Destinations: Punic Double Take

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Greek and Roman ruins are all over. But Punic ruins, especially residential complexes, are hard to find. Even at Carthage in north Africa, home of Phoenicians who created Punic civilization, residential areas are nowhere to be seen, so thoroughly did the Romans destroy them. (Remember Cato: Carthago delenda est; “Carthage must be destroyed.”) You have to travel 75 miles east of Carthage to a sleepy little coastal town called Kerkouane to find any substantial Punic residential remains see Hershel Shanks, Destinations, AO 02:04. So you will appreciate my surprise at a site in southwestern Sicily called Selinunte.

Selinunte is famous for its Greek temples—half a dozen or more. Today we are not even sure to whom 059they were dedicated, so they are designated simply by letters, A through G and sometimes O and Y. Most of the temples were built in the sixth century B.C. when Selinunte was a Greek “colony.” Indeed, this was an age of colonies. Even colonies had colonies. Selinunte was established in the late eighth century B.C. by Greek colonists who had already settled eastern Sicily (principally Syracuse). Greeks also colonized southern Italy, which became known as Magna Graecia. Indeed, some ancient sources include Sicily in Magna Graecia.

But the Greeks were not the only colonizers. As early as the eighth century B.C., Phoenicians who lived on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Lebanon and northern Israel established a colony at Carthage. (The name Carthage is a Latin corruption of the Phoenician Qarat-hadsht, or new city.) In time, Punic Carthage prospered and began establishing colonies of its own. A clash with the Greeks was inevitable. At stake was nothing less than control of the western Mediterranean.

Located on a promontory about 65 feet above the sea, Selinunte has an excellent harbor, and its prosperity was founded on Mediterranean commerce. In its heyday, Selinunte was second in importance only to Syracuse in all of Magna Graecia. Today it is abandoned.

The Carthaginians made a military foray into Greek Sicily in the early fifth century B.C. In 480 B.C., however, they were decisively defeated at the city of Himera in northern Sicily. The entangling alliances among cities that ensued confuses all but the most serious student. The bottom line is that in 409 B.C. the Carthaginians avenged themselves for their defeat at Himera by obliterating that city and marching on to Selinunte with an army of supposedly a hundred thousand men. After a siege of only nine days, Greek Selinunte was overwhelmed. According to the first-century B.C. historian Diodorus Siculus (Diodorus of Sicily), of Selinunte’s 25,000 inhabitants, 16,000 were killed, 7,000 were enslaved, and 2,000 escaped. Selinunte was repopulated as a Carthaginian city.

By then the Carthaginians had developed their own civilization, called Punic, which had spread over north Africa and the western Mediterranean, including Sicily. Hence, we talk about Punic civilization, not Carthaginian civilization. Yet there is no common name for the people, except Carthaginians, 060which is not really accurate. “Punic” is of course derived from “Phoenician,” so I like to call these people Punicians, just as we call people from Phoenicia Phoenicians. Punicians dominated Selinunte for a century and a half after its conquest—until 250 B.C., when the Punicians were defeated by Rome in the First Punic War. Before abandoning the city to advancing Roman forces, however, the Punicians decided to deprive the Romans of their prize by razing Selinunte, destroying it forever.

Strolling among the gorgeous Greek temples of Selinunte, it is easy to lose oneself in reverie. But I was brought back to my archaeological senses when I looked down at my feet and suddenly thought I was back in Kerkouane, Tunisia. It was a jolt. I thought I was standing amid Punic houses. I was. I looked up again, and there was a Greek temple. The contrast between the Greek temples and the drab insulae (blocks) of Punic buildings was stark. I began to look around. It was easy to ignore the piles of Punic stones—until I noticed a floor mosaic just like one I had seen in Kerkouane: small pieces of dull reddish terracotta sprinkled with square-cut pieces of white marble. These may be among the earliest true mosaics—not pebble mosaics but square-cut tesserae in a mortar foundation. Then I noticed a figure in the mosaic, the Punic goddess Tanit, identical to the mosaic figure of Tanit that I had seen in Kerkouane, with a circle for the head, outstretched arms and a triangle for the body. Presumably the goddess is dressed in a floor-length robe. Like the one at Kerkouane, she is found at the entrance to the house, warding off evil and insuring the well-being of its inhabitants.

Next I noticed a bathtub identical to ones I had seen in Punic houses at Kerkouane. It had a small raised seat at one end and space for the bather’s feet in a lower portion at the other end. It is too small for the bather to become totally immersed, so perhaps it should be called a sitzbath instead of a bathtub.

