ABSTRACT
Especially stark in the case of Africa is the ‘apparent contrast between the extensive and impressive ruins of the Roman period, both cities and large rural villas, and the desolation of the countryside about them.’85 The amphitheatre of El Djem, with seats for 60,000 people, now stands well and truly in the desert with but a few tiny settlements nearby. The Roman city of Timgad was abandoned c. ad 250. Beside its ruins is the channel of a now vanished river. Another city, Leptis Magna, is now an arid ruin near modern Tripoli. The birthplace of Severus, it was built up inordinately during his dynasty (to ad 235). Then it declined dramatically.86 Yet there was also ecological continuity. In fact, a lot of primal deforestation has occurred only this last century or two. Those moisture-loving big cats, panthers and lions, still roamed wild in the Algeria of a hundred years ago. Roman deep wells have been used there in modern times.
