The World of Killing the Hydra – Part III – Thugga: Walking through a Roman Ghost Town

The World of Killing the Hydra

We’re heading back into the province of Africa Proconsularis this week with a brief look at one of the best preserved ‘small towns’ of Roman North Africa – Thugga.

I visited Thugga (also spelled ‘Dougga’) a few years ago, when I was doing research in Tunisia for Children of Apollo and Killing the Hydra.

I was with a small group that headed out in two 4x4s from the ruins of Carthage, south to Thysdrus (El Jem), across the great salt plains of Chott El Jerid and into the soft, sand-seas of the Sahara.

douz-desert

When we turned north again, skirting the edge of the guarded Algerian border, we came once more into the lush plains of northern Tunisia where grey mountains sprout from green, olive-dotted valley floors, and where low clouds hovered comfortably around their peaks in what was the mildest January I’ve ever experienced.

The countryside was beautiful and lonely, and I missed the desert dunes very much by that point, our time in the South having been all-too-short.

Countryside of Northern Tunisia

Countryside of Northern Tunisia

Admittedly, I had not heard of our next destination, ‘the place of Dougga’ as our guide called it. Our truck pounded along the winding, potted roads, climbing higher and higher, the land getting greener by the mile.

I also had a fever at this point in the journey, the result of having opted for what I thought was boiled soup, rather than camel meat a couple nights before.

Quick tip: they don’t boil the soup, and eating it is equivalent to drinking a murky glass of Saharan tap water.

A public latrine in Thugga

A public latrine in Thugga

Nevertheless, the historian in me could not help but spot the distant ruins perched on a hillside in the distance. As we came closer, and the road got rougher, it became apparent that there was much more to ‘the place of Dougga’ than we had been led to believe.

The sprawling remains of Thugga

The sprawling remains of Thugga

This wasn’t a small gathering of weathered ruins – it was a city! Or rather, it felt as such in that lonely, windswept place.

I stepped out of the truck, grateful that the ‘Couscous Beats’ soundtrack our driver had been torturing us with since the beginning of the trip finally stopped. Everything was quiet, but for the wind, and the crunch of gravel beneath our feet as we approached the small, shuttered kiosk.

When I saw no one was there, I wondered if we would be able to get in, and craned my neck to try and see the tantalizing view beyond the gates.

From the side came a man with a shot gun slung over his shoulder. We had just woken him from his obviously important duty. He smiled however, and spoke in hushed tones with our guide who evidently knew the man, or appeared to know him.

Our man turned to us and nodded. “You have one hour,” he said, and the gates opened.

One of the main streets of Thugga

One of the main streets of Thugga

I’m not going to go into the history of Thugga a great deal here – there is an uncharacteristically good Wikipedia page on this site which you can read by CLICKING HERE.

But, before we walk the streets of this Roman ghost town, there are a few things worth mentioning.

Thugga has had a long a varied history of settlement, having gone from its origins as a Numidian-Berber settlement, to a place under Punic control during the ages of Carthaginian hegemony, to a major Roman town, and finally under Byzantine control prior to Arab dominance in the region.

In the first century B.C., the Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus mentioned the “beautiful enormity” of Thugga.

The Forum of Thugga

The Forum of Thugga

It is a big site – about sixty-five hectares (about 161 acres) – which makes it surprising that Thugga is considered a ‘small’ Roman town. Its population when it was at its most prosperous in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. is said to have been about five thousand residents.

UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1997, and cited it as the “best preserved Roman small town in North Africa”.

Thugga was a thriving settlement because of agriculture, its location on the fields of northern Tunisia ideal for crops. But its fortunes took an even better turn in A.D. 205 when it was made a municipium by order of Septimius Severus and his son, Caracalla, acquiring the title of Municipium Septimium Aurelium Liberum Thugga. After that, Thugga received more rights and freedoms, and magistrates of the town were made Roman citizens.

Thugga didn’t enjoy the imperial favour that Severus’ hometown of Leptis Magna did, but it did prosper under Severus, aided by the fertile landscape that surrounded it, olives, oil, and grain being key to the running of the Empire.

Theatre of Thugga

Theatre of Thugga

I didn’t know any of this however, as I stepped through the gate of the archaeological site and entered the labyrinthine streets of Thugga as our guide settled himself beneath an olive tree and left us to our own devices.