I knew I was in Punic territory, but I thought it best to examine the walls before reaching any firm conclusions. Sure enough, 061they were just like the Punic walls at Kerkouane—upright stones (orthostats) separated by sections of smaller shaped stones or rubble fill. At Kerkouane they called this Opus Africanum, but Opus Punicum seems more accurate.

All in all, in isolated Selinunte I found Greek/Punic history writ large.

I won’t wax poetic about the Greek temples (perhaps I should call them Grecian temples), because I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But I did ruminate about what has been called “the pleasure of ruins.” According to Dame Rose Macaulay in The Pleasure of Ruins, “The human race is, and always has been, ruin-minded.” We like to see antique buildings in ruins with perhaps a few columns still standing (but almost never a roof). Even if we don’t articulate it, we attribute their condition to the ravages of time. We, too, will one day succumb (some of us sooner rather than later; I’m 72). As the 18th-century French encyclopedist Denis Diderot wrote, “Why ruins give so much pleasure, I will tell you … Everything dissolves, everything perishes, everything passes, only time goes on … What is my existence in comparison with this crumbling stone?”

But the truth is somewhat less poetic. Seldom is the damage due to “the ravages of time.” True, on occasion we find evidence of an earthquake; a column lies on the ground with its column drums lined up as if someone had pushed it over. But this is rare. Most of the time, the destruction has been wrought by the ravages of man. One wonders if the temples at Selinunte collapsed at the hands of the Punicians who so attracted me but who destroyed the city in 409 B.C. Perhaps. Just as likely, however, and more often the case, destruction is the outcome of another kind of human predation—looting, ancient and modern. Ancient structures often served as quarries, in total disregard for their value as preserved history: How convenient and inexpensive to find beautiful ashlars for use in other buildings! Decorative cornices would serve as window lintels—and so on. Did you ever wonder why, even after conservators restore a building, much of it is missing? The ravages of time have not destroyed these missing pieces. They were stolen.

The best pieces are often taken away to decorate a garden or a tabletop. 063Eventually they are lost. These temples were once adorned with powerfully moving sculptures, but we rarely see them at the site. The pediments (triangular gables supporting the roof) were filled with sculptures. Running around the frieze of the building were metopes (panels) separated by triglyphs (a slightly projecting panel with two deeply incised vertical lines, forming three raised parallel sections). Each of these metopes had its own sculpture. Almost never do you see them on the building. They, too, have been stolen. The few that survived until the 19th century, when we Westerners came to value ancient ruins, have been taken to museums. If you want to see the four surviving metopes from the most elaborate temple of Selinunte, go not to the site but to the archaeological museum in Palermo, the capital of Sicily.

The Greek temples at Selinunte teach another lesson: Seldom is a columnar temple found standing. The columns have been restored and raised upright. The most complete temple at Selinunte is Temple E, which may have been dedicated to Hera, wife of Zeus. It was re-erected only in 1960. Since then tourism has flourished at the site. Next to it is Temple F, unrestored. This is what Temple E looked like before it was restored. Temple F is simply a pile of rocks, in ruins. Should it too be re-erected? I would prefer not. It shows the condition of these temples before restoration. Temple G, which lies next to Temple F, is also unrestored, except for a single column that was rebuilt in 1892 and still stands alone among the ruins.

Temple C is in the midst of a restoration effort. The elaborate modern scaffolding tells the visitor what has been going on. It is a gargantuan effort. Thus we can see at Selinunte a re-erected temple, one in the course of re-erection, a ruined temple with but one column standing upright, and a massive heap of stones that was once a temple.

A careful look will also reveal how much has not been simply restored, but reconstructed. This is what happens when pieces are missing and reconstructed parts are required to provide support for other architectural members. Parts of a column may be without fluting in an otherwise fluted column. Or a column may be part brick, but otherwise limestone. The reconstructed part of a column may be a different color or a different texture or a different substance. In such cases you may be sure the column was not found standing.

In short, the buildings that we see are neither the buildings that the ancients saw nor the ones the archaeologists found. But that may be just as well. With a little imagination, we can recall either—or both.

Greek and Roman ruins are all over. But Punic ruins, especially residential complexes, are hard to find. Even at Carthage in north Africa, home of Phoenicians who created Punic civilization, residential areas are nowhere to be seen, so thoroughly did the Romans destroy them. (Remember Cato: Carthago delenda est; “Carthage must be destroyed.”) You have to travel 75 miles east of Carthage to a sleepy little coastal town called Kerkouane to find any substantial Punic residential remains see Hershel Shanks, Destinations, AO 02:04. So you will appreciate my surprise at a site in southwestern Sicily called Selinunte. Selinunte is […]