Looking down from the summit of the Byrsa, one’s attention is immediately attracted by two small, curiously shaped ponds which lie within a few yards of the shore. Seen from above, they bear a striking resemblance to a sickle, the elongated lagoon corresponding to the handle of the implement and the crescent-shaped one to the blade. And, in a manner of speaking, a sickle, is what they were; the sickle with which the Carthaginians reaped the sea-trade of the world and all but mowed down the Roman sea-power. For the larger of the two ponds is the sole remaining vestige of Carthage’s great commercial harbor; the smaller, of the naval port, or Cothon. It requires a sturdy and well-oiled imagination, however, to recreate on the grassy shores of these two insignificant ponds the wharves, slips, dockyards, workshops, storehouses, walls, and watch-towers which made this now tranquil spot the greatest naval base of ancient times; to realize that this was once the emporium of all the sea-borne trade of the world from Syria to Cornwall; that here were launched those terrible war-galleys, with their brazen prows and bristling banks of oars, which enabled the Carthaginians to keep the Mediterranean for centuries a Punic lake. But cross by the narrow isthmus to the little island—an island no longer—on which the Admiralty Palace stood, and look down into the great pit dug by the excavators, and any lingering doubts you may have as to the authenticity of the site will disappear; for on the huge hewn blocks which lie tumbled pell-mell in the bottom of the cavity is still plainly discernible the _Tanith_ in red paint which was the Punic sign manual and crest. Of the excavated, or partly excavated, remains of Roman Carthage, the most interesting are the Odéon, the Amphitheater, and the Circus. The Odéon, or opera-house, a semicircular building with a roof, was erected in A.D. 204, when the Carthaginians obtained permission to hold the Pythian Games. Little of it now remains, but its ruins have yielded two of the finest statues yet unearthed at Carthage, those of Juno Regia and Venus.