One hour was not nearly enough time!

Our small group quickly broke apart as people set about exploring the site with confidence, as if they were walkers in some sort of past-life recollection, certain of where they needed to go.

For myself and my friend, it was more a feeling of overwhelm that snared us. The streets stretched out before us in great slabs of polished white and grey stone. We didn’t know where to start, so we headed in the direction of the biggest monument near the entrance – the theatre.

The theatre of Thugga is incredibly intact, and as we climbed the concentric rows of seating to the top, the picture of Thugga became much more clear as it spread out before us.

The Capitol of Thugga - the Temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva

The Capitol of Thugga – the Temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva

From the top row of the theatre I could see the high part of the town with the capitolium and agora beside it, the market place, the curve of one of the main streets passing the baths and going farther down into the residential part of ancient Thugga.

Five thousand residents may not seem like many, but when you look at a sprawling site like this, so quiet and complex, you begin to hear the voices of the past in a way that makes visiting an isolated archaeological site a truly unique experience.

To me, Thugga is a place of ghosts.

At every turn, I felt like I was intruding upon someone – a priest sacrificing in the Temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, a slave buying supplies in the marketplace, a couple of locals discussing business in the agora, or two ladies whispering in hushed tones in the baths where they stand upon the black and white geometric mosaic floor that was open to the sky. From the marble-framed doorway of a private domus, a mother watches me pass while her child plays on the stoop at her feet… It was the same, everywhere we went.

Inside one of the public baths, mosaics open to the sky!

Inside one of the public baths, mosaics open to the sky!

As we walked around, the voices Thugga’s residents became louder in my ears, their shades passing around me as they went about their daily business.

I was blown away by the fact that this almost completely intact city was just sitting there, deserted, its mosaics open to the sky.

Even more shocking was that as I walked around, the seeds of my story began to take shape in my mind. I saw Lucius walking through these very streets, visiting the temple, the marketplace, being pursued by local thugs.

What I didn’t see was the young prostitute who would approach him on that very street I was walking on, and how she would be the only person who could help him in a time of need.

Wandering with the ghosts of Thugga down the main street

Seeing my characters wander down this main street…

As a writer, it’s a magnificent experience to have your story take shape like that. I didn’t realize it fully at the time as I stepped into the ruins of the brothel, or the public latrine, following the road down toward the second century B.C. Libyan-Punic mausoleum to look out over the valley.

As I stood there, our short, almost cruel, hour hard upon us, I can’t recall hearing any birdsong, tractors in neighbouring fields, or distant cars.

What sticks with me from my time in Thugga, apart from the wondrous physical remains, is the sound of the wind and the ghostly whispers of its citizens in my ears.

It really is one of the most amazing places I have ever travelled to, and the fact that it was deserted was a gift.

View of the lower town from the baths

View of the lower town from the baths

Reluctantly, I climbed back into the 4×4, my fever quite forgotten for the past hour, and the engine erupted, intruding on my reverie, drowning out the voices and the wind.

As we drove away from this ancient ‘small town’, I thought about how much that trip was a journey of discovery and inspiration, and how it helped me to realize that the Roman Empire was much more vast than I had ever imagined.

I knew I would go back to Thugga, but next time, it would be on the pages of my book.

thugga-forum-map

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Living Abroad – A Guest Post by Author Caterina Novelliere

I meet a lot of people on-line as an author, historian, and blogger. The great thing about it is that sometimes you get to meet people with whom you click right away, people who have the same interests, similar experiences, and the same hunger to learn more about the world, and about history.

Today, I’m pleased to post a guest blog by just such a person.

Caterina and I met on-line (was it Twitter?) when I was posting about Tunisia and the Roman sites there which are part of the setting for Children of Apollo, and Killing the Hydra.

When she told me that she used to live in Tunisia, as well as in Italy, I asked her if she could write a post about her experiences that I could share with all of you.

So, without further ado, over to Caterina to talk about what it was like to live abroad, and how that shaped her imagination, art, and interests as a young child.

Living Abroad picture

Adam was kind enough to invite me to share how living abroad at a young age influenced my writing and shaped my life over the years. As a child, I lived in Tunisia for two and a half years. My family frequently traveled around the country. I also had the pleasure of visiting Algeria. My time in North Africa significantly shaped my academic and personal interests. Tunisia is the place where I fell in love with Antiquity, North African history, and Middle Eastern culture. I study all three in my academic pursuits.

