SAMEDI 14 SEPTEMBRE 1935 Sbeitla, Its Ruins, Its Tourist Attraction

L'AFRIQUE DU NORD ILLUSTRÉE (p.10) SAMEDI 14 SEPTEMBRE 1935 Sbeitla, its ruins, its tourist attraction The Berbers made common cause with With the number of ancient cities the invader against the troops of the whose ruins remain scattered here and Patrician Gregory who was completely there on the African soil, Sbeitla, in the defeated near Suffetula. Not only was the past “Suffetula”, counts among the most city burned, along with its many churches interesting to visit. Situated at the mid- and its monuments from the Roman point of the railway linking Sousse and period, but the invaders ransacked the Enchir-Souatir, this center is accessible whole region which was planted with either by train, or by the road from olive-trees and fruit trees over thousands Kairouan. Already a prosperous Roman of hectares. city in the first centuries of our era, “Suffetula” experienced fame when The most imposing monument which selected as capital by the Patrician still remains upright is the Capitolin Gregory who, in the year 648, declared temple, formed of three parts which stand himself independent following his religious erect at the rear of the Forum; it was, as is disputes with Constant II, Emperor of usual, dedicated to the divine triad: Byzance. Jupiter, Junon and Minerva; it was used This was a transitory glory, alas, for a time as a fortress by the besieged because in the following year, all of Byzantines; today seen from the Forum, Byzacène resounded with the noise of which has been entirely cleared, it armies and the dull trampling of the presents an imposing aspect. horses of the immense Arab horde, under But what is unique to Sbeitia, is the the control of emir Abdallah Ben Ali Sahr. number of Christian churches that the recent excavations have brought to light. knew so much glory and then so much One can still see the remains of three war and devastation, sees the blossoming Byzantine redoubts, a theatre and a greenery of the tree whose branches are bridge-aqueduct crossing the bed of Wadi the symbol of the peace and prosperity, Sbeitia with water to supply the city. The now extending as far as the eye can see. inexhaustible fertile spring, whose limpid Sbeitia today is well suited to waters in Roman and Byzantine times accomodate tourists enamoured with were carefully shared between the archaeology; they have elsewhere other thousand channels of the city for the attractions besides the Roman ruins, villas, thermal baths, public baths and including the vast circuit from the fall of gardens, this source which for centuries the wadi with overhanging cliffs and lost itself in the soil which absorbed it eroded walls; the sight of the old Roman without profit, by means of a 265 bridge and the visit to the center for the kilometers long channel today feeds the collection of water which, if limpid, counts immense conglomeration of Sfax and its amongst the number of attractions likely to suburbs. It has also created life once attract the traveller. The immense again in Sbeitla itself by irrigating the denuded steppe at a distance from this orchards, the olive trees that the French quarter still emphasizes the beauty of the colonists have reconstituted, with the luxuriant vegetation of the orchards which assistance of the Government of surround Sbeitia, a future important center Protectorate. Thus in its thousand-year- of colonization. old glory, the Capitole of Suffetula, which Retrieved on January 26, 2010, from http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5583707n .

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