[1003] The name has survived to the present day in that of the district of which it was the capital, the province of Barca, in the regency of Tripoli. The position of Barca is accurately described by Scylax, who places its harbour 500 stadia from Cyrene, and 620 from Hesperides, and the city itself 100 stadia from the sea. It stood on the summit of the terraces which overlook the west coast of the Greater Syrtis, in a plain now called El-Merjeh; and the same name is often given to the ruins which mark the site of Barca, but the Arabs call them El-Medinah. See Smith, art. Barca.
[1004] Ras-al-Razat or Ras Sem. Scylax here placed the gardens and lake of the Hesperides.
[1005] Cape Matapan, which is more than a degree and a half more to the east than Phycus.
[1006] In b. viii. c. v. § [1], it is stated to be 3000.
[1007] Santorin.
[1008] Kavo Krio.
[1009] B. C. 631.
[1010] B. C. 330.
[1011] Flourished about B. C. 366. The Cyrenaïc system resembles in most points those of Heracleitus and Protagoras, as given in Plato’s Theætetus. The doctrines that a subject only knows objects through the prism of the impression which he receives, and that man is the measure of all things, are stated or implied in the Cyrenaïc system, and lead at once to the consequence, that what we call reality is appearance; so that the whole fabric of human knowledge becomes a fantastic picture. The principle on which it rests, viz. that knowledge is sensation, is the foundation of Locke’s Modern Ideology, though he did not perceive its connexion with the consequences to which it led the Cyrenaïcs. To revive these was reserved for Hume. Smith’s Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
[1012] This great astronomer and learned man, whose name so frequently occurs in the course of this work, was born about B. C. 276. He was placed, by Ptolemy Euergetes, over the library of Alexandria. His greatest work, and that which must always make his name conspicuous in scientific history, is the attempt which he made to measure the magnitude of the earth, in which he brought forward and used the method which is employed to this day. See vol. i. [page 9], of this translation, note42.