ROMAN RUINS

SABRATHA. WHS dating to 500 BC. The 175 AD Theatre has a large forty-three-meter stage, and held 5,000 spectators. Also baths, temples, and the spectacular amphitheater which housed up to 10,000 spectators. City damaged in the fourth-century earthquake. Rebuilt to become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Libya today.

Arch of Marcus Aurelius Tripoli. By the later 2nd century AD, Oea was conquered by the Romans who included it in their province of Africa. It was built in 165 AD to their emperor, Marcus Aurelius, but also to Lucius Verus, the emperor’s adoptive brother, to commemorate his victories during the Roman-Parthian War of 161-166 AD.
It is Tripoli’s most impressive ancient monument at the intersection of the city’s main streets and the exact centre of the Roman city. Marcus Aurelius is riding triumphantly in his chariot. At various times in its history, it has been incorporated into a Roman forum, a storehouse, stables, a shop, a public house, and a cinema. The base of the arch is now 10 feet below street level.

BAALBEK
Known as Helipolis or ‘Sun City’ of the ancient world, its ruins are the most impressive ancient site in Lebanon. The temples are extravagant and built to a scale that outshone anything in Rome. Baalbek became a Roman colony in 15 BC.
The Temple of Jupiter, completed around AD 60, was built on a massive substructure about 48x88m in dimension on a 12m high podium, and incorporating some of the largest building blocks ever used. It is the largest temple ever constructed in the Roman Empire. Today the remaining six standing columns are what is left of 19 columns on each side and 10 on each end. They are 20m high, 2m in diameter and 62 tons each in weight. All these massive blocks were moved using lewis holes: 20-30cm deep and 4cm wide holes wider at the bottoms than the top into which lewis pins, a hinged, metallic, trapezoidal structure was inserted. Each pin could lift 5 tons. The temple was never completed.
In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, a massive courtyard was constructed in front of the Temple of Jupiter, and in front of that a hexagonal courtyard on a 7m podium. The cult of Jupiter Heliopolitanus made sacrifices on 2 alters. and were destroyed and replaced by a Byzantine church
Bacchus Temple. Although there are no inscriptions to indicate the identity of the worshipped deity or date of completion, unlike the Temple of Jupiter, it was completely finished, likely in the 2nd century. It has 8 columns on one end and 16 on each side supporting a 18m high ceiling and has lovely Corinthian decoration with acanthus leaf capitals and cornices. It is almost completely preserved having survived several earthquakes, several religious changes from paganism to Christianity and Islam and conversion to a dungeon in the medieval period.

Roman Quarry. A kilometre away from the ruins is the quarry where most of the rock came from. Lying on its side still in the quarry is Hajjar al Hebla (“stone of the pregnant”), a 21×4.5×4.2m block that weighs 992 tons. However, it is not the biggest. The Western Megalith (trilithon), the base of the podium of the Temple of Jupiter is 20×4.8×4.6m and 1110 tons; but the biggest is 19.6×6.1×5.6m, 1673 tons and recently discovered. They were moved on rollers on a 15.2° incline using 16 groups of 32 men each (512 total) using clamps, ropes, capstans and 4 pulleys per group.

PALMYRA, Syria
By the third century AD Palmyra had become a prosperous regional center. It reached the apex of its power in the 260s, when the Palmyrene King Odaenathus defeated Persian Emperor Shapur I. The king was succeeded by regent Queen Zenobia, who rebelled against Rome and established the Palmyrene Empire. Before AD 273, Palmyra enjoyed autonomy and was attached to the Roman province of Syria, having its political organization influenced by the Greek city-state model during the first two centuries AD.
In 273, Roman emperor Aurelian destroyed the city, which was later restored by Diocletian at a reduced size. The city became a Roman colonia during the third century, leading to the incorporation of Roman governing institutions.
The Palmyrenes converted to Christianity during the fourth century and to Islam in the centuries following the conquest by the 7th-century Rashidun Caliphate, after which the Palmyrene and Greek languages were replaced by Arabic.
Palmyra became a minor center under the Byzantines and later empires. Its destruction by the Timurids in 1400 reduced it to a small village. Under French Mandatory rule in 1932, the inhabitants were moved into the new village of Tadmur, and the ancient site became available for excavations.
During the Syrian Civil War in 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) destroyed large parts of the ancient city, which was recaptured by the Syrian Army on 2 March 2017.
Location. Palmyra lies 215 km (134 mi) northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus, in an oasis surrounded by palms (of which twenty varieties have been reported). Two mountain ranges overlook the city.
Before the war and destruction by ISIS, the temple showed a remarkable synthesis of ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman architecture.

