Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/410

 376 PLIXX'S NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book V. with a serpentine channel, and, from the nature of the locality, this is interpreted at the present day as having been what was really represented by the story of the di'agon keeping guard there. This tract of water surrounds an island, the only spot which is never overflowed by the tides of the sea, although not quite so elevated as the rest of the land in its vicinity. Upon this island, also, there is still in existence the altar of Hercules ; but of the grove that bore the golden fruit, there are no traces left, beyond some wild olive-trees. People will certainly be the less siu'prised at the marvellous falsehoods of the Grreeks, which have been related about this place and the river Lixos when they re- flect that some of our own^ countrymen as well, and that too very recently, have related stories in reference to them hardly less monstrous ; how that this city is remarkable for its power and extensive influence, and how that it is even greater than Grreat Carthage ever was ; how, too, that it is situate just opposite to Carthage, and at an almost im- measurable distance from Tingi, together with other details of a similr.r nature, all of which Cornelius Nepos has believed with the most insatiate credulity^. In the interior, at a distance of forty miles from Lixos, is Babba surnamed Julia Campestris, another colony of Augus- tus ; and, at a distance of seventy-five, a third, called Banasa^, ^ Now the Lucos. 2 Hardoimi is of opinion, that he here has a hit at G-abinius, a Roman author, who, in liis Annals of Mauritania, as we learn from Strabo (B. xvii.), inserted numerous marvellous and incredible stories. 2 Wlien we find Pliny accusing other wTiters of credulity, we are strongly reminded of the proverb, ' Clodius accusat moechos.' ^ Or the " Juhan Colony on the Plains." Marcus suggests that the word Bahha may possibly have been derived from the Hebrew or Phbe- nician word heab or heaha, " situate in a thick forest." Poinsinet takes Babba to be the Beni-Tuedi of modem times. D'AnviUe thinks that it is Naranja. ^ There is considerable difficulty about the site of Banasa. Moletius tlvinks that it is the modern Fanfara, or Pefenfia as Marmol calls it. D'AnviUe suggests that it may be Old Mahmora, on the coast ; but, on the other hand, Ptolemy places it among the inland cities, assigning to it a longitude at some distance from the sea. Phny also appears to make it inland, and makes its distance from Lixos seventy-five miles, wliile he makes the mouth of the Subvu' to be fifty miles from the aame place.