Evening Star Newspaper, December 16, 1934, Page 101

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 16, 1934 13 THE ROMAN EAGLES OVER AFRICA Italy Goes Forward With Her Plan to Feed the Millions of the Future—Wash- ingtonians Hear R c- markable S fory of the Linking of Arche- ology With Practical Expansion. OW will Italy feed her rapidly ine creasing millions in the future? Vital as this question is, it does not seem at first to have anything to do with the Capital of the United States, and still less with the Archeological Society of Washington. But last night, before a brilllant audience greeted by AugustoRooso, Italian Ambassador, Washing- ton society listened with rapt attention to one of the most remarkable stories ever told of the linking of archeology with the most practical sort of colonial expansion, based upon the physical necessities of a growing people. Imperial Rome is coming to life anew in the Dark Continent. Out of the blazing African sands the genius of Premier Benito Mussolini end the tireless enthusiasm of Gov. Gen. Italo Balbo, Italy’s famed air marshal, are bringing crops and inscriptions, olives, oil and classical monuments, And the story was brought to Washington because a professor of Latin in Cleveland asked the Archeological Society of Washington to sponsor a trip for him to the vast new-old colonial empire of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, in Northern Africa. Years ago, when Il Duce was merely “growing up” as the rebuilder of Italy's war-shattered fortunes, he took a momentous oath to the army of Blackshirts he was leading upon Rome. It was a dramatic moment. Disillusioned and a prey to fears for the future of their country and themselves, the war veterans were in a plastic mood. Anything could happen. So when this untried leader stood forth to address them, much more than the fate of Italy hung upon his words. ARIS, Berlin, London, Washington all lise tened. And not one of these capitals cor- rectly interpreted the epoch-making words— *“I swear to lead our country once more in the path of its ancient greatness!” The world thought it meant only another fantastic dream of conquest by arms until, as time passed and the genuinely constructive pattern of Musso- lini's policy began to declare itself visibly, world tension lessened and hope was established in the room of fear. What Mussolini meant by his prophecy was far greater and more substan- tial than any vision of armed conquest could be. Guided and inspired by the history of Rome’s most brilliant period, he looked far into the future and planned to bring back by peace- ful, constructive means a glory and a stability even greater than that of the Imperial City of centuries ago, for his eye was set upon the pos- sibilities of Africa, the idea of Italy as a self- sustaining nation, and a Northern Africa fer= tile, productive, alive where it has long been dead, and ministering not only to the material wants of a strong and lusty nation of develop- ing powers, but to its cultural and spiritual needs as well. How this ideal has been launched successfully and is already attracting the close attention of the other nations was the story graphically presented through the courtesy of Ambassador Rosso and of the Italian officials in Rome and Africa. Too little attention has been given right along since Fascism has proved a force to be reck- oned with, to the fact that Mussolini has shown himself to be the world’s most acute student of history. Every one who has read Roman his~ tory with any degree of attention has a smat- tering of the facts. But it remained for II Duce to perceive in those facts which others had read end failed to heed the solution of the problems under which Ilaly of post-war days was groaning. He alone realized that history is always a continuing force, instead of a static thing of interest only. He knew that the buried city of Leptis Magna, whose glories had been lost under waves of desert sands for ages, at one time paid Rome a tribute of a million pounds of olive oil each year. He recalled that the poet Horace, when he wished to show how rich a man was in his epoch, wrote that the fellow possessed granaries in Libya. Could not Italy divert the unemployment and discontent of thousands of its ardent subjects to these fertile fields which were merely waiting the enthusi- astic cultivation of youth and energy? Would not such endeavor repay many fold all the effort and anxiety required, by reclaiming the desert and assuring Italy food for her hungry chil- dren for the years to come, and nourishing their souls also by bringing back the buried monu- ments and records of former Roman greatness in her colonies? The thing was so obvious, so simple, so en= tirely possible if the co-operation of the people View of the native quarter of Tripoli from the castle. Balbo has given orders that the picturesqueness of this old section be preserved and that no modern buildings be constructed there. BY ARTHUR STANLEY RIGGS, Director, Archeological Society of Washingion. was assured, that nobody but genius could con- sider it. The first steps were expensive. No income could be anticipated for a considerable time. But the goal justified the struggle, and Italian archeologists began to dig Leptis Magna out of the sands that centuries had piled above this former metropolis. More archeologists came; more