Temple of Bel (Baal). The walls of the temenos and propylaea were constructed in the late first and the first half of the second century AD.

The temple remains lay inside a large precinct lined by porticos. It had a rectangular shape oriented north-south. It was based on a paved court surrounded by a massive 205-metre (673 ft) long wall with a propylaeum.
On a podium in the middle of the court was the actual temple building. The cella was entirely surrounded by a prostyle of Corinthian columns, only interrupted on the long side by an entrance gate with large steps leading from the court. The cella was unique as it had two inner sanctuaries, the north and south adytons, dedicated as the shrines of Bel and other local deities.
The northern chamber was known for a bas-relief carving of the seven planets known to the ancients surrounded by the twelve signs of the Zodiac and the carvings of a procession of camels and veiled women. The cella was lit by two pairs of windows cut high in the two long walls. In three corners of the building, stairwells could be found that led up to rooftop terraces.
In the court, there were the remains of a basin, an altar, a dining hall, and a building with niches. In the northwest corner lay a ramp along which sacrificial animals were led into the temple area. There were three monumental gateways, of which the entry was through the west gate.
All but the front portal are destroyed.

Great Colonnade (Cardo Maximus) was Palmyra’s 1.1-kilometre-long main street., which extended from the Temple of Bel in the east, to the Funerary Temple no.86 in the city’s western part. A grand double row of columns with a roof stood inside the exterior wall. All of the roofs and most of the outside row of columns were destroyed by ISIS.

A monumental arch sat at in the middle of the Cardo Maximusin where the street makes a 32º angle turn. It served as the central “square” of the street. The Tetrapylon stands in its center. The other main street crosses at the Tetrapylon. It was erected by Diocletian at the end of the third century. It was a square platform with each corner having a grouping of four columns. Most of the columns dated to the second century AD and each was 9.50 metres high. Each column group supported a 150-ton cornice. The original columns were brought from Egypt and carved out of pink granite. This was almost totally destroyed by ISIS. Only 4 concrete columns remain. The arches are no more.

Funerary Temple no.86 built in the third century AD is located at the western end of the Great Colonnade. It was and has a portico of six columns and is the only tomb inside the city’s walls.
Byzantine churches include Palmyra’s largest church is dated to the Justinian age, its columns are 7 metres high, and its base is 27.5 by 47.5 metres.
Baths of Diocletian built by Sosianus Hierocles (the Roman governor of Syria) is on the Cardio Maximus was ruined and didn’t survive above the foundations. The complex’s entrance had four massive Egyptian granite columns each 1.3 metres in diameter, 12.5 metres high and weigh 20 tonnes.
Theatre. The seats, the lower tier of the stage with its great columns and the orchestra pit with its surrounding 1m high semi-circular wall are still intact.

