It has been questioned by commentators, whether Strabo intended to make the river Lathon discharge itself into the lake, or into the port of the Hesperides; and the near resemblance which the words λιμην (limen) and λιμνη (limne), the former of which means a port, and the latter a lake, do certainly bear to each other, will allow of their being confounded in transcribing, by the mere transposition of a single letter[27]. Without reference to the authority of the most approved manuscripts, we may observe, on that only of local inspection, that either of these words would be correct. It has already been stated that the Harbour of Bengazi communicates with a salt-water lake, and it is probable that in Strabo’s time the vessels of the ancients might have passed from one into the other. The harbour and the lake might in that event be considered without any impropriety as the same. It is into this lake that the small stream discharges itself which we have alluded to above, and if we can suppose it to be the remains of the Lathon, the statement of Strabo may be considered as confirmed by the actual appearance of the place. If, however, we are disposed to be sceptical on this point, we must give up the river altogether, or, at least, we must give up the re-appearance of it in the lake and in the Harbour of Hesperis, or Berenice; for no other spring, that we are aware of, flows either into one or the other. It is probable that λιμην was the word used by Strabo, and it seems also probable that he intended to imply, that the harbour and the lake he calls Tritonis, on which stood the temple of Venus, were the same; at least, in reading the whole of the passage together, we can scarcely divest ourselves of this idea[28].
It may be, however, that the nature of the place, rather than the construction of the passage in question, has in fact suggested this reading to us: for on the borders of the lake, which still communicates with the Harbour of Bengazi, is a spot of rising ground, nearly insulated in winter, on which are the remains of ancient building; and which, at the time when the harbour was deeper, and the lake itself practicable for vessels[29], must have been (occasionally, at least) completely surrounded with water. Here then might have stood the temple of Venus mentioned in the passage above, and the introduction of the word μαλιστα by Strabo (taken in the sense of mostly, or generally), in speaking of the island in question, would seem to confirm this position.
Berenice (he tells us) is placed on the Point of Pseudopenias, near a certain lake called Tritonis, in which there is mostly an island (εν ἡ μαλιστα νησιον εστι), with a temple upon it dedicated to Venus. We may remark, in support of this supposition, that it is probable, from the position of the rising ground alluded to, that it was not at all times surrounded by water; and that it was only in the winter season, or at times when the sea advanced farther than ordinary, that it was completely an island.
We may suppose, in receiving this island as the one mentioned by Strabo, that the circumstance just stated was alluded to by the geographer, when he informs us that there was usually an island in the lake; but we do not mean to insist upon this reading of the passage in question, and will confess, that it would probably never have suggested itself to us had we never visited Bengazi; it must therefore be left to the discretion of our readers, to adopt it or not, as it may seem to deserve, on a reference to the local peculiarities we have mentioned.
With regard to the name of Tritonis, bestowed upon the lake in this passage, it is difficult to say whether the lake which Strabo mentions was actually called by that name; or whether the geographer has confounded it with the Tritonis Palus (the Lake Lowdeah of Shaw), situated in the Lesser Syrtis, and which also contained an island, according to Herodotus.
But whatever may have been the proper name of the lake at Berenice which we seek to identify with the Tritonis of Strabo, it appears to us to answer remarkably well to the lake of that name which he mentions. We will therefore suggest, that the Tritonis in question and the lake which now communicates with the Harbour of Bengazi, are one and the same lake: that it was originally deep enough to admit the vessels of the ancients, and to have formed occasionally the island containing the temple of Venus, on the spot of rising ground already pointed out, where remains of ancient building are still observable: that a small spring of fresh water runs into the same lake which may possibly be the remains of the Lathon of Strabo, at its point of re-appearance and communication with the Harbour of the Hesperides; and that the subterranean stream in the cavern between the lake and the mountains, which we have mentioned above, may also be the source of this river. When we add, that the gardens upon which we have remarked, are probably some of those called the Gardens of the Hesperides, we have pointed out all that now occurs to us of any interest in the neighbourhood of the town of Bengazi; and we submit these suggestions to the judgment of others better qualified than ourselves to decide the points in question.
It appears to have been from Berenice, the daughter of Magas, who was married to Ptolemy Philadelphus, that the city of Hesperis changed its ancient name into that which afterwards distinguished it[30]. But the name of Berenicidæ, which seems to have been conferred upon the inhabitants of this part of the Cyrenaica, was not by any means generally adopted; for we find that these people continued notwithstanding to be called by their former appellation of Hesperides. It is, however, somewhat singular that Pomponius Mela, who flourished towards the middle of the first century, and nearly a hundred years after the extinction of the dynasty of the Lagides, should have mentioned this city under its ancient name of Hesperis only; while he gives its Ptolemaic name, Arsinoe, to Teuchira, and distinguishes the port of Barca by its appellation of Ptolemais[31]. Yet the name of Berenice continued to be used by other writers long after the age of Mela; and Pliny, who flourished nearly at the same time with this geographer, mentions the city of the Hesperides by that title. It is probable that a name of such poetical celebrity as that which gave place to Berenice was not easily laid aside by the lovers of literature; and we find that Ptolemy thought it necessary, an hundred years after Mela, to add, when he speaks of the city of Berenice, that it was the same with that of Hesperis, or, as he writes it, Hesperides[32]; from which we may infer that the ancient name of the place still continued to be better known than the modern one. But alas for the glories of Hesperis and Berenice! both names have passed away from the scene of their renown; and the present inhabitants of the miserable dirty village, (for we can scarcely call it a town,) which has reared itself on the ruins of these cities, have no idea that Bengazi did not always occupy the place which it has usurped on the soil of the Hesperides[33].
The Arab who now gathers his corn, or his fruit, in some one, perhaps, of those gardens so celebrated in the annals of antiquity, dreams of nothing whatever connected with it beyond the profits which he hopes from its produce. He knows nothing of the stream or the properties of the Lethe; and the powerful influence of the River of Oblivion seems to have been so often, and so successfully exerted, as to have drowned at length even the recollection of itself[34].
FOOTNOTES:
[1]On these terraces barley and grass are frequently seen growing, and goats feeding very contentedly.