The Coolidge examiner., 1938-02-17


TODAY, one goes to Car
thage by automobile or
electric train. Shades
of Dido, Hannibal, and Ham
ilcar!
But for Virgil and Gustave
Flaubert, Carthage would be
deader than ancient Philadel-
phia, which now is Amman,
Trans-Jordan.
Just above the station. in q little
garden massed with daisies and
geraniuns, is monument to Flau-
bert. The head. representing the
immortal author of Salammbo"
(his Madame BOvary" isn't even
mentioned in Carthage) is less than
life size. But Flauberts romantic
description clothes the city site with
an aura of lasting glory.
Today. it seems blessing that
the author wrote some IS years
ago. for Carthage is less Carthage
now. Stucco villas are crowding
closer and closer about the ancient
ports and their gardens climb high
er and higher on the Byrsa. where
the Carthaginians had their fort and
temple and around which 700, 900
of them had their homes.
The site which Dido chose is too
blessed by beauty and climate to
remain a mere sepulcher for
vanished race which left its most
notable monuments on the maps Of
primitive seamanship and ancient
world commerce.
Carthage isn't Carthage, and pos
sibly never was. What remains is
Punic. Roman, Christian, Moslem.
and art moderne. Here heavy-foot-
ed elephants shuffled down long
ramps to their stables and armed
men stood watch on walls that
seemed impregnable. But the site
is grab bag of history. and unless
one is careful he stunbles over
anachronisms.
"Salammbo" Is a Suburb.
The guardian spirit of Carthage
is novelist's creation, whose name
has been appropriated by a sea-
side suburb. As one rides from La
Goulette tthe ''gullet'' Of the lake of
Tunis) toward Carthage, the street.
car conductor shouts "Salammbo."
Strangers start at the magic word.
The only Punic relic worthy of
Flauberts heroine is young priest
ess with dove in her hand and
her soft robe ending in wings which
cross over her limbs. Among the
stone ammunition, crude steles, and
cinerary caskets of the Punic Pc
riod, this life-size coffin top stands
out like pretty girl in a morgue.
Revengeful ancients who vowed
not to leave one stone Of Carthage
on another kept their promise, but
this lone figure slept on in her hill
side tomb and SO survived to prove
that the Punic traders, who took
their art where they found it, were
not entirely lacking in taste.
The ancient ports of Carthage,
long isolated from the sea by the
building of a shore road, are again
connected with the gulf of Tunis.
In the interests of health, small
channels have been dug. The naval
and commercial harbors are now
connected with the Mediterranean
whose Levantine shores bathe the
piles Of mureX shells from which
Tyre and Sidon extracted a purple
whose memory still colors history.
From the rough stones of the am
phitheater rises white cross.
why this modern emblem in
this pagan arena" one wonders.
Then he remembers. Cardinal La
vigerie, who never lost his historic
sense amid his numerous good
works, erected this seemingly in
congruouS cross over a spot where
Christian martyrs, to whom that
symbol was more than life, were
put to death some 400 years before
Mohammed was born.
Carthage must be destroyed
was the grandiose slogan. But Gaze
sar and Augustus had more sense
than Scipio. They deliberately re-
stored a ruined enemy to more than
its former beauty and Hadrian gave
it an aqueduct whose remains still
rank among Tu1isia's most impress
sive ancient monuments.
Kairouan the Sanity.
For miles his high-arched aque-
duct stretches above grainfelds and
grazing flocks, coming from Mount
Zahouan, which provides Tunis. as it
did Carthage, with water. You
parallel it ON your way to Kairouan
the Sanity.
How to describe this holy place
created by Moslems, some of whom
had seen the Prophet in the flesh?
Nothing you may read prepares you
for the silence Of the Great Mosque.