the Aurès mountains. “It
has been a small town, but
full of elegant buildings,”
Bruce wrote in his diaries.
He was confident that these
ruins were what remained
of the city founded by Tra-
jan more than a millenium
earlier.
On the first day, Bruce re-
corded and Balugani drew
“the triumphal arch” of Tra-
jan. They returned the next
day to continue exploration
and identified an amphithe-
ater. Bruce cleared away the
sand and uncovered sculp-
tures of the Roman emper-
or who succeeded Hadrian
in A.D. 138, Antoninus Pius,
and his wife, Faustina the
Elder, works he described as
having “exquisite beauty.”
Bruce reburied the
sculptures in the sand and
continued traveling. He
documented more sites
throughout North Africa
and Ethiopia, even claim-
ing to find the source of the
Blue Nile. Balugani died in
1770, and Bruce returned toIN 1875, MORE THAN A CENTURY AFTER Bruce’s
visit to Thamugadi, British diplomat Robert
Lambert Playfair (right) described a visit
there in his book Travels in the Footsteps of
Bruce in Algeria and Tunis. He set
out under a hospitable Berber
guide, appropriately named
“Bou Dhiaf, father of guests... who, not without rea-
son, boasts of Roman
descent.” The road to the
ancient site lay through
“country covered with
Roman remains. We
found our camp pitched
in the very centre of the
ruined city, which allowed
us to devote every hour of our
stay to its examination.”
IN BRUCE’S FOOTSTEPS
THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND/BRIDGEMAN/ACINATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 91