One of the first places my parents took me in Tunisia was Carthage. The ruins, especially the large columns of carved stone, fascinated me. At the time, I wondered who exactly were these people living in stone houses? Seeing elaborate mosaics in the remains of the baths and villas, I concluded they all had to be amazing artists. Each new twist and turn through the site prompted more questions. What was life like for the Carthaginians and Romans? What would the children who once lived there say if I could speak to them? What games did they play? The adults seemed so focused on banqueting and bathing, which were totally boring subjects to a young child.

Statue

Statue and Mosaics at the Bardo Museum, Tunis

I met my first archaeologist at Carthage. He took a few minutes out of his day to show me what he was doing, explain the finds, and answer some of the crazy questions that my five year old self had in addition to those of my parents and a few others who went with us. I can still vividly recall his face and the patient way he’d smile and elaborate on life in Antiquity. I thought he had the coolest job. At that point I was hooked by the past and longed to explore it further. Who wouldn’t like a job that allowed you to play outside in the dirt and discover such wondrous things? It was like recess all of the time! Little did I know how hard that work is nor how meticulous an archaeologist or historian needs to be when excavating or developing the narrative of a people that lived long ago. I passed Roman ruins in the city every day on the bus ride to school and swimming lessons afterwards. We frequently took field trips to the remains of Roman sites and El Djem (a Roman amphitheater in the area). I would stare out the bus window daydreaming about what it would be like to sit in the stands watching men fight lions and each other. Would the crowd be loud? Would the men all wear decorated armor and carry swords on their sides? Did the women faint or cry from the gore or their favorite fighter dying? Needless to say, I had a very Hollywood vision of Roman life. The thirst to learn more about Roman North Africa and the mighty empire began in those years spent in Tunisia. It has been unquenchable since. After hitting my early thirties, I decided I needed to formalize my education in the fields I enjoyed so much and began the journey of becoming a trained historian and cultural heritage professional.

The Amphitheatre of El Djem (Roman Thusdrus)

The Amphitheatre of El Djem (Roman Thusdrus)

An important piece of culture frequently taken for granted or overlooked by the average joe is food. Food history fascinates me. Studying food from both a commodities and cultural perspective gives us unique insight into a region, the development of trade, and social practices of various civilizations. Food is a fantastic historical subject if one is searching to form connections between the past and today. There are many dishes and drinks like wine, coffee, or tea that significantly shape a region economically, socially, and from an identity perspective. I subtly sprinkle traditional meals and beverages in any novel of mine you pick up. As my characters dine and move on their various adventures, dinners and drinks frequently reflect the location they are in. In my travels, you can routinely find me eating local dishes off the beaten path. My passion for food arose out of childhood trips to Tunisian vineyards, markets and cafes. My mother emphasized it was important that I tried everything on my plate anytime an invite came to go to someone’s house or we went somewhere new. I remember watching her learn to cook local meals along with a wide variety of Middle Eastern and French dishes due to the many nationalities that made up our circle of friends abroad. I am guilty of being drawn to any restaurant offering tagines, couscous, shwarema, and other North African delicacies. One of the first dishes I learned to cook as a child was a lamb, vegetable and couscous stew. It is definitely one of my go to comfort foods when I am feeling down. Fresh mint tea is a treat anytime of the year. Pomegranates, blood oranges, figs, almonds, and tangerines are some of my favorite snacks after discovering them in Tunisia.

