unchecked now rush
wildly into the plains, were once water-conduits. You see how
they were confined by stone walls, where they supplied the
public baths, how they passed under the main streets, and then,
descending into the plain, contributed by a proper system of
irrigation to that fertility which, to the Roman husbandman,
was only another word for abundance. You see the little
forum at your feet, with its pretty colonnade, its ranges of