The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-05-05

about came here to buy and sell. me
stalls of the meat market were on plat
form running in a half moon facing the
market place. The marble counters pc
hind which the butchers stood are sim
intact, as they bear the marks of the
cleavers used in choppng off the steaks
of the past. These counters are marble
slabs each about a foot thick and about
five feet in length. I crawled under one
and stood In place of the butcher trying
to imagine the customers who waited out
side for spring chickens. roasts of lamb
and rump steaks fifteen hundred or more
years ago, and in my minds eye l couid
see Mrs. Caesar testing the breastoone
of a fowl, and Madame Cicero telling the
boy to cut her a steak off the loin and
watching him to see that he did not cheat
in the weight Later on l saw In the
museum the weights which were used
to measure the meat They are balls OF
stone ranging in size from that of my
head to a marble.
A City of Luxury.
Some of the houses of Timgad were
magnificent. They had marble benches
beautiful frescoes and floors of mosaic.
The museum has many mosaics equal
to almost anything discovered at Pom
peii. They are made of bits of stone
some of which are no bigger than baby S
finger nail so fitted together that they
seem one solid block. They are of many
colors and represent the famous charac-
ters of mythology. One about fifteen rect
square shows Venus riding through the
sea on a centaur while the dolphins swim
about below Another represents the trl-
umph of Nepture, and others show various
scenes connected with the gods and god
desses of old Rome.
Right near the Forum I explored pal
ace which contained about sixty ODD
rooms, some of which are still decorated
with marble columns. When l came III
the floors seemed TO be nothing but plas-
ter. but as / scraped my feet on them
I saw the mosaic beneath. This mousse
had a wide entrance porch. the floor or
which was a little above the level or
the street, and the stones at the front
showed plainly the marks made by the
carriages as they drove out and in. IL
had bath rooms with hot and cold cham
bers, the floors of which were of mosaic
such as are now in the museum.
Baths of Timgad.
If it be true that cleanliness is next to
godliness, these old Romans were not I'M
goldly. There are ruins of baths here,
which show that this old town of Timgad,
ranging in size from fifty to one huhdreu
thousand people, nad DeIleF dcCoHiiloue'-
tions of that kind than any of our largest
cities of today. Just outside the chet
entrance gate stands the ruins of an enor-
nous building covering almost two acres,
which was devoted to bathing and gym
nastics. 1t was built of brick, and some
of the mosaic floors are still to be seen.
I spent some time in these baths. A
large part of the outer walls are still IN
tact. and the rooms. although they are
broken in places can be easily traced.
There are thirty-five of them running
about a grand hall forty feet wide and
seventy-five feet long, where the men
went through their gymnastics or rested
and loafed after bathing. There were
many hot chambers for steam and vapor
baths, and several cold plunges with
large swimming pools. The hot rooms
had mosaic floors. with underground
fues and fires. The ruins of the heating
arrangements are such that even now
they could be repaired and the baths
used as in the past. In the southern part
of the city are other baths, and In many
of the houses so far excavated there are
remains of private bath rooms.
Theater Seating Four Thousand.
Timgad had a theatre which seated
more than four thousand people. Won
der how many towns Of fifty thousand