Senate building is largely ruined.
Agora of Palmyra was built in the second half of the first century AD and resembled an Eastern caravanserai more than a hub of public life. It is a massive 71 by 84 metres structure with 11 entrances. Inside the agora are 200 columnar bases that used to hold statues of prominent citizens – the eastern side for senators, the northern side for Palmyrene officials, the western side for soldiers and the southern side for caravan chiefs.
The Triclinium of the Agora was decorated with Greek key motifs running in a continuous line halfway up the wall.
The Tariff Court’s entrance was blocked by a defensive wall. It has a 5-meter stone slab that had the Palmyrene tax law inscribed on it.
The following temples stand to the south and west of Cardo Maximus.
Temple of Baalshamin (built in AD 115, and rebuilt in AD 131. Temple of Nabu  (ruined). Temple of Al-lāt (largely ruined, had a giant lion relief – the Lion of Al-lāt was a relief protruding from the temple compound’s wall).
Temple of Baal-hamon (ruins located on the top of Jabal al-Muntar hill)

Destruction by ISIS
On 13 May 2015, ISIS took only 5 days to capture the city and the World Heritage Site several days later. In May and June, ISIL destroyed the tomb of Mohammed bin Ali in a mountainous region 5kms north of Palmyra (a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad’s cousin Ali, and a site revered by Shia Muslims, and the tomb of Nizar Abu Bahaaeddine, a Sufi scholar who lived in Palmyra in the 16th century.
Days after the militants had gathered the citizens and promised not to destroy the city’s monuments, ISIL destroyed the Lion of Al-lāt and other statues (23 May 2015), and the Temple of Baalshamin (23 August 2015),
The magnificent cella of the Temple of Bel stood on a podium in the middle of the enclosure. On 30 August 2015, it was dynamited using 12 tons of explosives and now is a mass of fractured rock, except for the front portal which is damaged but still standing. On 30 August 2015, ISIL destroyed the cella of the Temple of Bel. The temple’s exterior walls and entrance arch remain.
Three of the best preserved tower tombs including the Tower of Elahbel (4 September 2015), buildings with no religious meaning, including the monumental arch (5 October 2015), tetrapylon was badly damaged and part of the theater (20 January 2017).
In March 2017, the Syrian Army recaptured Palmyra. 20–30% of it is seriously damaged.
Restoration is postponed until the violence in Syria ends. The Lion of Al-lāt took two months to restore in 2017. The Arc of Triumph can be rebuilt and it might be possible to restore 98% of the site”.
My Experience. Palmyra was the highlight of my Syria trip. It was one of the most intact temples in the world.
When we drove into the city on November 9th, 2019, it was almost destroyed. I didn’t see an undamaged building. A few shops had opened in some of the bottom floors of a few of the damaged buildings. A few residents were in the main street but the rest was completely abandoned.
We went to the museum first.
Museum of Palmyra. ISIS also destroyed everything inside. The valuable funerary busts had all been removed and sent to Damascus, but all larger stone statues had their faces and hands damaged and heads broken off. The glass display cases and the great model of the city were destroyed. There were 3 mosaics on the walls that appeared intact. Two wonderful stone reliefs from the museum were recovered at the Syrian/Turkey border and were being sold by ISIS.
The site is huge with a sea of columns. All the hundreds of columns had a stone platform projected from the column at about 5m above ground. Each held a statue of a prominent god or citizen of the city but I only saw one statue remaining.

BOSRA ROMAN THEATRE
Constructed in the 2^nd century probably under Trajan, it is the only monument of this type with its upper gallery in the form of a covered portico that has been integrally preserved. It was fortified between 481 and 1231.
Cross the moat on a stone bridge to enter the corridor of the fortress that makes four 90° turns. This massive stone fortress completely encompasses the theatre. It has several large square bastions.
The theatre is almost completely intact, easily the most complete Roman theatre in the world. It held 15,000 in three tiers of still intact seats accessed from multiple arcades, so efficient that the theatre could be emptied in 15 minutes. These arcaded stairs have wonderful successive arches. Columns topped by capitals are still present on about ¼ of the top circumference.
The most spectacular part is the completely intact three-story stage. As the theatre was half full of sand until about 1930, all but four of the 30 white limestone columns with Corinthian capitals on the first level behind the stage are present. It is easy to see how they provided a contrast to the black basaltic rock and improved the acoustics of the theatre. Only 4 small column remnants remain on the second story and none on the third. The stage has many niches that once held statues.
The large semi-circular orchestra pit has original stone pavers, but now with two bomb scars.
Nova Trajana Bostra Roman Town. With several intact buildings, it is one of the better Roman ruins in the world. The 1.3km Cardo Maximus bisects the city and has an almost complete Abbatean Gate. Walking along the Deccamanos (secondary street), pass the columned sports hall and huge bath with a room with possibly the only (almost) intact domed ceiling in any Roman ruin. After the theatre, the most spectacular building is the small nymphaeum with an intact stone roof and lovely niches topped with scallop shell design.

