LEPTIS MAGNA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 22 October 1925, Page 7

LEPTIS MAGNA.

buried city revealed

GREAT FIND OF ROMAN STATU AltY.

Vorv soon from overv civilised land learned men will gather on a desolate niindv snot on the coast of Tripohtnma, in North Africa, to see., emerging from tlie hi°h dunes that have buried them fur 1200 rears, tlie recently-discovered ruins ol ii city founded by the 1 hcenici ans of Sidiui. which gave Rome one of her greatest emperors. Septimus Severus. , , ~ , Few would suspect that the sandy dunes of the undulating plain beyond the .small seaport of the Homs concealed a one-time imperial city; but the spade has already laid hare the walls, doonvavs and columnsiof the palace ol Septimus Severus. theruifee or baths worthy of Rome, two streets and part of a four-fronted triumphal arch. The palace, built of great blocks of stone from the neighbouring hills, covered a. large area. A high arched (•atewav emerges from a great dune, and walls 30 feet high now appear Upright in position are marble columns exquisitely carved, some round with artistic capitate, others square and chiselled with beautiful designs of flowers, heads cf animals, and tinv groups of human figures wreathed in vine leaves, all deeply undercut, white and a.'.most perfect. One reads in sharp letters, “Tmperator Caesar Lucius Septimu”—the massive stone is broken here. The baths are neatly laid hare, the great hall with walls 40ft. high, the hot-air chamber, the two marble-lined swimming baths with white statues, and the holes for ingress and egress ot water, and fine columns of white and coloured marble. Rqiiml the massive remnant of the Arch of Triumph lie fluted pillars and exquisitely carved marble bas-reliefs, and. from" its base runs a paved street, now being cleared. By the sea are the mole and the 'long stone steps of the quays to which the Roman galleys made fast in the harbour. But, greatest prize of all. beautiful statues have been disinterred—an heroic Mars, full of warlike majesty, a benign Aesculapius, and many others. Finest- of all is a Venus de Milo, and almost in the same ’pose. Several fingers a.re missing, and the feet are broken off, although found; hut the lovely face and graceful body are white and unblemished, and the statue "will rank among the world’s greatest treasures of art. To Count Yo.lpi . Governor of Tripolitania. and the Italian Government 'is due the credit of the great discoveries and excavations.