Tunisia & Libya
- The great ruined cities along the coasts of Tunisia and Libya.
- Carthaginian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine archaeology and architecture.
- Arab, Berber and Islamic heritage also explored.
- A performance of Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas and readings from ancient authors in Roman theatres.
The grandeur that was Roman Africa
Except in the minds of archaeologists and ancient historians, images induced by the mention of ‘Africa’ and ‘Classical civilization’ do not commonly coalesce without some effort.
The fact is that the cities strung along the Mediterranean’s southern coast were among the most prosperous and architecturally impressive of the Graeco-Roman world, and their remains are as spectacular and unspoilt as those of any archaeological site in the Mediterranean region. Even though much lies yet unexcavated, some truly magnificent buildings as well as a full complement of domestic and utilitarian structures rise from Tunisian and Libyan turf and sand.
Yet these sites receive a tiny fraction of the number of visitors who converge on comparable sites in Greece and Turkey. The attractiveness of the settings – most are beside the sea, many are rural and remote – further enhances the experience. Cows graze beside monumental colonnades, waves break on the footings of temples and scrub and pasturage tantalisingly cover most of the areas once bounded by the proud freestone walls of the Roman cities.
Before it spread to embrace a whole continent, Africa was the name the Romans gave to a province virtually due south of Rome and approximately coterminus with modern Tunisia. To the east lay Tripolitania and beyond that, abutting Egypt, Cyrenaica, nomenclature still in current use although in the twentieth century they became constituent parts of a new nation, Libya.
The wealth of the region was largely derived from agricultural exports, wheat and olive oil in particular. Words constituted another major category of productivity: Africa was renowned for producing lawyers, senators and literary figures. Septimius Severus, first of a dynasty of emperors, was born in Leptis Magna, and St Augustine was an African.
Possessing links with the east, the region adopted Christianity early, and fine Byzantine churches are significant features of the sites. The ruins thereof, it should be noted; the region was also early in adopting Islam.
Similarly, the words ‘Libya’ and ‘holiday’ are not commonly found in the same sentence. This cruise affords glimpses of a part of the world which has never been far from the headlines in the last forty years but (or: and therefore) which few people visit. Even cruise ships are relatively infrequent, though geography (the coastline is over 1,000 miles long) and the limitations of infrastructure render an amphibious journey ideal.
By contrast, Tunisia has turned itself into a major tourist destination with purpose-built resorts around the coast. Inland, where most of the Roman remains are situated, unchanging ways of life continue in landscapes of considerable loveliness in which the olive tree still plays a major role.
In Libya, pastoralism and marginal agriculture coexist with burgeoning cities and intermittent evidence of oil wealth. Colonel Gadaffi’s eccentric brand of Islamo-socialism sits uneasily with the recrudescence of private enterprise, and tourism is constrained by official indifference and the prohibition of alcohol. But the people are among the most welcoming and courteous of Arabs and there is virtually no hassling of tourists.
Music and drama in Roman theatres
A unique feature of this cruise are performances in ancient Roman theatres. First, an extraordinary treat: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, relating a legend of the Queen of Carthage and the founder of Rome, in the Roman theatre at Sabratha. All right, it’s a few hundred miles from Carthage, but with its three-tier elaborately columnated scaenae frons, the most complete to be preserved, with glimpses of the sea beyond, it is the most appropriate and spectacular setting imaginable.
The performers are the Academy of Ancient Music, one of the world’s leading specialists in late Baroque repertoire, under the direction of Richard Egarr.
The other two performances are dramatised readings of ancient texts by a company of actors. One takes place in the almost complete theatre at Leptis Magna, where the outlook is through a forest of standing columns to the sea, and the other is at the little-visited site of Apollonia, a small theatre situated only yards from the sea.
(Permission has been obtained from the Antiquities Department but the relevant government agency has yet to rule on the appropriateness of the content of the performances. Problems are not foreseen.)