Troglodyte Dwelling - Matmata

Troglodyte Dwelling – Matmata

My fiction writing contains more than just the gastronomical flavorings of North Africa. Locations like Dougga, Carthage, and Hippo appear in storylines. There is something incredibly romantic about the places bordering the Mediterranean that fuels my imagination. One particular event I attended stands out in my mind as the most captivating culturally in all of my Tunisian and Algeria adventures, The Douz Festival. The races, celebrations, and traditions one witnesses traveling to the Saharan extravaganza further reeled me into the world of the Bedouin and Berber. The Douz Festival is an annual celebration of the harvesting of the dates and the nomadic way of life. Many Arab, Bedouin, and Berber clans come together to compete in horse and camel racing, trick riding, and overall merriment. The festival was so different from any circus or fair I attended in the states. The excitement in the air each day was contagious. Camels moved faster than I thought they could in intense matches. My pulse raced watching Arabians decked out in traditional saddles and bridles fly down the desert track. My heart was stolen by one of the trick riders one night. He rode a black horse whose saddle and bridle were decorated in red, green, white and black plumes. I was transfixed in place watching him stand in the saddle as his horse cantered past along with performing other amazing feats. If there was such a thing as a knight or fearsome desert warrior, it certainly had to be him. When he finished his act, he rode over to my family and spoke with us. Allowing me to pet his horse and the smile he offered before riding off had me completely smitten with my first crush on a stranger. No doubt my parents would laugh if I told them for a few years afterward, I wanted to marry a desert prince with a black stallion. From that day forward, I wanted to learn to ride like him and the others we saw at the festival. My parents knew a riding instructor in the US and three years later I learned to ride and vault. Needless to say time reshapes our perspective on romance, but I have never forgotten my Tunisian Horseman. Phantoms of him, a love for horses, and the euphoria of desert life intermingle in a few of the tales I craft. All three of these left their lasting mark on me.

Douz Animal Market, Tunisia

Douz Animal Market, Tunisia

Perhaps the two most precious gifts North Africa bestowed on me consist of language and a willingness to be open to new things. In school, it was mandatory we study French, Arabic and English. Not many American children receive the opportunity to start working with three languages in elementary school. By the time we left Tunisia, I had a fluency and working level well above my age in all three. It was strange to come stateside and not use the French or Arabic any longer. I periodically revive my French and Arabic as they do fade without use. My studies with them provided a foundation to learn Italian and Latin later on in college. One day I hope to add Greek, Berber (Tuareg or Tamazight), and Turkish to my list of languages.

Learning to interact with an international community, sampling a variety of cuisines, and seeing the various lifestyles from living in modern cities, Bedouin tents, or underground homes in Matmata (think Luke Skywalker’s house in Star Wars) helped me start to appreciate and embrace diversity at a young age. This exposure continues to help me approach topics and people from a more curious and open perspective versus a judgmental one. Undoubtedly, North Africa firmly rooted my willingness to try just about anything once.
Caterina Novelliere author photoCaterina is passionate about history, music, romance, old languages, and travel. She regularly intertwines these subjects in her writing. She holds a degree in Music Management with a minor in Vocal Performance from Old Dominion University in Virginia and a second B.A. in History with a minor in Italian from the University of Texas San Antonio. Ever a glutton for punishment and a believer in life long learning, Caterina is completing a M.A. in Public History from Texas State University. She was fortunate enough to receive awards that enabled her to study abroad in Urbino, Italy and Chester, England. She took full advantage of these opportunities to explore Italy, Jersey, England, Scotland, and Wales; conducting boots on the ground research for her coursework and literary works. While she is a fan of all history, her heart resides in Antiquity. She enjoys studying time periods up through the Renaissance. Modern history is just not as fun as gladiators, emperors, caliphs, queens, knights and kings. An obsession with cappuccino and Greek coffee started her down a path of researching commodities and gastronomy history in her free time.

When not traveling or studying, Caterina finds time to sing classical music, act, write, paint and fence. She is always up for trying something new so the list of hobbies is ever expanding.

Caterina is a social media junkie who enjoys meeting new folks. If you would like to contact her or learn more about her and future works, you can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and on her Blog.

A big ‘Thank You’ to Caterina for taking the time to write this wonderful post for us and, for myself, digging up all the great memories I have of my own visit to Tunisia and the Sahara. Don’t forget to connect with her so you can stay apprised of her historical research, and future travels.

Also, be sure to check out her novel, Mark of the Night, to see how her experiences have affected her fantastic storytelling!

Mark of the Night cover

Cheers, and thank you for reading!

 

 

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Ode to the Bardo Museum

Statue

Last week the international news was awash with the horrible events that occurred in Tunis, at the Bardo Museum.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families who have been affected by this terrible crime, and to the people of Tunisia.

Having been to the Bardo Museum for my research, it is hard to imagine the sound of gunfire and screams in such a lovely house of the Muses.

I suspect that many would-be tourists will be scared away from the Bardo now, and that is truly a shame. I spent some hours there, immersed in the ancient world, listening to its many voices. It was a place of serenity, and of beauty.

