[3371] The present Mahometa, according to Marcus, El Mahres according to D’Anville.
[3372] Now Cabès, according to D’Anville, giving name to the Gulf of Cabès. Marcus calls it Gaps.
[3373] Now Tripoli Vecchio; also called Sabart according to D’Anville.
[3374] Scipio Æmilianus, the son-in-law of Æmilius Paulus.
[3375] Micipsa, the son of Masinissa, and his two legitimate brethren. Scipio having been left by Masinissa executor of his will, the sovereign power was divided by him between Micipsa and his two brethren Gulussa and Mastanabal. On this occasion also he separated Numidia from Zeugitana and Byzacium, by a long dyke drawn from Thenæ, due south, to the borders of the Great Desert, and thence in a north-westerly direction to the river Tusca.
[3376] The Syrtes or ‘Quicksands’ are now called, the Lesser Syrtes the Gulf of Cabès, and the Greater the Gulf of Sydra. The country situate between the two Syrtes is called Tripoli, formerly Tripolis, a name which, according to Solinus, it owed to its three cities, Sabrata, Leptis, and Œa.
[3377] Marcus observes with reference to this passage, that both Hardouin and Poinsinet have mistaken its meaning. They evidently think that Pliny is speaking here of a route to the Syrtes leading from the interior of Africa, whereas it is pretty clear that he is speaking of the dangers which attend those who approach it by the line of the sea-coast, as Cato did, on his march to Utica, so beautifully described by Lucan in his Ninth Book. This is no doubt the same route which was taken by the caravans on their passage from Lebida, the ancient Leptis, to Berenice in Cyrenaica.
[3378] Those which we find at the middle of the coast bordering upon the Greater Syrtis, and which separate the mountains of Fezzan and Atlas from Cyrenaica and Barca.
[3379] In its widest sense this name is applied to all the Libyan tribes inhabiting the Oases on the eastern part of the Great Desert, as the Gætulians inhabited its western part, the boundary between the two nations being drawn at the sources of the Bagrada and the mountain Usargala. In the stricter sense however, and in which the term must be here understood, the name ‘Garamantes’ denoted the people of Phazania, the modern Fezzan, which forms by far the largest oasis in the Grand Desert of Zahara.
[3380] Augylæ, now Aujelah, was an oasis in the desert of Barca, in the region of Cyrenaica, about 31⁄2° south of Cyrene. It has been remarked that Pliny, here and in the Eighth Chapter of the present Book, in abridging the account given by Herodotus of the tribes of Northern Africa, has transferred to the Augylæ what that author really says of the Nasamones. This oasis forms one of the chief stations on the caravan route from Cairo to Fezzan. It is placed by Rennell in 30° 3′ North Lat. and 22° 46′ East Long., 180 miles south-east of Barca, 180 west by north of Siwah, the ancient Ammonium, and 426 east by north of Mourzouk. Later authorities, however, place the village of Aujelah in 29° 15′ North Lat. and 21° 55′ East Long.