JERASH Jordan
These beautifully preserved Roman ruins, located 51 km north of Amman, are deservedly one of Jordan’s major attractions. Excavations have been ongoing for 85 years but it is estimated that 90% of the city is still unexcavated. In its heyday the ancient city, known in Roman times as Gerasa, had a population of around 15,000.
History. Although inhabited from Neolithic times, and settled as a town during the reign of Alexander the Great (333 BC), Jerash was largely a Roman creation. Rome annexed the Nabataeon Kingdom in south Jordan in 106 BC.
In the wake of Roman general Pompey’s conquest of the region in 64 BC, Gerasa (as Jerash was then known) became part of the Roman province of Syria and, soon after, a city of the Decapolis. The city reached its peak at the beginning of the 3rd century AD when it was bestowed with the rank of Colony, after which time it went into a slow decline as trade routes shifted.
The Roman ruins at Jerash cover a huge area.
At the extreme south of the site is the striking Hadrian’s Arch built in AD 129 to honour Emperor Hadrian who spent the winter here. Behind the arch is the Hippodrome (220-749), the smallest and best preserved in the Roman Empire. It hosted chariot races watched by up to 17,000 spectators. In the 8th century, the hippodrome served as a mass burial site when the plague struck. The Church of Mariano is just across from the hippodrome; it has a wonderful quite intact mosaic floor.
The South Gate and the 3.4km long city wall were built in AD 130 after the city was looted and burned. The terrace below the Temple of Zeus shows the complete succession from the early Bronze Age to late Roman times – successive churches dating from 27 AD, 70, 162 and a 5th-century Byzantine church are represented archaeologically. The Oval Plaza is unusual because of its shape and huge size (90m long and 80m at its widest point). Sixty-two Ionic columns surround the paved limestone plaza, linking the cardo with the Temple of Zeus.

The elegant remains of the Temple of Zeus supported by 38 columns were built around AD 162. It is a worthwhile climb if just for the view. Next door, the South Theatre was the most elegant and largest of the three theatres in Jarash. Built in 96 AD with 30 rows and a capacity of 5000 spectators, the acoustics are still wonderful as demonstrated by the two Arabs playing the drums and bagpipes.
Between the Oval Plaza and the North Gate is the 800m-long Cardo, the city’s main thoroughfare. It still has 253 columns flanking it. It is paved with the original stones laid diagonally for easier driving by the thousands of chariots that once jostled along its length. Along the street is the Nymphaeum (190-749), the main fountain of the city and the Propylaeum or grand approach, with a 30m wide staircase leading to the Temple of Artemis (135-749). Bisecting the cardo are the North and South Decumanui, two east-west streets, both lined with more columns and with their original paving stones intact (manhole covers still have some of their original metal rings for exposing the sewer that ran under all the streets). At the intersections with the cardo are the North Tetrapylon (a massive domed arch) and the South Tetrapylon (only the bases of the original pink granite columns imported from Aswan in Egypt remain).

Walking up the North Tetrapylon leads to the North Theatre (165-749), a gorgeous 21-row theatre restored to its former glory.
Next is the Temple of Artemis – Artemis was the patron goddess of the city – but the temple was never finished and subsequently dismantled to provide masonry for new churches. Twelve great columns remain.
23 Byzantine Churches were built in Jarash and several have been excavated many with great mosaic floors: the Cathedral (450-749), Church of Propylaea (565-749), Church of Bishop Isaiah (558-749), the triple Churches of St George, St Cosmos and Damiaes (twin brothers, both physicians martyred for providing free of charge medical care) and Church of St John the Baptist (largely intact mosaics), Church of Saints Peter and Paul and the Mortuary Church.
The small museum contains a good collection of artifacts from the site.

