The question was settled in 1906,—on the 17th of March, at five p.m.,—as M. Ballu records with exulting precision. In making an experimental hole beside the Cardo, a workman drove his pick against a fragment of inscribed stone, which proved to be the missing piece containing the first portion of the inscription. The supporters of the library theory were right. The words on the stone were as follows:— EX LIBERALITA GATIANI. C.M.V. QV COLONIAE THAM GAVIT OPUS BIBLI CVRANTE REPVBLIC “There is no necessity,” says M. Ballu, “to tell with what joy we received a telegram announcing this discovery. It was the consecration of our suppositions, certitude succeeding to probabilities, which had nevertheless not left much room for doubt. It was, above all, a revelation of the arrangements of those ancient Roman libraries of which so many Latin authors speak; but as to the construction of which we possessed no evidence.” The full inscription is to the following effect:— “Out of the funds bequeathed by Marcus Julius Quintianus Flavus Rogatianus, of senatorial memory, by his will to the colony of Thamagudi his mother city, the erection of a library has been completed at a cost of 400,000 sesterces, under the direction of the city authority.” The name of this benefactor is otherwise unknown. The building which bears it was well built of fine materials, with marble columns, and marble veneerings to the walls, of which copious fragments have been found. Among these fragments are some of particularly fine coloured marbles which perhaps adorned the niche in which stood the statue of the presiding goddess. The pavement, which remains, is of a very finished type. It is not possible to assign a precise date to the building, but it is considered to be of the third century. It doubtless took the place of an _insula_, or large private house isolated by four streets, of which other examples line the Cardo. It occupies a rather larger space than these houses; the semicircular portion of the hall extends into the back street, and on the south side the normal width of the street is reduced by it. A somewhat fanciful calculation has been made of the number of books which the library might contain; and the figure of 6800 for the interior hall, and 16,200 for the other chambers, has been arrived at. This seems to be carrying reconstitution a little too far. There are some to whom Timgad is the most interesting place in Algeria; to many antiquaries, and perhaps to many of that large class which is concerned one way or another about all that appertains to books, this Public Library, identified beyond all cavil by such happy fortune, will be Timgad’s most interesting building.