Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/424

390 of Carthage, founded upon the remains of Great Carthage, the colony of Maxula, the towns of Carpi , Misua, and Clypea , the last a free town , on the Promontory of Mercury; also Curubis, a free town , and Neapolis.

Here commences the second division of Africa properly so called. Those who inhabit Byzacium have the name of Libyphœnices. Byzacium is the name of a district which is 250 miles in circumference, and is remarkable for its extreme fertility, as the ground returns the seed sown by the husbandman with interest a hundred-fold. Here are the

the Elder first encamped, on landing in Africa, B.C. 204. Cæsar describes this spot, in his description of Curio's operations against Utica, B. C. b. ii. c. 24, 25. This spot is now called Ghellah.

1 This colony was first established by Caius Gracchus, who sent 6000 settlers to found on the site of Carthage the new city of Junonia. The Roman senate afterwards annulled this with the other acts of Gracchus. Under Augustus however the new city of Carthage was founded, which, when Strabo wrote, was as prosperous as any city in Africa. It was made, in place of Utica, which had favoured the Pompeian party, the seat of the proconsul of Old Africa. It stood on the peninsula terminated by Ras-Sidi-Bou-Said, Cape Carthage or Carthagena. As Gibbon has remarked, "The place might be unknown if some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps of the inquisitive traveller."

2 The original city of Carthage was called 'Carthago Magna' to distinguish it from New Carthage and Old Carthage, colonies in Spain.

3 Now Rhades, according to Marcus.

4 Marcus identifies it with the modern Gurtos.

5 By the Greeks called 'Aspis.' It derived its Greek and Roman names from its site on a hill of a shield-like shape. It was built by Agathocles, the Sicilian, B.C. 310. In the first Punic war it was the landing-place of Manlius and Regulus, whose first action was to take it, B.C. 256. Its site is still known as Kalebiah, and its ruins are peculiarly interesting. The site of Misua is occupied by Sidi-Doud, according to Shaw and D'Anville.

6 Shaw informs us that an inscription found on the spot designates this place as a colony, not a free city or town. Its present name is Kurbah.

7 The present Nabal, according to D'Anville.

8 Zeugitana extended from the river Tusca to Horrea-Cælia, and Byzacium from this last place to Thenæ.

9 As sprung partly from the Phœnician immigrants, and partly from the native Libyans or Africans.

10 Pliny says, B. xvii. c. 3, "A hundred and fifty fold." From Shaw we learn that this fertility no longer exists, the fields producing not more than eight- or at most twelve-fold.