excavations were undertaken. Lit- tle by little, not in a single city, but scattered judiciously through the Italian domain, emi- nent scholars delved into the past. One of the most interesting and appropriate inscriptions they have dug up in Cyrene discloses the sig- nificant fact that during the great famine in Greece, between the years 331 and 323 B.C. this ancient “African Athens” exported some 29,000 tons of cereals for the relief of the starv- ing Greek cities of Cyrene’s motherland. Here, indeed, as this inscription proves, were once fertile fields waiting only the plow and the seed and water to bring forth enough to make Italy independent and secure. such facts as these in mind, Dr. Kenneth Scott, professor of Latin at West- ern Reserve University, and long an ardent student of Latinized Africa, went to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica last Spring and Summer. At the request of the Archeological Society of Washington, Ambassador Rosso and many Italian scholars who are friends of the writer, gave Prof. Scott unexampled opportunities for the most searching investigations and scrutiny in the rejuvenated colonial empire in Northern Africa. It is a huge territory covering some 350,000 square miles and embracing the ancient provinces of Cyrenaica and Numidia as its most important region. Today Libia Italiana extends east and west between the 10th and 25th parallels of longitude, and, crossing the Tropic of Cancer, reaches south to about late itude 23 degrees north. Appropriately enough, when the Italian archeologists began to exca- vate the theater at Sabratha, a ruined city of ancient times lying on the coast to the west of Lepti's Magna, they brought to light the The Duke of Aosta, commander of native troops who are mounted on camels. He is known as “The Blue Prince,” because blue is the color of the House of Savoy. “Tyche” or “Fortune” of Sabratha clasping hands with the goddess Roma in the presence of Roman legionnaires. The scene represents a peace pact between the mighty Italian capital and the African city. Its significance of friend- ship is perhaps even keener today than whena the relief was sculptured. Today it occupies a place of honor in the governor general’s palace. Setting this before his audience with the fullest detail, Prof. Scott emphasized the prac- tical values archeology has had more than once in Italian history, citing the dramatic moment, when, “in the darkest depths of the Middle Ages, Cola di Rienzo for a breathless moment resuscitated the lifeless corpse of Rome with his magic appeal to the glorious past of the city on the Tiber” through revealing to the people the ancient bronze tablet inscribed with the Lex Imperio Vespasiano. He showed his audi- ence that the power to appoint emperors had rested with the Senate and the Roman people. “Then archeology had a ringing message, and today it brings again the same challenge,” with the monuments and other evidences of Rome’'s ™ African past as inspiration and stimulus t0 & revived Italy in the guiding of the new Italian State. It is fortunate that in Gen. Balbo, the Duce has a lieutenant who is a most enthusias- tic Latinist, a firm believer in the destiny of modern Rome, and a man of boundless enthusi- asms who is administering his tremendous province in a spirit of liberalism which accords the scientist a place of high honor. For Balbo has made an astonishing practical use of the treasures the archeologists have found. ‘The palace of the governor general of Trip- olitania and Cyrenaica, the sprawling, irregular fortress-castle of ancient times guarding the city of Tripoli, juts boldly out into the cleam emerald of the sea. It could hardly be bettered as an epitome of both the purpose and the execution of Balbo's remarkable plan. The palace is familiar to every schoolboy because of the depredations of the Barbary corsairs who were severely mauled in 1815 by an Amer= ican squadron which blockaded the pirate den. The city of Tripoli, perhaps the most pice turesque and attractive on the whole north African Coast, lies between the vast orange- hued sand dunes. All along the water front wave the ostrich-feather plumes of tufted palms, beneath which bloom incredible banks of brilliant flowers. As a setting for the official headquarters of the new government, nothing could be lovelier. Under the Roman eagles of 2,000 years ago, Libya was a rich land of waving grain fields, fat vineyards and vasl olive groves. Mussolini saw that what had been could again be, and he ordered modern science and art to perform the miracle of the transformation. ASHINGTON knows the dashing young Balbo well, remembering his tremendous feat of flying here from Italy, so it was highly intriguing to the very people who had wel- comed his literal eagles of the air, to learn that he has again soared high, and with equal success in an entirely different medium: The realm of practical statesmanship. One of his first tasks in adapting the old castle to the purposes of an up-to-date administrative office., was to make adroit use of the ancient works of art throughout the province as a series of symbolic links connecting ancient Roman rule in Libya with the modern Fascist domination, Thus the castle has been completely transe formed and is today a museum of priceless relics of the past, as well as the focus of thes Continued on Fourteenth Page