“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair.” Ozymandian thoughts crowd in on Mediterranean shores, where sun-bleached ruins memorialize great civilizations and testify silently to their inevitable doom.

Here, outside modern Tunis, Arab invaders destroyed Roman Carthage 13 centuries ago. Little is left of building work started by Julius Caesar except the massive walls of Emperor Antoninus’ baths and a few Corinthian capitals cooking under the African sky.