[]The Spanish dollar is the coin in most general request in the northern and inland parts of Africa.
[11]We find both these cities mentioned by Pliny; and one of them (Oea) by Pomponius Mela, while nothing is said by Strabo either of the cities or the district. Pliny died A.D. 79; Mela is supposed to have flourished about the middle of the first century, and Strabo in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. We may infer, from the silence of Strabo on the subject, that neither Sabrata nor Oea existed in his time; and as Pliny, though he mentions both cities, appears to have been unacquainted with the name of the district in question, we may also perhaps infer that it was bestowed upon it after his time. What is stated by Cellarius on the subject of Tripolis, appears to confirm this opinion: for he tells us that he knew of no one before the time of Solinus, who made any mention in Africa of the name[a]; and that he only applied the term to the district, and not to any particular city.
Solinus is known to have written after Pliny, towards the close of the first century; and we may therefore, perhaps, conclude, that the district called Tripolis, received that appellation between the times of Pliny and Solinus.
[a]Nec qui ante Solinum, non antiquissimum scriptorem, mentionem vocis Tripolis in Africa fecerit succurrit nobis; qui vero, non urbem, sed trium oppidorum regionem intellexit.—(Lib. iv. cap. 3. § 18.)
[12]Tráblis, the Moorish name of the town, is not, however, properly a corruption of Tripolis; it is merely the same word articulated through the medium of Arab pronunciation.
Some authors have imagined an early African name Tarabilis, or Trebilis, from which the Roman name Tripolis was derived; but this is merely imaginary, since the meaning of Tripolis clearly points out its origin to be Greek.
[13]In hoc tractu autem, post Cinyphum fluvium, prima Ptolemæo est Νεαπολις (Neapolis) de qua, in editis, exstat, ἡ καὶ Τριπολις (quæ etiam Tripolis vocatur): in Palatino autem codice nihil de Tripoli legitur, sed ἡ καὶ Λεπτις μεγαλη (quæ, Neapolis, etiam Leptis Magna dicitur.)—Geog. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 3.
It may be added, in support of the reading in the Palatine manuscript, that Neapolis is mentioned by Ptolemy immediately after the Cinyphus, which lies to the eastward of Leptis Magna; so that the geographer, in passing, as he does, from east to west, must be supposed to have omitted Leptis Magna altogether, if Neapolis be not intended to denote it.
[14]This reading of Ptolemy, as will appear from the passage which we have quoted above from Cellarius, is contradicted by the Palatine manuscript; and must be rejected on the authority of Scylax and Strabo, and even of Ptolemy himself.—(See the Fourth Book of Cellarius). The passage of Pliny is not so easily disposed of. After mentioning the city of Sabrata, this author observes, in speaking of the country which lies between the Great and Lesser Syrtis, “Ibi civitas Oensis, Cynips fluvius ac regio, oppida, Neapolis, Taphra, Abrotonum, Leptis altera, quæ cognominatur magna.”—(Hist. Nat. lib. v. cap. 5.) Here we find Neapolis mentioned immediately after Oea, and distinguished from Leptis Magna. “Io crederei,” says Signor della Cella, “che sia piu conforme al vero, l’ammettere che Tripoli degli antichi geografi debba riconoscersi nelle rovine che trovansi a ponente de Tripoli tuttora chiamato Tripoli Vecchio. Pare che l’abbandono, qualunque ne fosse la cagione, di questa città, desse luogo alla formazione di quella che attualmente ne porta il nome, e che in quell’ epoca fu chiamata Tripoli il nuovo, o la nuova città, e da’ Greci Νεαπολις. In questa opinione consente la vera lezione di Tolommeo, ove leggesi Νεαπολις ἡ καὶ Τριπολις. (Neapoli che dicesi anche Tripoli.) Ho detto la vera lezione di Tolommeo, perchè io ho per apocrifa quella adottata dal Cellario, dove in vece di Τριπολις, avendo sostituito Λεπτις, tutto rimane alterato e confuso. Con Tolommeo concorda Plinio che ha per due città diverse Neapoli e Leptis Magna, e tra queste due tramette Gaffara e Abrotano; e Plinio, per le cognizione che poteva attinger nella città, e ne’ tempi ne’ quali scriveva, merita sopra ogni altro credenza intorna alla geografia di questa parte dell’ Africa.”—(Viaggio da Tripoli, &c. p. 41.)
It will not here be very evident how the modern town of Tripoly can, on the authority of Pliny, be supposed to be the same with Neapolis. For Tripoly is identified by the best authorities with Oea; and Neapolis is mentioned, in the passage alluded to, as situated between Oea and Taphra, (the Graphara and Garapha of Scylax and Ptolemy.) But supposing it to be, as Signor della Cella has stated, that the decay of the “Tripoli degli antichi geografi” had really given occasion to the building of the present one, under the title he has conferred upon it of Neapolis; it follows that the former city must have borne the name of Tripolis in the time of Pliny, who, so far from knowing any town of that name, does not even recognise the district under the title.