So, rather than focussing on the violence that has so recently tainted this wonderful place, I thought I would focus on the beauty of the Bardo Museum.

This is a post I originally wrote in June 2013 entitled, Mosaic Masterpieces – Treasures of Roman North Africa. I hope you enjoy it…

 Ulysses - Bardo museum Tunis

For a writer of historical fiction, and for an historian, the museum is the place to go for research.

Not only can you learn a lot about people and places, you can also come face to face with the possessions of the people and places about which you are writing. You can interact with the items that decorated and served long-ago worlds – Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Carthage and Rome etc. etc.

In a museum, culture is frozen in time as a sort of gift to future generations, a window to peer through and better understand those who went before us.

I’ve been to a lot of museums in my travels, large and small, great and not-so-great. But there was always something to be learned, something to take away with me that I could use in my writing.

Bardo Hall

This post, I wanted to touch on a particularly wonderful museum that I visited in Tunisia – The Bardo Museum in Tunis.

When I went to Tunisia to do research for Children of Apollo and Killing the Hydra, visiting Punic and Roman sites on the fringes of the Sahara was one of the biggest thrills of my travels.

When our 4×4 left the desert behind, I was disappointed to be back in the city. Tunis held none of the allure of the southern desert or the fertile green hills of central Tunisia. There were no ruined temples or amphitheatres, no mosaics or ancient streets as open to the sky, unsuffocated by modernity.

We pulled up outside a rather unassuming building and were told this was the ‘famous’ Bardo Museum. I probably rolled my eyes, remembered swaying palms and Saharan sand beneath my feet. I dreaded the dark building before me after so much perceived freedom.

I was so wrong. When we entered the Bardo, my eyes fell upon some of the most magnificent artistic creations I have ever seen.

The walls and floors were absolutely covered with myriad mosaics of such colour, such intricacy – I thought the images would jump right out at me.

Floor to ceiling

Floor to ceiling mosaics in the Bardo

And they were tucked away in this little museum that, up until that point, I had never heard mentioned by anyone at university or elsewhere.

I decided this week to look back over some of the photos I took at the museum and enjoyed revisiting those moments when I locked eyes with a tesseraed Triton or the striking statue of a Roman woman.

When I looked at the website for the Bardo Museum, I found that they have moved to a completely new, more spacious building.

Click HERE to take a virtual tour of the new Bardo.

The new museum is stunning, but for me the mosaics still take centre stage.

Triton mosaic

Triton mosaic

What is amazing about these creations is that they were what decorated the homes of the people who inhabited the period about which I am writing.

The visual that these mosaics provided for me and my written world was priceless.

Suddenly, my characters’ homes no longer contained shabby dirt or terra cotta floors, or even plain marble. Triclinii, peristylii and atrii came to life with the mythological and natural scenes that decorated Roman homes.

Gladiatorial scene

Gladiatorial scene

But these mosaics at the Bardo, and elsewhere, do not only depict the religious or fanciful aspects of belief.

More importantly to our knowledge, they depict the everyday activities of people ages ago. We see people hunting, fishing, tilling, and bringing in the harvest. We see images of the food they ate, the sports they watched and the heroes they worshiped.

These mosaics tell us so much about a world that would otherwise be lost to us. Thanks to these masterpieces, we know more about the buildings they decorated and the importance placed upon particular rooms within private homes, public and religious spaces.

The Months of the Year

The Days of the Week

When I stepped out of the Bardo Museum into the setting sunlight on a Tunis street, I felt as though I had been a guest at sumptuous banquet in someone’s home, far off on the edge of the Empire. This was not some flee-infested frontier region. No.

The Roman provinces of Africa Proconsularis and Numidia yielded not only the oil, grain and garum upon which the Empire depended, but also artistic treasures that have left a mark on time.

At the Bardo Museum, you can walk among these treasured mosaics with many silent, sentinel statues as your fellow guests.

Champion Horses

Champion Horses

If you ever get the chance to visit this place, do so. You’ll not regret it, and the memory of what you see will linger with you for years to come.

Thank you for reading.

What are your thoughts on the Bardo Museum? Given the chance, would you go? What do you think you could learn from the wealth of mosaics on display?

