Modern Libya: Sabratha is between the two small towns marked on the coast just west of Tripoli (Tripoli, of course, is Apuleius' Oea).

Antoninus Pius as a 2nd century CE African (in Kedime, near Hadrumetum south of Carthage [=modern Sousse, visible on our map]) would have seen him; image from Paul Zanker, Provinzielle Kaiserporträts (München, 1983)

A Roman mirror from the Hamburg Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe: from E. Simon, Die konstantinischen Deckgemaelde, p. 31, abb. 14

Three images of Mercury, showing him as an orator, a (perhaps) magical/personal god w/African connection (Thot), and in his traditional role in commerce:

Statuette representing Hermes Logios, found off the coast of Tunisia (near Mahdia) in the wreck of a Greek merchant vessel with the stuff "for sale". It is now in the Bardo Museum, Tunis. It dates from the 1st c. BCE, and the image comes from Richard Brilliant, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art: The Use of Gestures to Denote Status in Roman Sculpture and Coinage (New Haven, 1963).

Statuette of Mercury, (base lost, caduceus damaged). Image from Erika Simon, Die Götter der Römer, image 197. Simon: From a Swiss private collection The statuette is 15.3 centimers high. The style of the head, which recalls the Hellenistic style, points to the Neronian era. Seldom does Mercury have a cloak that falls down over his back and acts as a background in front of which his body projects. . . The cloak of Mercury is usually somewhat narrower and draped around his left arm. Otherwise, the statuette resembles examples from Pompeian Lararii. . . Even the feather in the middle of his head, a characteristic of the Egyptian Hermes-Thot, speaks for this conclusion.

Statuette of Mercury(?), 7 cm high. Dated from the 2nd-4th c. CE and found in Asia Minor. This is Mercury in his commerce capacity and is an example of a portable icon of the god very common throughout the empire. It comes from Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Romans & Barbarians (Boston, 1976) Exhibition catalog, image #70. (The image lacks notably common attributes of Mercury and so should be regarded as of dubious attribution.)

Sabratha: aerial view: Kenrick, Philip M., Excavations at Sabratha: 1948-1951 (London, 1986). Plate No. 1.

Sabratha: town plan: P.M. Kendrick, "The Historical Development of Sabratha," in Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania, eds. D.J. Buck, D.J. Mattingly, BAR International Series 274 (Oxford, 1985). pp. 1-13 at p. 3.

Elephant Mosaic from Ostia (icon for Sabratha): David J. Mattingly, Tripolitania (Ann Arbor, 1994)