Chapter XXXIV: Tripoli

There appears to exist no detailed record of Bruce’s second journey to Tripoli. He resided at Tunis till August, 1766, and again set out for Tripoli by Sfax and Djerba.

There is nothing worth seeing without the walls of Tripoli. In the town itself immediately above the port, stands a four-faced triumphal arch of white marble, covered with a profusion of ornaments, both within and without, even to a fault, if there could be fault in so much excellence.

Yet notwithstanding its convenient situation and the commodiousness it presents for measuring and delineations, and that there are seven consuls of different nations residing at Tripoli, and a number of private merchants, no information, much less any drawing of these beautiful remains has been ever given, till that which I then made.

Tripoli from its ditch and rampart has the appearance of a place of strength, but it is not so. The entrance of the port is naturally so bad, and the sands from the desert falling into it have made it so shallow, as to disqualify it from being a place either of trade or of war. The country about it is very barren, and necessaries consequently very dear. Bad government has checked population or caused emigration elsewhere. The sands of the desert, no longer imprisoned by the grass or roots that necessarily attend frequented places, are now become loose and cover most of the ground fit for cultivation, to the very walls of the town, upon which they are heaped up, except as I have said, upon the side of the harbour, where upon any blast of wind, shower after shower sinks to the bottom and remains never to return.

Here I insert an extract from a paper found amongst Bruce’s manuscripts, but certainly not in his handwriting, headed, ‘Memo. on Tripoli in Africa.’

The three cities of Leptis, Sabrata and Oea constituted anciently a federal union, and the district governed by their Concilium Annum was styled Lybia Tripolitana.[281] This council was composed of the representatives of all orders of the people, and through its president received the commands of the Emperor, and transmitted to him the representations or complaints of the province. Under the reign of Valentinian,[282] we read of the oppression under which they groaned from the tyranny of the Count Romanus, military governor of Africa, whose protection they had sought against the attacks of the Austuriani, barbarians of Getulia, who had laid waste their territory, and killed or carried into captivity many of their principal citizens. The impunity of his misgovernment, the venality of the Imperial notary sent to inquire into the complaints of the Tripolitains, and the public execution of their president, Ruricius,[283] at Sititi, because he had presumed to pity the distress of the province, presents a frightful picture of the evils to which the distant and tributary possessions of the Romans were exposed under the emperors. As the overgrown rule of these princes obliged them to depute the investigation of the wrongs complained of by their subjects to officers exposed to every influence of corruption, we can scarcely wonder that those wrongs, often unredressed, occasioned frequent revolts, which were one great source of the ruin of Africa. The crimes of Romanus drove the Africans under Firmus the Moor into rebellion, and for a time the whole province was lost to the empire. It was restored by the restorer of Britain, Theodosius. The impunity of the first, and the ignominious death of the second of these generals, who was publicly beheaded at Carthage, on a vague suspicion that his name and services were superior to the rank of a subject, show how dangerous to its possessor was, under those princes, the union of ability and virtue.

Leptis and Sabrata were ruined by the frequent recurrence of such commotions, and by the policy of Genseric, King of the Vandals, which led him to destroy the fortifications of almost all the African cities, thus leaving them a prey to the Moors. Procopius[284] tells us that Justinian repeopled the first by inducing the inhabitants of the neighbouring country to renounce their idolatry, become Christians and settle in it, and that he rebuilt the walls, both of it and of Sabrata.

Before the reign of Constans the Second,[285] they had again yielded to the joint attacks of the barbarians and the moving sands of the deserts, for we find that the wealth, the inhabitants, and the name of the province had then gradually centred in the maritime City of Tripolis, built on the site of Oea, the native country of Apuleius.[286]

The Prefect Gregory, who had perhaps assumed the purple, since Theophanes brands him with the appellation of tyrant, at this time ruled the provinces. He was called on to check the progress of the victorious Saracens, who under Abdallah, the most renowned and dextrous horseman of Arabia, had crossed the desert from Egypt and pitched their tents before the walls of Tripoli. The army of the Caliph Othman did not exceed 40,000 men, and the fortifications of Tripoli were strong enough to resist its first assaults. That of Gregory amounted to 120,000 men and compelled the Saracens to relinquish, for a time, the labours of the siege.

