DISCOVERY 



291 



every conqueror must hold it, by means of the great 

 military road skirting the northern slopes of the 

 mountains. The headquarters of the Roman military 

 force in the province, the third Augustan Legion, had 

 been fixed by Augustus at Theveste (now Tebessa), at 

 the eastern end of the Aures range. Trajan moved 

 the legion westward, probably to the neighbourhood of 

 Mascula (the modern Khenchela), and while it was 

 there perhaps a detachment from it was stationed on 

 the site of Timgad in order to guard the Foum- 

 Ksantina gap. In .a.d. ioo a colony was founded at 



lowed, the town would have been divided into four 

 more or less equal squares by the cruciform intersection 

 of the two main streets, which correspond to the two 

 main roads that always intersect a Roman camp. 

 But here the street which runs from north to south 

 (the Kardo maximus) is not continued, as it should 

 be, in a straight line after meeting the Forum in the 

 centre of the town, but is diverted to the west. The 

 street from east to west (the Decumanus maximus) 

 runs nearly straight and was the most important in 

 the town because it was a section of the great road 



MERIDIAN STKElil" .^T TIMOAO. 

 iBy the courUsy of the Clarendon Press^ Oxford.) 



Timgad. It was the usual civil settlement which was 

 essential to a permanent Roman camp. It was not a 

 garrison town, though built so as to be easily defended, 

 but was the commercial centre and recruiting-ground 

 for the neighbouring camp and the nursery of Roman 

 civilisation in the surrounding region. By a.d. 123 

 the camp of the legion was fi.xed thirteen miles west- 

 ward of Timgad, at Lambjesis. 



Like all Roman military colonies, Timgad is built 

 like a Roman camp. In its original form it is almost 

 a true square occupying about thirty acres. Thi; gates 

 in the centre of the northern, western and eastern 

 sides still survive. If the normal plan had been fol- 



from Lambjesis to Theveste. The main stream of 

 traffic passed through it, and many of the more impor- 

 tant public buildings are to be found in it or grouped 

 near it. A number of side streets parallel to the 

 Decumanus or to the Kardo divide the area of the town 

 into small square insula or house-blocks, containing 

 as a rule two houses apiece. There were no slums in 

 Timgad because there were no poor in a population 

 consisting mainly of merchants and time-expired 

 soldiers. The general effect is a pattern like a chess- 

 board, disturbed here and there by the larger spaces 

 taken by the Forum and by pubhc buildings such as 

 the theatre, the market, and the public library. This 



