Madauros: A Testament to the Vanished Glory of Rome in Algeria

The ruins of the ancient city of Madauros is one of Algeria’s most important archaeological sites and yet it is virtually unknown because of its remote location, which has helped to preserve the city. The Madauros ruins are situated in hilly country and some thirty miles from the Tunisian border near the modern Algerian town of M’daourouch, in Souk Aras Province and is not a tourist site.

The Center of Madauros Is Still Dominated by A Byzantine Ruin

The Madauros ruins are approximately 267 acres in size and it is estimated that only seventeen acres have been fully excavated. The ruins of the Roman city were excavated by French archaeologists between the 1920s and 1940s and since then there has been very little digging at the site. Madauros has many remarkably preserved ruins and when wandering among the ancient stones you can almost feel like you are going back in time to the Roman era.

The original cobbled stone road leading to the ruined town and the city gates can still be made out.  The layout of the city was typically Roman, and Madauros has many of the characteristics of other cites from antiquity. The Roman mausoleum at the entrance to the site still has some statues although these are now mostly broken.  

The city’s theater is arguably the most impressive of the remains and the stone seating where Romans and others once sat while they were being entertained by performers is still there. Found at the site are some fine examples of Roman thermae or baths, which were so much a part of urban living in antiquity. It is possible to wander into the thermae whose walls and even stone seats are well-preserved. Then there is a Roman basilica in the heart of the site, which was one of the most important public spaces in the city where the urban elite met and most of the city’s commerce was conducted.