THE EXCAVATIONS OF CARTHAGE. 603 



Roman period. He died just after the publication of the texts which 

 science owes to him. After his departure from Tunis the excavations 

 were continued by MM. Reinach and Babelon, and it may be said that 

 the researches called forth by the publication of the Corpus Inscriptio- 

 num Semiticarum gave the first impulse to the movement now develop- 

 ing before our eyes. 



The Cardinal did not stop at any sacrifice. He paid for the excava- 

 tions out of his own purse and pleaded the cause of his museum with 

 the persuasive ardor characteristic of him. Fortunately his right 

 hand in this enterprise was Pere Delattre, who, with his frank, ener- 

 getic features, long blond beard, and white robe, is a figure well 

 beloved by all visitors at Tunis. Having been long identified with the 

 place and knowing the people and the locality, Pere Delattre was in a 

 better position than anyone else to gather information from the natives 

 and to know at what points to conduct researches. 



His investigations, at first limited and rather haphazard, underwent 

 a change as the result of a visit of the Marquis de Vogue. He gra- 

 ciously placed at Pere Delattre's disposal a sum sufficient to enable 

 him to proceed with his work. From that time his resolution was 

 fixed. He conceived the plan of exploring the necropolis in the side 

 of the hill of St. Louis. At nearly the same time a French engineer, 

 who deserves mention, M. Yeruaz, in examining the subterranean 

 canal which flows from the great cisterns into the sea, struck upon the 

 first tombs of the Phoenician necropolis of Bordj Djedid, which is 

 crossed by the Eoman aqueduct. 



M. Heron de Villefosse, who had been present at Pere Delattre's 

 first excavations, and had constituted himself his representative at the 

 Academy, kept it daily informed of his discoveries. Yet it neither 

 subsidized nor encouraged him in any way. And thus, little by little, 

 laboring from tomb to tomb, from necropolis to necropolis, he succeeded 

 in determining the site of three great Carthaginian cities of the dead. 



These necropolises, extending along the hills that reach from the 

 chapel of St. Louis to the sea, form a semicircle, which embraces the 

 heart of the city, as it were, in the horns of a crescent. Was the whole 

 of the ancient city comprehended within these limits? It must have 

 been very small; but early T ^ome, also, was of no great extent, and the 

 seven hills are to-day lost in the maze of streets and buildings that 

 form the heart of the modern city. Possibly, too, what has happened 

 to our cemeteries in Paris occurred in Carthage. At first outside the 

 city, they were finally surrounded by it, but were kept in use never- 

 theless. 



In any case, all are not of equal antiquity. The most ancient, called 

 Douimes, from the name of the territory covering it, occupies the most 

 distant point from the sea, not far from the cistern of Malga. It cer- 

 tainly goes back to the sixth, if not to the seventh, century B. C. This 

 age is indicated by the presence of beautiful Corinthian vases, whose 