VILLA ROMANA DEL CASALE Sicily
Built in the 3^rd century BC, it is one of the few remaining sites of Roman Sicily. A sumptuous hunting lodge belonging to Diocletian’s co-emperor Marcus Aurelius Maximianus, it was buried under mud in a 12th-century flood and remained hidden for 700 years before its magnificent floor mosaics were rediscovered in the 1950s. They were only fully opened to the public in 2013 after years of restoration and are among Sicily’s greatest classical treasures.
The mosaics cover almost the entire 3500 sq. metre floor of the villa and are considered unique for their narrative style, the range of subject matter and the variety of colours. Many have African themes.
Surrounding a huge central fountain lined by marble columns are many mosaics of animals. Along the eastern end of the internal courtyard is the Great Hunt – scenes of capturing animals in Africa for gladiatorial contests in Rome – chariots, wagons with cages, boats for shipping the animals and a huge variety of critters. Around the courtyard and corridor are several apartments, the simple ones with intricate, unique geometrics. The most captivating are the Ten Girls in Bikinis with sporty girls in scanty bikinis playing sports.
The owner’s grand hall is covered in intricate marble from all over southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. At the front are a series of baths with hot, warm and cold water, heated from underneath.
It is difficult to get here without a vehicle. They are located in the centre-eastern part of Sicily near the town of Piazza Armenia. Park below (1€/hour) and walk up to the villa (10€).
I spent 3 hours reading all the excellent descriptions describing the use of each room and the finer points of each mosaic.

    

  

 

 

 

 

SEGOVIA Unesco World Heritage site with its Roman aqueduct – 894 m long engineering wonder built in the 1st century with 163 arches and 28m height.

PROVINCE. France
PONT du GARD. Nothing can top this Unesco-listed Roman aqueduct. 21kms NW of Nimes, this massive three-tiered aqueduct was one of many bridges on the 50km-long system of water channels built around 19 BC to transport water from Uzès to Nimes. Built to cross the Gard River, the scale of Pont du Gard is huge: 48.8m high, 275m long, and with 52 arches remaining – 6 on the bottom of the river, 10 next, and 36 small ones supporting the water channel (there were 44 but several were demolished for the stones). It carried 20,000 cubic meters of water per day.
Each block was carved by hand and transported from nearby quarries – some weighed 5 tons. The gradient of the entire 50km system was about 12cm per kilometre and dropped only 2.5cm over the length of the bridge – an amazing demonstration of the precision of Roman engineering.
The museum gives a detailed account of every bridge in the entire system and a good description of all the building techniques.

NIMES. (pop 154,000). 2000 years ago it was one of the most important cities of Roman Gaul.
Les Arènes. This two-tiered amphitheatre is the best-preserved in France. Built around 100 BC, the areas once seated 24,000 and staged gladiatorial contests and public executions. It is still used for concerts, events, and in the summer, bullfights. At 133m by 101m and 2 stories high, and despite being plundered for stone and generally abused, it is still largely intact,

EL-JEM ROMAN COLISSEUM Tunisia
The colosseum rises from a low plateau halfway between Sousse and Sfax, dwarfing the tiny modern town around it. Built 2000 years ago by olive oil traders with money to burn, it’s the culmination of a couple of centuries of engineering expertise. It included state-of-the-art features including a movable floor – all the better to showcase gladiatorial combat, executions of Christians and other forms of Roman popular culture.
The Coliseum of Thysdrus is a magnificent structure. It is an oval – 149X124m – and holds 30,000 spectators in 5 tiers of seating (Rome’s Coliseum held 43,000). The structure has 5 levels of great keystone arches holding up the 5 levels of walkways giving access to the seating. Walk through the hypogeum, the underground area that held the animals and gladiators raised on elevators to the area of combat. It was originally covered by a wood
ceiling.
Its beautiful archaeological museum is home to an outstanding mosaic collection, better than that in the Bardo: some wonderful geometrics and many depicting animals (including a great peacock) and gladiators.

