Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/187

 Chap. 1.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTEIES, &C. 153 also believe that they Avere dug through by him ; upon which the sea, which was before excluded, gained adjuissiou, and so changed the face of nature. CHAP. 1. (1.) THE BOUISTDAEIES AND GULFS OF EUEOPE FIRST SET FORTH IN A GENERAL WAY. 1 shall first then speak of Europe, the foster-mother of that people which has conquered all other nations, and itself by far the most beauteous portion of the earth. Indeed, many persons have, not without reason considered it, not as a third part only of the earth, but as equal to all the rest, looking upon the whole of oui- globe as divided into two parts only, by a line cba^^-n from the river Tanais to the Straits of Grades. The ocean, after pouring the waters of the Atlantic through the inlet which I have here described, and, in its eager progress, overwhelming all the lands which have had to dread its approach, skirts with its winding course the shores of those parts which oiFer a more efiectual resistance, hollowing out the coast of Eiurope especially into numerous bays, among which there are four Grulfs that are more parti- cularly remarkable. The first of these begins at Calpe, which I have previously mentioned, the most distant mountain of Spain ; and bends, describing an immense ciu-ve, as far as Locri and the Promontory of Bruttium-. CHAP. 2. OF SPAIN GENERALLY. The first land situate upon this Grulf is that which is called the Farther Spain or Bjetica^ ; next to which, beginning at the frontier to^n of TJrgi'*, is the Nearer, or TarraconCnsian^ ' This was the opinion of Herodotus, but it had been so strenuously combated by Polybius and other m-iters before the time of Phny, that it is difficidt to imagine how he should countenance it. 2 He probably alludes to Leucojietra, now caUed Capo dell' Anni. Locri Epizephyrh was a tomi of Bruttiiun, situate north of the promon- tory of Zephyrium, now called Capo cU Bruzztmo. 3 So called from the Baetis, now the Guadakiuivir or Great River, been about five leagues from the itresent city of Mujacar, or Moxacar. It was situate on the Sinus Urgitanus. » So caUed from the city of Tarraco, on the site of the pi*esent Tar- ragona.
 * The situation of this tovni is not known, but it is supposed to hare