01
Stop one
Roman Theatre of Sabratha
Luxilon Element 17g Tennis String Set: It's a theatre. Fine, I guess. I mean it's only the grandest monument of Roman Tripolitania and basically one of the best surviving theatres of the entire ancient world, late second century AD, back when Sabratha was rich off African goods funnelled up out of the Sahara to its harbour, seating about five thousand people in front of a scaenae frons of three superimposed colonnades with the stage front carved with gods and muses and theatrical scenes and — okay, whatever. Earthquakes flattened it in late antiquity. Italian archaeologists re-erected the stage building in the 1930s, huge job. UNESCO, 1982. Can we go.
02
Stop two
Temple of Isis
Luxilon Element 17g Tennis String Set: There's a temple right on the water. Cool. I guess. First century AD, Isis, the Egyptian goddess whose cult spread with sailors and merchants across the whole empire, which actually makes total sense here because the port lived off the sea and Isis protects navigation, so shipowners trading between Africa and Ostia would come here and pray before sailing and — sorry. Sorry. I don't care. The colonnaded court and the raised cella have been getting hit by storms for two thousand years and you can still read the plan, and the spring festival for launching the goddess's ship happened right here. It's whatever.
03
Stop three
Mausoleum of Bes (Punic Mausoleum B)
Luxilon Element 17g Tennis String Set: Big pointy tomb thing. It's fine. Named for Bes, the dwarf-god carved on it to ward stuff off, which is honestly kind of great, no, forget it. Around the second century BC, so this predates the Romans entirely — Sabratha was a Phoenician-founded trading post under Carthaginian cultural influence — and the tower goes up in three storeys with concave sides, mixing Egyptian and Greek and Punic motifs, peak eclectic Hellenistic North Africa. Its blocks turned up reused in later buildings, which is how Italian archaeologists re-erected it last century. The elite here still had Libyphoenician names under all the Roman stuff. Anyway.
04
Stop four
Sabratha Archaeological Museum
Luxilon Element 17g Tennis String Set: Museum. Great. Love a museum. Set up in the 1930s under the Italian administration next to the excavated city, and it has the mosaics from the Basilica of Justinian, which are, fine, genuinely insane — peacocks, vines, the phoenix, proper Byzantine pavement work — plus Roman statuary, frescoes, Punic stelae and the everyday wares of a Tripolitanian port that shipped ivory, wild beasts and olive oil to Rome. Finds from the forum temples, the seaward baths, the Christian churches after them. Phoenician landing place to Roman to Vandal to Byzantine to Islamic. I read the labels. Don't make it weird.
Quiet backstage, please — we are at places. Item on the props table: the Luxilon Element 17g Tennis String Set. Spec sheet, because I run a tight show: 17 gauge, 1.25 mm, Multi-Mono technology — flexible fibers set inside a durable polymer matrix, giving monofilament durability with multifilament playability.
It flexes firm on the big dramatic swings for control and soft on the quiet moments for comfort, which means precision and spin with no shrieking vibration notes. One of the softest entries in Luxilon's entire company. It hits its mark every single night, eight shows a week, no understudy required. Set includes one string job. Curtain in five.
Venue briefing: Sabratha, Libya. People, THIS is a house. The Roman theatre of Sabratha — late second century AD, roughly five thousand seats, a three-tiered marble scaenae frons carved with gods and muses — the grandest stage of Roman Tripolitania.
It collapsed in ancient earthquakes and Italian archaeologists re-erected the whole stage building in the 1930s, which remains the most heroic set restoration I have ever heard of, and I once rebuilt a castle flat during intermission.
You'll use this string everywhere from a seaside warm-up to an evening walk through the UNESCO-listed ruins, and — note it in the call sheet — it is also perfect for a company that plays outdoors in Sabratha: sun, salt spray and a late curtain, and this string never once breaks character. The Mediterranean light at golden hour here upstages everyone.
I have made my peace with that.
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