Roman Ruins of Mactaris

The ancient city of Mactaris sits on a plateau above Makthar, and the remains are among the most extensive in Tunisia. The site covers several square kilometres of forum, baths, temples, an amphitheatre, and residential districts, yet it receives only a fraction of the visitors who flock to Dougga or El Jem. On a weekday you may well have the whole place to yourself.

The Arch of Trajan at the entrance to the forum is the most photogenic structure on the site — well-preserved and freestanding, it was built in AD 116 to mark the elevation of Mactaris to the status of a Roman municipium. Behind it, the forum itself is a large paved square enclosed by a portico. The Grand South Thermal Baths nearby are genuinely impressive, with frigidarium walls rising to over twelve metres, decorated with the remnants of a complex mosaic floor.

The Schola Juvenum — meeting hall of the city's youth militia — is one of the better-preserved Severan buildings in Tunisia. Near the site entrance, the amphitheatre is modest by Roman standards but well-situated on a natural slope. The whole site rewards two to three hours of slow exploration.

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A story
Mactaris was a Numidian city long before the Romans arrived, and its archaeology spans from Punic-era temples to Byzantine churches. One of the most remarkable objects found here is an inscription now in the Bardo Museum in Tunis — the autobiography of an African harvester from the 2nd or 3rd century AD, who describes working his way up from landless labourer to landowner over a lifetime of following harvests across North Africa. It is one of the most human documents to survive from Roman Africa.

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