Soul of Mediterranean culture in the Roman era found in the ruins of Hippo Regius in Algeria

Website design By BotEap.comAlgeria is home to 36 million people but occupies almost a million square miles, by far the largest nation in all of Africa, four times the size of Texas. It is a sparsely populated country, especially outside the main cities. Many Algerians live crammed into large urban areas like Algiers, which has a population of nearly four million.

Website design By BotEap.comSo Algeria is primarily a land of vast deserts, a Saharan nation providing views far from cities, vast expanses of land with few people but lots of sky. The coast is wonderfully fertile and well-watered, magnificent country that was once the granary of ancient Rome. In many ways, it has the characteristics that would be immediately familiar to Californians farming that fertile state: an oceanfront plain that leads inland to a wall of mountains that tends to keep the plain well-watered by blocking moisture from the ocean so that do not travel through the mountains. This is the same geoclimatological configuration along the southern Mediterranean coast and the California coast.

Website design By BotEap.comThe great Christian philosopher Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius, an ancient city whose modern name is Annaba, Algeria. The ruins of Hippo Regius bring me back year after year, decade after decade. I feel, somehow, that the soul of the Mediterranean is hidden between these ancient blocks of stone. They are reminiscent of Rome when it entered the Christian era and are among the best in all of North Africa, so they deserve a special trip. We can see why this land was populated three thousand years ago with rich rolling hills covered with flowers, olive groves, rosemary, home to shepherds and their flocks whose days are animated by the song of the birds.

Website design By BotEap.comAt the height of its activity a couple of millennia ago, the city of Hippo was considered part of Roman Africa, a kind of vassal of the great city of Carthage in present-day Tunisia. Today Hippo Regius is part of Algeria, although not far from the Tunisian border. Saint Augustine was ordained a priest there in 391. He became coadjutor bishop in 395, then bishop a few years later, a post he held for nearly three decades until his death in 430.

Website design By BotEap.comThe best way to see the ancient city is by approaching it from the seafront, which today has receded about a thousand feet from where it used to be when the Romans roamed these beaches and paths. Walk from the Mediterranean Sea up the small hill to the well-kept Hippo Museum before touring the ruins, as the exhibits will help you put what you see into proper context – an investment well worth making. For example, the ground floor contains a fine collection of sculpture in the Hall of Busts, including a statue of Emperor Vespasian that was found in the forum. A special gift for me is a very strange piece of armor, nearly two meters tall, covered in a blood-red cloak. On the wall is a meticulously detailed mosaic of four sea nymphs or water spirits.

Website design By BotEap.comThere is another collection of fine mosaics in the next room, my favorite being a hunting party from the time of St. Augustine in which lions, leopards and antelope are chased into a trap. We easily forget that in those days lions were not limited to Kenya and East Africa. They were common as far north as Hippo Regius. It was only the Mediterranean Sea that prevented lions from roaming Sicily and Italy. A third mosaic scene, this one of fishermen bringing home their catch, includes what I take to be the equivalent of an old postcard showing Hippo Regius as he must have appeared two thousand years ago.

Website design By BotEap.comThe ruins of the ancient city occupy many acres of land. You will see that the best houses and the best residential area of ​​the town, in those days as in a modern town, were right on the sea where the sea breeze swept through its open patios. What remains of a half dozen Roman villas of the upper class are evident here, their courtyards marked by columns, some of the walls and floors still visible.

Website design By BotEap.comTwo houses that are especially worth seeing are the Villa del Laberinto and the Villa del Procurador, which seem to me to be the most impressive examples of how the wealthy organized their private homes. Beyond these waterfront villas, if you continue past the southern baths, you’ll come to the edge of the Christian quarter and the 150-foot outline of the great early Christian-era basilica where Augustine was likely court bishop. The floor mosaics are quite nice.

Website design By BotEap.comNo modern visitor to Algeria should pass up the opportunity to visit Hippo Regius and pay homage to this vision of the past.