Djemila: Rome's Most Beautiful City

Many Roman cities looked alike. Checkerboard streets, a forum lined by temples and porticos, a theater, fountains, baths. These shared features, however, should not obscure the remarkable flexibility of Roman urban planning, which is epitomized by the spectacular ruins of Jamila, Algeria. There was a basic template for newly founded Roman cities, inspired by the marching camps of the legions. There was also a standard set of monuments that ambitious local aristocrats tended to build. But Roman cities, scattered across an empire that spanned three continents, were never as similar as modern American cities. They shared a basic architectural language and an accent on public places. Beyond that, variety was the rule. Jamila, ancient Kwikul, is a fascinating illustration of what Roman urban planning could achieve. Like Timgad, featured in one of my earlier videos, Jamila was located in the Roman province of Numidia, now eastern Algeria. Again like Timgad, it was a veteran colony, laid out by military surveyors. Unlike Timgad, Jamila was located in a spectacular mountain valley. The setting seems to have inspired the site's modern name, which means The Beautiful One in Arabic. Jamila never had more than a few thousand inhabitants. A medieval European town of that size would have had a few churches, a scattering of mansions built by wealthy merchants, and perhaps a city hall. The only truly monumental structure, however, would have been the cathedral or largest church. Roman cities, by contrast, invested massively in public building. Over the course of three centuries, Jamila's leading citizens poured their wealth into a cityscape that was both typically Roman and completely unique. The original settlement was centered on a broad street that paralleled the crest of the ridge on which Jamila stood. Though laid out to be straight, it bent halfway between the gates to match the contours of the land. The main street was lined with colonnades. Besides being practical, the covered walkways beneath them sheltered pedestrians from rain and the summer sun. They had a monumental effect, unifying the building facades and connecting the street with the porticos of the Forum. The Forum occupied nearly a tenth of the space within Jamila's original walls. Though laid out when the city was founded, it was developed gradually as benefactors presented themselves and funds for new projects became available. It took nearly a century for the whole ensemble to be completed. On one side was the Basilica Julia, a covered hall used as both a courtroom and covered marketplace. On the other was the Kyria, where the city council met. Over both Kyria and Basilica towered the Capitolium, a temple dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva that advertised Jamila's status as a Roman colony. During the reign of Antoninus Pius, around the time the Capitolium was being completed, the wealthy brothers Gaius and Lucius Cossinius financed the construction of a market with 18 shops next to the Forum. The market was a gift to the people of Jamila, a gift for which the Cossinius brothers expected to be repaid with the gratitude of their fellow citizens. The Cossinius brothers almost certainly lived in large townhouses near the Forum. Their mansions and those of their contemporaries, however, were replaced in late antiquity by the even grander residences visible today. The most spectacular of these was the so-called House of Bacchus. Centered like the mansions of Pompeii on a large courtyard with pools and a peristyle, it grew over the centuries to include gardens, a large fishpond, and a banqueting hall with space for up to 90 diners. By the late 2nd century, when the market of Cossinius was built, Jamila was growing beyond the bounds of its original walls. The main street was extended past the gates and a new district emerged, not planned as a unit like the original city, but growing organically under the direction of the city council. This area was already home to the theater, built outside the walls to take advantage of a steep slope. In keeping with Jamila's modest size, it had seats for only about 3,000 spectators. As in the Colosseum, however, rank determined seating. The first three rows, separated from the rest by a stone barrier, were reserved for the elite. Between the theater and the original walls, a large plaza, in effect a second forum, was laid out, its entrance framed by a triumphal arch dedicated to Caracalla. The plaza was dominated by an imperial cult temple for the Severan family, its height accentuated by a monumental staircase. The building advertised loyalty to the imperial family and, not incidentally, the wealth and generosity of the benefactors who had financed it. Just beyond the Severan Forum stood the Great Baths, another product of Jamila's high imperial prosperity. Like the Baths of Caracalla, built in Rome a few decades later, they had a symmetrical plan with pairs of warm and steam rooms flanking the central frigidarium and caldarium. They boasted elegant mosaics, a covered gymnasium, and a 24-seat latrine, all the latest amenities of Roman civilization. And they expressed that most Roman form of imperialism, control over water. The crises of late antiquity came lightly and late to Jamila. Like most of Roman Africa, the city seemed to have adopted Christianity relatively early. Around the end of the fourth century, an entire ecclesiastical quarter with three churches, a bath, a bishop's palace, and a baptistry rose on the hill behind the Severan Plaza. Here, as in contemporary Rome, Christians built on the outskirts. This was not, at that late date, because they were socially marginalized. It seems, instead, to have reflected a sense of respect for the time-honored monuments of the city center. For half a millennium, Jamila grew along the crest of the ridge on which it had been founded. When the population began to dwindle in late antiquity, the city died from the roots, retreating slowly uphill. By the end of the sixth century, when most of the inhabitants were gone, Jamila looked very different than it had under the Antonine or Severan emperors. To the end, however, the city's public places retained an organic, harmonious monumentality, centered on the colonnaded main street and the two forums adjoining it. That visual unity, produced by generations of complementary construction, was as much a part of Jamila's beauty as the gray-green mountains in which it stood. For a full tour of Jamila, follow the link on screen and in the description to the video on my travel channel, Scenic Routes to the Past. On my other channel, Tolandstone Footnotes, you'll find an interview about the late Bronze Age collapse with Eric Klein. Check out the Tolandstone Patreon for my Rome in Review series, where I'll soon be exploring the first season of HBO's Rome. And see the Tolandstone Trips page for my latest tours. Thanks for watching!