Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-04
One Of the Streets.

quarter, and then went to another part Of
the city where was the Roman market. The
market place was surrounded by columns,
and 1t still shows many evidences that 1t
was beautiful place when the people
from all the country about came here to
buy and sell. The stalls of the meat market
were on platform running in half-moon
facing the market place. The marble coun-
tiers behind which the butchers stood are
still Intact, and they bear the marks of the
cleavers used in chopping off the steaks
OF the past. These counters are marble
slabs. each about a foot thick and about
fve feet in length. crawled under one and
stood In place of the butcher trying to i'm
agine the customers who waited outside for
spring chickens, roasts of lamb and rump
steaks hfteen hundred or. more years ago,
ana IN my minds eye I could see Mrs. Gaze
sar testing the breastbone of fowl, and
Madame Cicero telling the boy to cut her
steak on the loin and watching him to see
enaI ne 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
some OF the houses of Timgad were mag
nincent They had marble benches, beau
1lfW frescoes and floors of mosaic. The
museum has many mosaics equal to almost
anything discovered at Pompeii They are
maze OF DTS OF stone, some of which are
no digger than a babys finger nail so fitted
together that they seem one solid block.
Ihey are OF many colors and represent the
famous characters OF mythology One
about fifteen feet square shows Venus rid
dolphins swim about below Another repre-
sents the triumph Of Neptune, and others
show various scenes connected with the
god sand goddesses Of old Rome.
Right near the Forum explored a palace
which contained about sixty odd rooms,
some Of which are still decorated with
marble columns. When I came in the
floors seemed to be nothing but plaster,
mi q rAI
the mosaic beneath. This house had wide
entrance porch. the floor of which was a
little above the level OF the street and
the stones at the front showed plainly the
out and in. 1t had bath rooms with hot
and cold chambers, the floors of which
were OF mosaic, such as are now in the
museum.
The Baths Of Timgad.
If 1t be true that cleanliness Is next to
godliness, these old Romans were not I'M
godly. There are ruins of baths here,
which show that this old town of Timgad,
ranging in size from fifty to one hundred
thousand people. had better accommoda-
tons Of that kind than any Of our largest
cities of today. Just outside the chief en-
trance gate stands the ruins of an enormous
building. covering almost two acres. which
was devoted to bathing and gymnastics.
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 intact,
and the rooms. although they are broken
In places can be easily traced. There are
thirty-five Of chem running about a grand
hall forty feet wide and seventy-flve feet
long, where the men went through their
gymnastics or rested and loafed after bath
ing 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 under
ground fiues and fires. The ruins Of the
heating arrangements are such that even
now they could be repaired and the baths