Maktar - Schola of Juvenes

The Schola of the Juvenes in Maktar was a kind of clubhouse and training school for young men - found also in other Roman cities under the name of Collegia Juvenum - in which, in addition to being trained in various sports and the military art, they were given instruction in politics, taxation law and commerce. They were then employed not only in the collection of taxes but also in the defense of the wealthy city of Mactaris against raids by plundering nomadic tribesmen.

The building of the Schola began in A.D. 88, on the evidence of an inscription found on the site giving the name of 70 members of the school, but it was completed only towards the end of the second century. By the early third century the Schola had become an extremely powerful Organisation, as is shown by its participation in the Gordian rising in A.D. 238. After the rising, however, it was dissolved and the buildings were destroyed. Later, in the reign of Diocletian, they were rebuilt. Particularly well preserved is the palaestra, built at the expense of a wealthy citizen named Julius Piso, with an inner courtyard surrounded by Corinthian columns and a small lecture hall adjoining. The assembly hall (basilica) of A.D. 88, later converted into a Christian church (with a Punic sarcophagus serving as altar), can also be readily identified.

In the palaestra is a memorial to the munificent donor and his daughter Julia, with a beautifully decorated column for the daughter. To the south of the Schola are the Baths of the Juvenes, the early Christian mausoleum of Julia Benenata (fourth century) and the Edifice à Auges, a building with four apses (three of them added in the fourth century).