DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18096#0183
Africa under Antoninus Pius 123
name of the place, Sbeitla, is an Arab corruption. We learn
from the Itinerary of Antonine that it is twenty-five miles from
Sufes, changed by the Arabs into Sbiba—a city of renown in
pre-Roman times. 'We arrived at Sbiba,' says El-Bekri in the
eleventh century, 'a town of great antiquity, built of stone, and
containing a college and several baths. The whole country
around is covered with gardens, and produces a saffron of the
greatest excellence.' Sbiba is now a wilderness. The soil is
covered with rough herbage, the once flourishing city is now
the home of the jackal, and human habitations are not to
be found within a radius of twenty miles. What a change
from the lordly days when Sufes took high rank among the
earlier Roman settlements, placed under the protection of
Hercules, and described as splendidissimus et felicisshmis ordo
Colonics Sufetance\ In the Epistles of St. Augustine we learn
something of its later career, when Paganism and Christianity
were striving for the mastery, and there is a record of sixty
inhabitants of the town suffering martyrdom for having over-
thrown a statue of its protecting deity.1 But Sufes has long
since passed away, and the few travellers who explore this
trackless region must build up from their imagination the stone-
built city with its pleasant gardens, and the hillsides clothed
with timber and perennial verdure. Sufetula, on the contrary,
still exists as one of the most interesting places in old Byzacene
—a city of ruins in a beautiful country, once remarkable for its
abundant supply of water, the sweetness of its climate, and the
wealth of its inhabitants. It was entirely surrounded by gar-
dens and orchards, and the productiveness of the soil is apparent
in the present day. Sufetula appears to have been in a flourish-
ing condition during the reigns of Antonine and Marcus Aure-
lius, and, judging by inscriptions of a later date that are still
legible, it must have enjoyed great prosperity long after the fall
of the Roman Empire. Of its earlier career we have no record,
but its last days, tinged with the romance so dear to Arab
writers, have furnished abundant material for the exercise of the
imagination. From Ibn Khaldoun we learn that in the year
A.D. 647 the Khalif Othman determined to effect the conquest
of Africa, and that, having raised a large army in Egypt, he
despatched it to Tripoli under the command of his brother,
1 This event is still recorded in the Romish calendar for the month of August.
name of the place, Sbeitla, is an Arab corruption. We learn
from the Itinerary of Antonine that it is twenty-five miles from
Sufes, changed by the Arabs into Sbiba—a city of renown in
pre-Roman times. 'We arrived at Sbiba,' says El-Bekri in the
eleventh century, 'a town of great antiquity, built of stone, and
containing a college and several baths. The whole country
around is covered with gardens, and produces a saffron of the
greatest excellence.' Sbiba is now a wilderness. The soil is
covered with rough herbage, the once flourishing city is now
the home of the jackal, and human habitations are not to
be found within a radius of twenty miles. What a change
from the lordly days when Sufes took high rank among the
earlier Roman settlements, placed under the protection of
Hercules, and described as splendidissimus et felicisshmis ordo
Colonics Sufetance\ In the Epistles of St. Augustine we learn
something of its later career, when Paganism and Christianity
were striving for the mastery, and there is a record of sixty
inhabitants of the town suffering martyrdom for having over-
thrown a statue of its protecting deity.1 But Sufes has long
since passed away, and the few travellers who explore this
trackless region must build up from their imagination the stone-
built city with its pleasant gardens, and the hillsides clothed
with timber and perennial verdure. Sufetula, on the contrary,
still exists as one of the most interesting places in old Byzacene
—a city of ruins in a beautiful country, once remarkable for its
abundant supply of water, the sweetness of its climate, and the
wealth of its inhabitants. It was entirely surrounded by gar-
dens and orchards, and the productiveness of the soil is apparent
in the present day. Sufetula appears to have been in a flourish-
ing condition during the reigns of Antonine and Marcus Aure-
lius, and, judging by inscriptions of a later date that are still
legible, it must have enjoyed great prosperity long after the fall
of the Roman Empire. Of its earlier career we have no record,
but its last days, tinged with the romance so dear to Arab
writers, have furnished abundant material for the exercise of the
imagination. From Ibn Khaldoun we learn that in the year
A.D. 647 the Khalif Othman determined to effect the conquest
of Africa, and that, having raised a large army in Egypt, he
despatched it to Tripoli under the command of his brother,
1 This event is still recorded in the Romish calendar for the month of August.