Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/288

 272 HISTORY OF GRRiCCK. from the Kanopic (westernmost) mouth of the Nile to the Pillars of Herakles (strait of Gibraltar) ; to which some more days must be added to represent the full distance between Tyre and Gades. But the enterprise of these early mariners surmounted all diffi- culties consistent with the principle of never losing sight of the coast. Proceeding along the northern coast of Libya, at a time when the mouths of the Nile were still closed by Egyptian jeal- ousy against all foreign ships, they appear to have found little temptation to colonize 1 on the dangerous coast near to the two gulfs called the great and little Syrtis, in a territory for the most part destitute of water, and occupied by rude Libyan no- mades, who were thinly spread over the wide space between the western Nile 2 and cape Hermasa, now called cape Bona. The subsequent Grecian towns of Kyrene and Barca, whose well- chosen site formed an exception to the general character of the region, were not planted with any view to commerce, 3 and the Phenician town of Leptis, near the gulf called the great Syrtis, was founded by exiles from Sidon, and not by deliberate colonization. The site of Utica and Carthago, in the gulf im- applies as much to the Phcnicians as to the Carthaginians : " utcrque Paaius " (Horat. Od. ii, 11) means the Carthaginians, and the Phenicians of Gades. 1 Strabo, xvii, p. 836. 2 Cape Soloeis, considered by Herodotus as the westernmost headland of Libya, coincides in name with the Phenician town Soloeis in western Sicily, also, seemingly, with the Phenician settlement Sucl (Mela, ii, 6, 65) in southern Iberia or Tartessus. Cape Hermoca was the name of the north- eastern headland of the gulf of Tunis, and also the name of a cape in Libya, two days' sail westward of the Pillars of Herakles (Skylax, c. 111). Probably, all tbe remarkable headlands in these seas received their names from the Phenicians. Both Mannert (Geogr. d. Gr. und Rom. x, 2, p. 495) and Fiirbigcr (Alte Gcogr. sect. Ill, p. 867) identify cape Soloeis with what is now called cape Cantin; Heeren considers it to be the same as cape Blanco ; Bougainville as cape Boyador. a Sallast, Bell. Jug. c. 78. It was termed Leptis Magna, to distinguish it from another Leptis, more to the westward and nearer to Carthage, called L:ptis Parva; but this latter seems to have been generally known by the name Leptis (Forbigcr, Alte Gcogr. sect. 109, p. 844). In Leptis Magna, the proportion of Phenician colonists was so inconsiderable that the Pheni- cian language had been lost, and that of the natives, whom Sallust calls Numidians, spoken : but these people had embraced Sidonian institution* nd civilization. (Sail, ib.}