 

VOLUBILIS Morocco
Amid a fertile plain about 33 km north of Meknès, Volubilis (Ouailili) are the largest and best-preserved Roman ruins in Morocco (and the breadbasket for Rome). Established in 25 BC, the Romans left in 265 AD. The Madrid earthquake of 1755 destroyed much of the ruins. Of a total of 50 acres, only about 15 have been excavated, initially by the French in 1915. 120 olive presses and 60-grain mills have been discovered.
Volubilis is best known for its mosaics that, despite being exposed to the air for 2,000 years, are in remarkable condition. The huge patrician’s houses have entry courtyards with a pool – one in an unusual scalloped pattern for sunbathing in different directions. The “column house” has fluted and very unusual spiral columns with Corinthian, Doric and Ionic pilasters.

FRONTIER of the ROMAN EMPIRE – Hadrian’s Wall
Julius Caesar first attempted to invade the British Isles in 54-55 BC but was unsuccessful. They tried a second time in about 50 AD and were able to subjugate the island. Eventually, they controlled the entire island extending even to the islands north of Scotland under Trajan (68-117 AD).
Trajan’s adopted son Hadrian was the only emperor with a beard, he didn’t spend much time with his wife but preferred Antinous, a young man renowned for his beauty; he is known for building the Parthenon in Rome He visited the north of England in 122 and was emperor from 117-138 AD and consolidated power to an area running diagonally across the north of England. He built Hadrian’s Wall between 120-128 to keep out the Picts. The defences across the north consisted of 6 forts along the west Solway coast (including Alauna at Maryport) and the wall extended 73.5 miles (80 Roman miles) from Bowness on the Solway Firth in the west to the mouth of the Tyne at Wallsend on the east coast. Three legions (about 16,000 men) were in Britain and all took part at various times in the construction and patrolling of the wall.
Much of the western part of the wall was made from dirt, sod, and timber of which nothing presently exists, but most of the wall was substantial rock, 2 meters wide filled with rubble and dressed with stone on both sides. An elevated walkway was protected by a crenellated wall. Seventeen major forts were constructed along the wall; 80-mile castles were every Roman mile (.95 mile) and turrets were about every ⅓ mile. There was also a ditch and four bridges where rivers were crossed. The forts were in large rectangular enclosures with four gates.
Rome controlled Britain for 300 years but withdrew in about 400 AD when the Roman Empire started to fail. The entire area was Unesco listed in 1987 as Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Over the centuries, most of the stone from the wall was removed and used to build local projects.
Hadrian’s Wall Path (www.nationaltrail.co.uk/hadrians-wall-path) is an 84-mile national trail that runs from Wallsend to Bowness

Marysport Roman Museum. Settled by the Romans in the 2^nd century, this was the most northerly extension of the Roman Empire. Named Alauna, the fort on the cliffs covered 6.5 acres and was garrisoned by up to 1000 soldiers from Austria, Italy, Provence France, Croatia, and North Africa, They were posted here for 3-4 years and occupied the area for 280 years. It was the military outpost on the west end of the Solway Coast to the west end of Hadrian’s Wall. The Roman Museum has 5 altars and remains of a temple.
Birdoswald Roman Fort. This has the longest intact stretch of wall and the remains of a large fort. The east edge of the property drops vertically down to the River Irthing.
Roman Army Museum. On the site of the Carvoran Roman Fort, this excellent museum gives the most information about the construction of the wall and the soldiers who manned it with several 3D presentations. 6.7£
Housesteads Roman Fort. This is the best-preserved Roman fort. High on a ridge and covering 2 hectares, it has good views of Northumberland National Park and the snaking wall. It had a hospital, granaries, barrack blocks, and flushable toilets.

Chesters Roman Fort. Near the village of Chollerford, it includes part of a Roman bridge, four gatehouses, a bathhouse, and underfloor heating.