74

Roman Africa

workmanship generally is coarse and unrefined, and there is an
absence of those decorative features in marble and stone which
are generally to be found in the public buildings of prosperous
communities. It is probable that Simittu owed its existence to
the proximity of the marble quarries, and that its inhabitants
were mostly connected with the working and transport of these
valuable products. The marbles were quarried from a number
of small hills, about 800 feet above the sea-level, and covering
an area of not less than 220 acres. They are of different kinds,
principally giallo antico ; but there are many other varieties,
especially of the breccia class, of a brownish hue and of beautiful
shades of colour. There is no doubt that Simittu attained
great celebrity under the Empire on account of the abundance
of this rich material, which was worked here extensively and
shipped to Rome. Hadrian, we know, valued these products
very highly. An inscription informs us that he made the road
to the coast to facilitate their transport, and used them freely in
the embellishment of his villas at Tivoli and Antium.

The employment of marble by the Romans as a decorative
material cannot be traced farther back than the commencement
of the first century B.C. It seems to have been disfavoured on
its first introduction, mainly on the ground that it was a Greek
luxury ill suited to the taste of the commonwealth. The quarries
of Italy had not then been opened, and the only known marbles
were the white varieties imported from Greece. Pliny the Elder
expresses an opinion on the use of marble, especially in private
houses, in a violent diatribe, and vents his indignation against
Marcus Scaurus for having set up in front of his house on
Mount Palatine some lofty columns of black Lucullean marble.1
' Considering, then, this bad example,' says Pliny, ' so prejudicial
to all good manners and so hurtful to posterity, would it not be
better for the city to disallow such superfluities by wholesome
laws and edicts than thus to permit such huge and proud pillars
to be raised in front of a private house, even under the nose of
the gods, whose images were but of earth and their temples as
of potter's clay ?' Lucius Crassus also, who built himself a house

1 Middleton, p. 14. Lucullean marble was the product of an island on the Nile,
but its position has not been identified, although mentioned by Pliny, Hist. Nat.
xxxvi. 2. It was so called because it was specially used in Rome by the Consul
L. Lucullus about B.C. 74.