Maktar Things to Do

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On the east side of the Roman road is the little temple of Hathor Miskar (a love goddess of Egyptian origin), a Punic shrine, probably of the 1st century B.C., which was rebuilt in the 2nd century A.D. and converted into a Christian church in the 4th century. The ground-plan consists of a walled forecourt, a vestibule and the cella. An inscription gives the names of three suffetes (Punic municipal officials). The apse was presumably added in the 4th century.

Immediately beyond the Schola of the Juvenes is a necropolis which was in use for burial from the foundation of the Roman town until the fourth century, together with a number of megalithic tombs of the Numidian period.

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The Schola of the Juvenes in Maktar was a kind of clubhouse and training school for young men - found also in other Roman cities under the name of Collegia Juvenum - in which, in addition to being trained in various sports and the military art, they were given instruction in politics, taxation law and commerce. They were then employed not only in the collection of taxes but also in the defense of the wealthy city of Mactaris against raids by plundering nomadic tribesmen.

The building of the Schola began in A.D. 88, on the evidence of an inscription found on the site giving the name of 70 members of the school, but it was completed only towards the end of the second century. By the early third century the Schola had become an extremely powerful Organisation, as is shown by its participation in the Gordian rising in A.D. 238. After the rising, however, it was dissolved and the buildings were destroyed. Later, in the reign of Diocletian, they were rebuilt. Particularly well preserved is the palaestra, built at the expense of a wealthy citizen named Julius Piso, with an inner courtyard surrounded by Corinthian columns and a small lecture hall adjoining.

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Along the paved decumanus to the west of the Great Baths is the old Punic Forum used by the Libyan/Punic population of Maktar. Just north of this is the Temple of Bacchus (Liber Pater), of which little remains apart from a double crypt; the present masonry belongs to a later building.

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South of the Basilica of Hildeguns are the imposing remains of the Great Public Baths (Grandes Thermes Publics), built at the end of the 2nd century, which are among the best preserved Roman baths in Africa. The lower floor is completely preserved. The walls of the central hall (cella media) and the adjoining frigidarium (cold bath) and caldarium (warm bath) stand to a height of 12-15m/40-50ft, as far as the springing of the vaulting. The floors are paved with fine mosaics. Amid the plant ornament of the capitals appear various fabulous animals, showing that the Libyan/Punic cultural heritage was still very much alive in Roman times. The baths were converted into a fortress by the Byzantines in the 6th century.

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Beyond the Arch of Trajan in Maktar are the remains of a three-aisled basilica, much altered and rebuilt, with a baptistery flanked by four columns and the tomb of a Vandal prince named Hildeguns. It was built in the 5th century A.D.

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At the south end of the Forum stands the magnificently preserved Arch of Trajan, erected in A.D. 116 in honour of the town's promotion to the status of municipium. An inscription dedicates it to "the Emperor Caesar Nerva Trajanus Augustus, the best of all Emperors, conqueror of the Germans, the Armenians and the Parthians, in his 21st year as a tribune". In Byzantine times the gateway was walled up and incorporated in the fortifications of the town.

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Beyond the Maison de Vénus in Maktar, at the intersection of the cardo and the decumanus, lies the rectangular Forum, paved with marble, which was probably laid out in the early 2nd century, when Mactaris became a municipium. Nothing is left of the colonnades and buildings which stood round it. At the northeast corner is a small market which is marked out by four columns.