BOUNDARY MARK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1943, Page 4

BOUNDARY MARK

AND AN ANCIENT LEGEND. NORTH AFRICA’S MARBLE ARCH. “Odd Spot” is the title of one of the B.B.C’s. overseas tabloid talks. In a recent one, Flight-Lieutenant Christopher Hollis told something of the remarkable history behind the Marble Arch—not London’s Marble Arch, but the one in North Africa. It was built, only a short time before the war, by Marshal Balbo, the Italian Governor. On it are statues of two Carthaginian youths, known as the Philaenoi. And theirs is a dramatic story. The boundary was fixed 2,000 years ago. It Was the dividing line between the Empire of Carthage and the' Greek civilisation which grew up round the Greek colony of Cyrene. This story of the boundary has been told by a Roman soldier, named Sallust, who fought in Africa in Caesar's army, and stayed on as Governor. His hobby was collecting local legends. One of these concerned the frontier. To settle it, an arrangement had been made that ambassadors from either side should start and walk towards ..one another. And the place where they met should be regarded as the boundary. Two brothers, the Philaenoi, were sent from Carthage. They made all haste. Not so the Cyreneans. But when the two sides met the Cyreneans unscrupulously accused the Carthaginians of having started before the agreed time, and offered them the choice of two evils. They could keep the frontier they claimed by being buried alive on it, o 1 ’ they could allow the Cyreneans to choose their own frontier. The Philaenoi accepted the first proposal. And on the place where they were buried alive, the Carthaginians consecrated an altar to their memory. Through the | centuries that frontier site has remain-I cd. ■ I