The utter defeat of the Christian army and the triumph of the Mohammedan invaders has been already narrated.

Marmol, on the authority of Ibn al Ragny, an African historian, tells us that Tripoli was completely ruined shortly after this time, and its inhabitants either killed or carried into slavery. Long after, he adds, the town was rebuilt by the Africans in a sandy plain, producing palm trees but no corn, as the ever-encroaching sands of the desert have covered plains of considerable extent to the north of the town, which were anciently cultivated.

The ancient Tripoli, he says, stood to the north of the present, in this cultivated tract; but the situation of the triumphal arch, which still attests its former magnificence, would seem to disprove this assertion. The neighbourhood of Numidia and Tunis, and its being the last place on the coast of consequence between Barbary and Egypt, have given it a great share of commerce, and the riches of its merchants have adorned it with splendid mosques, colleges, and hospitals, with squares and streets better ordered than those of Tunis. Provisions are, nevertheless, scarce and dear, and the want of wells obliges it to depend on large cisterns for its supply of water.

Tripoli was taken by assault in 1510 by the Count Pedro of Navarre, who ruined it, but it was re-peopled some time after in the name of the Emperor, who in 1528 gave it, with Malta, to the Knights of St. John, who had just lost the Island of Rhodes.

In 1551 Canan Basha, General of Soliman, retook it, since which time the Turks have held a garrison in it, and the town is peopled with Moors.

Mr. Drummond Hay, Her Majesty’s Consul-General at Tripoli, has been good enough to forward me the following note on the great triumphal arch there, thus redeeming the slur which Bruce casts upon his predecessors:—

‘In the north-east quarter of the town, about a hundred yards from the Marina Gate, in the street which leads directly from it, may be seen this ancient and remarkably fine monument. It was erected by the Consul Scipio Œfritus in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and afterwards dedicated to Marcus Aurelius and L. Aurelius Verus, his successors. The form of the monument is that of a rectangle nearly approaching a square. It is made up of four circular arches surmounted by a dome, and is quadrifrontal, with its largest façades to the east and west. The length of these is 41 feet, while the other two, looking north and south, measure little less than 33 feet. Its height from the ground to the highest corner-stone is at present 23 feet; but to this must be added over five feet of mud and stone, which reach to the dome. At the time of its construction, however, its height was much greater, as the level of the ground was then lower by many feet. Large quantities of sand, carried towards it at some subsequent period by the winds, accumulated round it, burying it to near the middle, in which state it has since remained. Even the half, or little more, above the surface, is now not all visible, because house and shop walls, and rubbish and mortar, conceal much of what remained of the north and east sides. The whole of this structure is composed of fine marble, closely put together in beautiful order, but no cement has been used to fasten the stones together; yet so solid are they that, so far as the ravages of time are concerned, the pile may be pronounced quite uninjured. It is a matter of wonder to the beholder how such enormous stones came to be conveyed from the quarry, and raised to their proper places, in an age when means of conveyance were but limited. Travellers have esteemed this building above any of the most celebrated in Italy, preferring it to the Temple of Janus, which though of marble, has only a plain roof.

‘The upper part is unfortunately mutilated, having received considerable damage from the ignorant curiosity of the Moors. On the outside are enormous groups of whole-length figures of men and women, forming allegorical scenes or representing facts in history, and over each of the four niches on the east and west sides is seen the large prominent bust of a man. Smaller figures and other bas-reliefs are dispersed over the rest of the building. The natives, on account of their religious aversion to images, have knocked off the heads of the four busts, and otherwise damaged them, as well as the other figures which have now become indistinct. Those on the north side are the only ones which have escaped with but little injury, probably because they were concealed by house walls. The ceiling, however, is the part which has suffered least; it is ornamented with beautiful sculpture. Some also of the ornamentation yet visible on the outside is of the finest description, especially about one of the corners where vine branches, with bunches of grapes, are seen woven together.