Tell us what you think in the comments below…

The poet, Virgil

The poet, Virgil

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The World of Children of Apollo – Part I – The Desert

Matmata

Matmata

For this series of posts that I’m calling The World of Children of Apollo, we’ll be taking a brief look at the Roman Empire at the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. Not to worry, this will not be an exhaustive history lesson but rather an historical and modern tour, guided by fiction. I’ll post photos and little anecdotes related to my travels and research over the course of writing Children of Apollo.

In this first entry, I’m going to look at the desert. From my very first glimpse, first smell and touch, of the North African Sahara, I knew that the desert itself would be a character. I had always wondered how something so plain could be such a draw. However, I immediately fell in love with the landscape. It’s unlike any other place, a sand sea of undulating dunes and scattered oases. In some areas, the sand is literally as soft as sifted flour.

Saharan Dunes

Saharan Dunes

Children of Apollo (you can read an excerpt HERE) begins with a Roman cohort marching through the desert in the provinces of Cyrenaica and Africa Proconsularis, which included modern Libya and Tunisia. I was not able to visit Libya but, when I was in the Tunisian Sahara, the image of a marching Roman column in the heat of the bleak but mysterious landscape was something that stayed with me. This was the southern frontier of the Roman Empire, from Egypt to the Atlas Mountains of Mauretania province. The II Traiana garrisoned Alexandria and small auxiliary detachments were stationed at settlements along the coast. The only other full legion in North Africa at the time was the III Augustan stationed at Lambaesis, to the west, in Numidia.

Troglodyte Dwelling

Troglodyte Dwelling

In Tunisia or, what was Africa Proconsularis, the Sahara is not only made up of soft, sandy dunes that lend themselves to a meditative, barefoot promenade. The terrain toward the coast can be quite green at times. Other areas are covered by great salt lakes where the crystalline formations reflect the sun with diamond-like fascination. There are also the rocky, desert regions, such as Matmata and Tataouine, where some people live in troglodyte dwellings. Star Wars fans will be interested to know that Owen and Beru’s farmstead was filmed in one such dwelling in the same area. Basically, these are caves below ground level where the walls are painted white so that the people can stay relatively cool even in the intensity of the summer heat. I was there in January, so I experienced no such discomfort.

Salt Lake of Chott El Jerid

Salt Lake of
Chott El Jerid

At one point, we pushed on to some of the southerly Tunisian settlements. Our 4×4 bounced along through olive groves, through rocky passes and on into the dunes as our driver, Sami, grooved and ululated to a cassette called ‘Couscous Beats’. The writer in me was absorbing all of the stimuli and one such place was the Douz Saharan market where I could have bought a camel or donkey, if that was my inclination. The market had vintage radios, tin jewellery with Berber designs, fezzes and mounds of fragrant spices. But watch out for the pickpockets! One of our group had her purse sliced with an exacto knife and she was none the wiser. Luckily, she was a birder and her binoculars blocked the thief’s hand from grabbing anything from that side of the purse.

Oasis

Oasis

Watching the sun set on the Sahara was a peaceful, awe-inspiring experience that I will never forget. That is, until three Berber horsemen wielding rifles pounded up toward us. My French came in handy as I explained our presence and our admiration of the beauty of the desert. I don’t know if they actually gave a toss or not because they just circled us a couple times and galloped off.

Sahara near Tozeur

Sahara near Tozeur

The next day we visited the Mos Eisley set of Star Wars (Episode II at that time) near Tozeur (guarded by a couple of Berber men, their camels and two really long rifles). For me this was a real thrill and though the main part of the set was blocked off, there were other, smaller set pieces that could be visited. It was a beautiful spot and difficult to imagine what it might have been like with the entire cast and crew of Star Wars there. Somewhat less peaceful, I imagine.

From there we headed north along the Algerian border. We asked our guides if we could go into Algeria, which seemed much rockier, and they said that if we approached the boarder we would be shot at. I tried to imagine Lambaesis, in the distance, where an entire Roman legion was based so long ago. I knew it had to be a part of my story, but at that early stage I wasn’t sure yet how big a part it had to play.

Douz Animal Market

Douz Animal Market

In the next instalment of The World of Children of Apollo, I will look briefly at some of the towns and larger settlements of Roman North Africa.

Wine, olives and gladiatorial combat are optional!

Thank you for reading.

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