of which the following, found at a place now called Henchir Adjedj in the neighbourhood of Theveste, is a fair example: ' IMP CAES TRANQVILLI NAE SABINAE AVG EIVS A far more important dedication is on a slab discovered at Bir Haddada, the site of a Roman castellum in the province of Mauritania Sitifensis : Here we have in a few lines an invocation to Jupiter and all the gods to protect the Emperor and Empress and their divine family. In some instances the dedications are to the Empress only, as in the following at Sigus in Numidia, the date being A.D. 242.3 We know little of the career of Sabinia, except that she was the daughter of a noble Roman named Misitheus (sometimes called Timesicles on account of his Greek extraction), or Timasitheus, who was entrusted by his youthful son-in-law with the highest duties of the State, and as prefect of the Prætorians endeavoured to effect much-needed reforms in that powerful body. 1 C.I.L. No. 10695. 2 C.I.L. No. 8710. C.I.L. No. 5701. Rec. de Const. 1878, p. 32. I.R.A. No. 2467. SABINIAE TRANQVIL IMP CAES M ANTONI PROCOS RESPVBLI But honourable conduct seems to have been little valued in that corrupt age, and reform in any branch of military service was resisted to the utmost. Misitheus was succeeded in the prefecture by Philip the Arab, and ultimately was sacrificed to make way for his ambitious projects. Although the name of Sabinia has been almost forgotten, it is pleasant to find so many dedications in her honour in remote places in North Africa. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that this Empress had established a good reputation and a degree of popularity among Roman citizens. Capitolinus, in his lives of the Gordians, tells us that Gordian III. did much to promote art, and mentions as an instance of his regard for beautiful surroundings that he adorned the peristyle of the family villa in the Prenestine Way with 200 columns of marble-50 of marble of Carystea, 50 of Claudian, 50 of Synnada, and 50 of marble from Numidiathe last probably coming from the quarries at Simittu already referred to. But the name of this Emperor, linked with those of his grandfather and his uncle, will be for ever associated with the remote town of Thysdrus, where Gordian I. was drawn from a peaceful life to raise the standard of resistance against Maximinus the tyrant, and where a monument was raised in their honour, whose magnificent remains still excite the wonder and admiration of every traveller in modern Tunisia. The name of Thysdrus sounds unfamiliar in speaking of the present Arab village of El-Djem and the colossal amphitheatre there bearing the same title. Indeed, were it not for the presence of this structure, the site of the Roman town of Thysdrus would have been difficult to identify; and, owing to the absence of inscriptions and records of any kind relating to the amphitheatre, its ruined surroundings might have remained an un solved problem. As to the town itself, we know from the writings of Hirtius that Julius Caesar levied a fine on its inhabitants after the battle of Thapsus, a coast town some twenty miles distant, where the issue proved fatal to the party of Scipio. Thysdrus cannot be said to exist at the present day, but the site is clearly indicated by the disturbed surface of the ground near the amphitheatre, and by the discovery in recent years of a number of tombstones. It could not have been a town of great size or importance at the commencement of the Christian era, for Hirtius tells us that Caesar mitigated the fine on account of the wretched condition of the inhabitants: propter humilitatem civitatis certo numero frumenti multat. The exact date of the erection of the amphitheatre is a matter of conjecture, and is likely to remain so. It is scarcely possible that so gigantic a structure, demanding considerable forethought in design and beset with many difficulties in its execution, could have been planned and commenced during the six weeks' reign of the first of the Gordians. Rather let us assume that when the third of the Gordians found himself securely seated on the throne, with every prospect of enjoying a peaceful reign, his thoughts may have reverted to the little town in Africa where his distinguished grandfather had been raised to the purple. It was the custom to mark the accession of an Emperor in the principal towns by a course of several weeks' festivities, defrayed by the imperial treasury. Perhaps the cost of the amphitheatre, needful for repeated exhibitions of the games of the arena, was defrayed from the same source on the accession of Gordian III. But this is a matter of conjecture, and the whole subject is involved in mystery. Capitolinus, writing in the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, makes no mention of the amphitheatre. He alludes to the proclamation at Thysdrus of the first Gordian, and adds in a subsequent paragraph that great festivities were in preparation by Gordian III. for celebrating the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of Rome, commemorated a few years later by Philip his successor. It seems strange that such a monumental edifice of architectural pretensions, covering 4 acres of ground, rising to a height of about 120 feet, and capable of seating more than 30,000 persons, should have been passed over without comment by so careful a biographer as Capitolinus. The coins struck in |