‘Of several inscriptions only one, partly hidden by a house, is legible, and, unlike the rest, remains in a perfect state of preservation; it runs thus—

IMP. CAES. AVRELIO. ANTONIN. AVG. P. P. ET. IMP. CAES. L. AVRELIO. VERO. ARMENICO. AVG. SER. S. OEFRITVS. PROCOS. CVM. VTTEDIO. MARCELLO. LEG. SVO. DEDICAVIT. C. CALPVRNIVS. CELSIVS. CVRATOR. MVNERIS. PVB. MVNERARIVS. IIVIR. Q.Q. FLAMEN. PERPETVVS. ARCVM. MARMORE. SOLIDO. FECIT.

‘For a long succession of years the arch, having had its openings built up, has served the purpose of a warehouse. Many years ago it fell into the hands of its present owner, an old Maltese wine merchant, of the name of Giovanni Cassar, who, after converting it into the principal wine-shop in the town, again made use of it as a warehouse, and it is now, at the present day, filled with his casks and boxes. Part of the above description is taken from “The History of the Barbary States” by the Rev. Michel Russell, in which book, as well as in Tully’s “Court of Tripoli,” Blacquiere’s “Letters from the Mediterranean,” and Captain Lyon’s “Travels in Africa,” will be found references to the triumphal arch. In both Tully and Lyon are illustrations of the building.’

J. LEITCH &. Co. Sc.

QUADRIFRONTAL ARCH AT OEA (TRIPOLI)

FAC-SIMILE OF UNFINISHED INDIAN INK DRAWING BY BRUCE.

HENRY S. KING Co. LONDON.]

Bruce has left us a most exquisite and elaborate series of drawings of the arch with all its details, of which I have selected two for illustration (Plates XXVII. and XXVIII.) From these it will be seen that it is an _arcus quadrifrons_, of which style of monument the only two other specimens existing are that of Janus Quadrifrons at Rome and the arch of Caracalla at Tebessa (Plate IX.) It has a carriage-way in both directions, one crossing the other; and when in its original condition, clear of all obstructions, it must have had a most imposing appearance.

Each archway has subordinate Corinthian pilasters at the angles surmounted by a regular entablature; the face of the pilaster is sunk in a panel and enriched with a running ornament. The arch has a regular archivolt, without keystone, and the spandrils are filled with winged figures of Victory. The general order of the front is Corinthian, and the entablature runs unbroken all around. There are two slightly projecting pilasters on each side of the central opening, raised on pedestals, which have enriched panels, with a vase, tripod, or other emblematic object. The outer pilaster has a panel from base to capital, enriched with running foliage. The pilaster next the arch is fluted.

The entablature consists of the usual features and divisions, and is unbroken round the monument. The frieze is carved in its whole length from the outer to the inner pilasters, but the long interval between and over the arch itself is left plain for the inscription.

Between each pair of pilasters is a fine square-headed niche, two-thirds of the height of the pilaster, surmounted on the east and west sides by a circular panel containing, in alto-relievo, busts, probably, of the Emperors to whom the arch is dedicated. Above these is the frieze as far as the capitals, with two winged boys carrying a garland (Plate XXVIII.)

The soffit of the archivolt has a panel filled in with carving, and there are richly sculptured _caissons_ in the general depth of the arch.

The return faces or sides differ from the principal fronts in having only pilasters close to the angles, without square niches. The face of the work between the angle pilaster and the small pilaster of the archway is filled in with sculptures of figures, trophies, victors in quadrigæ, and other appropriate ornaments. The rough structure only of the attic remains, no regular coursed masonry being perceptible.

J. LEITCH &. Co. Sc.

QUADRIFRONTAL ARCH AT OEA (TRIPOLI)

FAC-SIMILE OF PLATE OF ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

EXECUTED BY BRUCE AFTER HIS RETURN TO SCOTLAND.

HENRY S. KING Co. LONDON.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 281: Valesius in Ammian.: adnot. i., xxviii.]

[Footnote 282: A.D. 366.]

[Footnote 283: Ammian. Marcell., xxviii.]

[Footnote 284: L. vi., C. iv., _De Edific._]

[Footnote 285: A.D. 647-8.]

[Footnote 286: Apuleius, probably the most celebrated original thinker which Africa had ever produced up to his time, fixed his residence here after quitting his native place, Medaura, which has also the honour of having given birth to St. Augustine. His most celebrated work is _The Golden Ass_, an allegory in eleven books, one of which contains the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche.—R. L. P.]